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"In their Own Words" by Joyce Ann Menges, Director of Computerized Learning, Southern Maine Technical College

As is the case with many colleges, Southern Maine Technical College (SMTC) faces increasing numbers of potential students who come to its doors unprepared to meet the rigors of college study. Knowing this, SMTC has augmented its ability to serve its matriculated student population and potential students using the NovaNET® learning system.

SMTC began using the NovaNET system in the fall of 1998 in its Learning Assistance Center (LAC). Soon after this, Gail Rowe, Director for Learning Assistance at SMTC, was given a sabbatical from her duties in the LAC to devise a broad, customized curriculum that would support classroom instruction in all the technologies on campus and make it available to matriculated students. Students in the LAC could work with a NovaNET courseware lesson in functions of bones and muscles, for example, to augment and reinforce what they were learning in Anatomy and Physiology. Or an automotive student might take a NovaNET courseware lesson on compression to help him understand that concept if he was not "getting it" in the traditional way.

Recognizing the great value of the NovaNET system for under-prepared applicants to the college, Gail spearheaded an effort to begin using it in a new way. With the support of a small grant from a private foundation, a new instructor was hired and SMTC's Computerized Learning Classroom (CLC), a dedicated NovaNET system classroom, was equipped and began operations in March of 1995. The primary focus for this new program was on under-prepared but promising potential college students. SMTC began enrolling students in the dedicated-classroom courses to strengthen their skills in one or more of the high-school level areas of Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Writing.

That first summer we served over 90 students; currently summers maintain an average of about 100 students. Initially, the students and their instructors both made mistakes as they progressed within this non-traditional environment, but more importantly, they moved toward their instructional goals. "I was able to overcome the math anxiety I've had most of my life," said a 43-year-old woman entering the nursing program that first year.

In the fall, a grand push was made to design and begin delivering customized versions of the college prep courses in the subject areas noted above. That effort has evolved into the six courses currently used for under-prepared college applicants: Foundations of Math, Algebra, Math for Science and Technology, Chemistry, Biology, and Composition.

In the ensuing years, with the dedicated and unending support of our Math Department, CLC courses have been developed that parallel those taught in the traditional math classroom at SMTC. Our students earn college credit using this student-centered method of instruction delivery. The courses include College Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry, and Pre calculus Mathematics. These days, the student population in the Computerized Learning Classroom is about equally divided between college prep and matriculated students.

Statistics have been compiled that bring The CLC's effectiveness into focus. First, SMTC's Math Department had conducted a five-year pretest/posttest comparative study in computation and elementary algebra for students taking Foundations of Mathematics and College Algebra in the traditional math classroom on campus. This study sought to measure improvements to student learning as a result of a new sequence of math courses for that department on campus. The study was able to be replicated in the CLC for the 1996/1997 school year, using the same instrument for the college's Computerized Learning Classroom students in parallel courses. The results were heartening. CLC students were achieving at least on par with their traditional classroom counterparts! In fact, while CLC students began their studies with similar levels of computation skills, they scored much lower in Elementary Algebra pre testing (in the 20th percentile versus the 41st percentile), but scored significantly higher in the post testing for Algebra (in the 74th percentile versus the 65th percentile).

A survey of the statistics for the calendar years between January 1996 and December 1998 reveals that 72 percent (356/492) of those who attempted to finish their course actually succeeded. That result is a much higher number than that achieved in SMTC's traditional classroom (closer to 60 percent). Using the NovaNET system and this decidedly non-traditional way of teaching and learning, has helped many students who quite possibly wouldn't have otherwise realized their dreams.

A more recent and equally telling statistic is this: for the Class of 2000, 12 percent of all SMTC graduates had taken one or more classes in the CLC. Further, 20 percent of the students receiving recognition for outstanding achievement in the 2000-2001 school year had taken classes in the CLC, including SMTC's Outstanding Student of the Year. While this fact alone does not prove that the CLC was a causal factor in these students' success, the numbers are strong enough to believe that there must be a link. It is important to remember that many students decide to take classes in the CLC because they are under-prepared or "at risk" for failure due to other challenges.

Since 1995, the CLC has maintained a rolling enrollment of approximately 80 students, 12 months a year. CLC courses remain in high demand and are well received by students. Courses are now being offered in true "distance" fashion with the help of test proctors in remote locations. New for-credit courses are on the horizon and the possibilities seem only to be limited by time and imagination.

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