The Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) began at the Community College of Baltimore Country and has since expanded to 280 schools in the United States. Created to shorten the pipeline of developmental education, the program has achieved remarkable results and received a number of prestigious awards for innovative practice. In 2016, Monroe Community College began an ALP pilot. Around the same time that I joined the ALP advisory board, I also became a SUNY OER liaison, advocating for the use of OER materials to supplement or replace texts. I have found Excelsior College’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) and Online Reading Comprehension lab (ORC) particularly well-suited to the ALP population and my hope is that other instructors adopt it as their primary text, as well.
My adoption of Excelsior College’s OWL/ORC as my primary text for my ALP courses meets head-on a number of factors threatening this particular population of students’ success and retention. First, the OWL/ORC is an Open Educational Resource, which means it is free and immediately accessible to students who might otherwise be unable to afford a textbook (indeed, many of our students are not even food-secure!). Further, because it is an OER, it is flexible, meaning I can tailor and adjust my use of it to the specific needs of my students—and these needs shift with each new classroom. The OWL/ORC is multimodal and interactive, responding to the ways in which 21st century learners interact with information. Because it is available digitally, the OWL/ORC provides the kind of “just in time” feedback at-risk students need as they work through conceptual challenges. Further, it’s a resource they can—and do—transfer to their other courses, helping them to recognize the nuances of the writing situation and the myriad ways they are always doing writing. Finally, the OWL and ORC offer a rich array of downloadable and printable handouts and transcripts which can be compiled and provided to students who desire hard copies of the material.
I’ve found the Writing Process section of the OWL invaluable. A few practical examples elucidate its value as a pedagogical tool. In discussing a new essay assignment, we go over a section of the OWL devoted to Prewriting Strategies; together we discuss which strategies they’re familiar with. For homework, they watch the “See it in Practice: Prewriting Strategies” video of a student thinking through a prewriting activity; then, they do the “Time to Write” exercise which asks them to try out at least two strategies (each section of the OWL and ORC contains a “See it in Practice” and a “Time to Write” section). The next class, they bring their prewriting to discussion and we talk about what has and hasn’t worked for them.
Another routine way that I use the OWL is to direct students to its Grammar Essentials module which contains a robust repository of interactive grammar tutorials—many of which include interactive self-quizzes and animated videos. Because most students struggle with comma usage, I often devote an entire class period to the tutorial on Commas. I start with the “Try it Out” interactive quiz and we take it together in class. Developmental students are often surprised by the rules regarding comma usage; afterwards, we go through the slide tutorial of comma rules. Typically, I do this when they have a draft of their own writing in front of them so they can apply the rules to their paper. For example, after learning about FANBOYS, we look for coordinating conjunctions in their own writing to make sure they’re not creating comma splices.
Perhaps one of the most helpful ways I used the OWL is in a “just in time” practice. Because my students submit their work electronically on our LMS, in my feedback I can embed direct links to specific tutorials in Grammar Essentials. I also ask them to do weekly blogs (also in our LMS) wherein they identify which parts of the OWL they’re using to help them strengthen their skills and to articulate what they’ve learned from the OWL’s tutorials.
I use the ORC in the same way; indeed, student reading comprehension skills are arguably as in dire need of intervention as their writing skills. The ORC provides my students the support they need to handle the reading demands of College Composition. For example, my Developmental English students are reading Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” for English 101; their homework for their Developmental English class is to review the tutorials on reading systems in the ORC and to apply one to the essay. Divided into three modules—Before Reading, During Reading, and After Reading-- it is rich with video tutorials, Prezis, Power Point slides, interactive quizzes and self-checks and, perhaps most valuable of all, downloadable PDFS and templates of KIM charts, Cornell Notes, Annotating Tips, etc. At the beginning of the semester, I created packets of these PDF handouts and templates to distribute to my students.
However, as those of us who teach in Developmental English know, this population of students often struggle with organizational skills; many are first generation college students, others are working full-time and/or parenting, and still others struggle with learning disabilities that impact their organization. Thus, another benefit of the OWL and ORC OERs is that all of the resources I provide to them in class are readily available online. They can easily access and review, at their own pace, whatever we might have discussed in class and print out extra copies should they have misplaced their own. Moreover, because the students struggle with reading, the multimodal variety of vehicles for delivering the teaching material is something my students both enjoy and benefit from.
In sum, the OWL has not only replaced my primary textbooks in both my English 101 and ALP classrooms; it has provided a superior product for students because of its rich, flexible, multimodal content. It’s free, so my students have immediate access to it. Moreover, like the skills I’m reading and writing skills I’m teaching them, the OWL/ORC is transferable—there is no timestamp on its usage, and unlike a textbook or style manual they’ll likely sell back, it’s free.

"https://owl.excelsior.edu/
https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/
https://owl.excelsior.edu/educator-resources/"

This is only the second semester I've taught ALP. Last semester, I had eight ALP students. 5 passed English 101 with a C or higher (one withdrew and two more stopped attending). However, the ALP success matched the success of my regular English 101 courses. Moreover, two of my ALP students received As in English 101 and were among my strongest students by the end of the semester. I've used the OWL for many years in non-developmental courses and have found the students are more successful. Student evaluations of the OWL are always extremely positive. I've provided two attachments--feedback from my Developmental English (TRS 105) students and, specific to the OWL as an OER, my English 101 students.