A Venn Diagram of Secondary-Postsecondary Teaching and Learning: The Transformative Power of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships

Abstract

For decades, researchers have explored the reasons why students show up for college unprepared. In an effort to explain this phenomenon, scholars have gravitated toward a “gap” metaphor to explain the liminal space between what high school students are capable of and what colleges expect of them. The pandemic has exacerbated this situation leaving many students further behind in the academic and personal growth needed to succeed in college. Conventional wisdom says that college is “harder” than high school and students simply must adapt. And while college may, indeed, be “harder,” another perspective is that college is different from high school: in design, in intent, in pedagogical strategies, and more. Still, systems that perpetuate these educational differences place much of the responsibility of transitioning from one educational level to the other solely on the students. Enter Concurrent Enrollment (CE). In the CE space, secondary and post-secondary cultures are superimposed resulting in a Venn Diagram of teaching and learning that has the potentially for bringing into focus the best elements of each. With respect, intention, and support, high school and college instructors can utilize CE spaces to learn from and with one another to better support the continuum of student learning—regardless of where that learning takes place.