Dev Ed/ABE Partnerships

Dev Ed and Adult Education Partnerships to Achieve Outstanding Student Outcomes

Welcome to the Dev Ed (Developmental Education) and ABE (Adult Basic Education) Partnership website. Its purpose is to provide resources and information primarily to Minnesota ABE practitioners, Minnesota State campus faculty, College and ABE administrators, state level administrators, and anyone with an interest in improving Developmental Education student outcomes. However, the resources may be of value to those outside of Minnesota, and all are welcome to visit and use the resources freely. All resources are licensed under Creative Commons CC by NC 4.0 International.

The notion of developmental education and adult educator practitioners working collaboratively is not all together new, but it has certainly gained interest and grown to new proportions when the Minnesota legislature (dating back to 2017) required each college in the Minnesota State system to develop strategies to increase dev ed course completion rates, increase student persistence, and streamline student time to credit-bearing course enrollment and program completion. The model which most impressively emerged soon after was the Dev Ed/Adult Basic Education (ABE) partnership. The model pairs Dev Ed and ABE instructors in dev ed and gateway courses. While their roles and responsibilities may differ from partnership to partnership, there is measurable and anecdotal data demonstrating benefits to students. And the model clearly has a strong connection to equity work.

This project originated out of northwestern Minnesota with funding coming from the Northwest ABE Transitions Region. It quickly gained statewide interest where others wanted to learn more about how successful partnerships worked. Thus began a series of activities over the course of a few years. And in the academic year 2022-2023, the project is being funded by the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State system of universities and colleges.

Resources Available

Several helpful resources have been developed in service of the creation and support of Dev Ed/ABE partnerships; you will find links to these resources below.

Of particular note is the freely shareable Toolkit for Forming and Sustaining Dev Ed and ABE Partnerships: Enhancing Student Success, which provides ideas and resources for beginning a Developmental Education/Adult Basic Education (Dev Ed/ABE) partnership.

In addition to the toolkit, you will find a Study Guide, designed as a companion resource to the toolkit, for individuals and groups who want to launch or expand a Dev Ed/ABE partnership through the use of a Study Circle.

Please check out all the available resources on this site and watch for more to come during the academic year 2022-2023.