“Education,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “is the drawing out of the soul.” Students enrolled in developmental coursework, however, often miss out on the opportunity to experience education in this way at the beginning of their time in college. Rather than recognizing learning as enlightening, applicable, and fun, they frequently consider it confusing, irrelevant, and boring. But what if developmental education was more about guiding learners to discover the intrinsic value of education and less about accelerating their progression through the developmental sequence while regimenting the assessment of student success and retention?
