Innovations
May
2017
Can you teach creativity? That question opens up many debates that resound throughout all levels of education. Some claim that individuals either are or are not creative and that no amount of exposure, practice, or direct instruction will make those nons more creative. In fact, it may frustrate them to the point of quitting all together.
Perhaps you’ve heard the possibly apocryphal stories that Einstein wasn’t brilliant in grammar school, Disney’s first drawings were rejected, and that McCartney wasn’t allowed to take music in school for an apparent lack of talent. So if these titans were...
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April
2017
One way to encourage tenacious behavior is to create opportunities for students to use metacognitive and self-regulatory strategies. Carol Dweck, Gregory Walton, and Geoffrey Cohen, describe a few of the psychological interventions from various research studies that support these behaviors. However, I believe that for the interventions to work, more instructors need to adopt strategies that promote effective learning habits across the curriculum. We all need to provide students with instruction that moves them from passive learners to active learners.
In addition to Dweck et al., there are...
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Midland College (MC) has been named as a Cadre 1 community college to participate in an integrated statewide approach to student success. For the past two years, MC has been designing and implementing a pathways model with clear, educationally coherent program maps that are aligned for program completion, quality credentials, workforce skills, and transferability for baccalaureate and graduate degrees. As a result of MC’s efforts, the college has been recognized as a leader in the Texas Success Center’s Texas Pathways initiative, and the MC developmental math program has been named as...
April
2017
At the end of 2016, I received several emails shouting the headline, “best books of the year”. Usually, I don’t read through these lists because I think I don’t have time to read for pleasure or can’t afford the “distraction” from grading, planning, etc. However, with the winter break fast approaching and wanting to leave the challenges of the past semester behind me, I decided to check out the lists.
First, the lists include a wide array of options for any reader. I didn’t realize there were so many different lists out there. I’ll highlight a few and pick something from each one.
First, and...
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April
2017
This semester has been a challenge for me. Typically, students are engaged, curious, and have the desire to learn. However, this semester, I’ve experienced a class like no other in my recent memory. I never assume the classes or students will be the same as past experience. However, one of the classes had such negative energy, that was troubling to me and I did not know how to deal with the discontent. Something similar happened early last semester, but I was able to turn that class around and the semester ended well. You may be thinking, what does my experience have to do with the third...
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Arapahoe Community College (ACC) has accepted from the Castle Rock Town Council the investment of $3 million in infrastructure reimbursement to construct a Collaboration Campus. The campus will bring together education, business, and the community to create a unique resource for delivering seamless education and workforce training to Castle Rock. Educational partners Colorado State University (CSU) and Douglas County School District (DCSD) will articulate with ACC to create a smooth pathway from high school diploma to associate degree to bachelor’s degree.
ACC will continue its commitment to...
April
2017
One useful, practical, and sensible concept in the pursuit of a college education seems to be a well-kept secret and certainly is not something students dwell on while thinking about attending college. That concept is the presence, or more often absence, of articulation agreements between different schools.
Articulation or transfer agreements are formal statements two institutions enter into documenting the transfer policies between the two schools. The specific departments and divisions at the schools carefully review the degree requirements and establish a checklist of sorts. If students...
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April
2017
Just as filing, dishes, and laundry can pile up and become dreaded tasks of epic proportion, the recordkeeping, assessment, and reporting elements associated with the traditional college reaffirmation cycle can cause a sense of panic in even the most seasoned higher education veterans.
Reaffirmation to maintain accredited status typically comes around every ten years. Regional accreditation agencies (ours is called the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges or SACSCOC, but there are others across the country) are tasked to liaison between educational institutions...
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Pikes Peak Community College’s (PPCC) website was in sad shape. Designed in 2010, it was not mobile first, its navigation confusing, and the feedback from students and others universally negative.
In May 2015, a four-person PPCC marketing team decided to take on a redesign in partnership with the IT department. The first question team members asked themselves as they designed the new website was: Who is our primary audience? But finding an answer to that question was tougher than they expected. PPCC, like other community colleges, has many audiences: faculty, staff, students, prospective...
March
2017
Student engagement is one of those oft-cited rally cries for colleges in the pursuit of student success. When students are authentically engaged in a project, lesson, event, or content, their enthusiasm drives learning and mastery. It’s fun to watch, and it represents the best possible method to establish a love of lifelong learning. The fine arts have this model down pat. Students spend hours inside and outside of traditional class time to learn lines and stage cues, musical compositions, and choreography for performances that last only a few hours. They invest countless hours perfecting...
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March
2017
Of all the creative ways students make headway toward college completion, getting a running start seems particularly ingenious. Dual-credit programs in which students receive both high school and college credit simultaneously are one of the most significant movements in higher ed since the Carnegie Foundation defined credit hours in the early 20th century. Depending on the school of thought to which you subscribe, dual credit was first introduced in the U.S. as early as the 1950s when Advanced Placement (AP) courses took off, wherein high school students participated in more challenging...
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March
2017
Continuous improvement is an important aspect of the work we do at San Jacinto College around student success. In fact, it’s one of our annual priorities. We deliberately make time to keep up with trends in higher education, best practices in classroom management, and innovative strategies to improve student engagement. Faculty professional development is big business and many fine commercial groups and professional organizations provide forums for faculty to gather at conferences, seminars, and workshops. These events are excellent resources, but in between these, faculty need opportunities...
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March
2017
The entire discussion around the importance of considering generational differences in higher education is interesting to me. I’m as fascinated as anyone else with all the Gen X, Y, Z, Boomer, Millennial articles going around. I’m annually amused with the Beloit Mindset List that for 19 years has cataloged the everyday items and concepts our incoming freshmen have either never considered in their lifetimes or ideas they are not familiar with because since they were born these objects have been obsolete at best and often totally eliminated from the cultural landscape (think rotary phones and...
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March
2017
When I hear the words service learning, I immediately think of filling grocery bags at the food bank. It isn’t that this is an unworthy service learning activity—more of us should do this more often. I just have trouble getting beyond a one-and-done example that occurs outside of the traditional classroom and is typically unconnected to the in-class curriculum, assignments, and lessons.
I shudder when I hear students and critics talk about the need for education to provide real-world experiences as if a college education exists in some fantasy realm. Especially in community colleges, we aren’...
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A U.S. Navy veteran with 25 years of service, Angela Muhammad is working toward a new career that’s close to her heart: building affordable homes for single parents and the elderly.
“I’ve done missionary work and I’ve seen how we have a deficiency in clean, safe, affordable housing,” said Muhammad, 50, a second-year student in Del Mar College’s Architecture/Drafting Technology program. “I’ve always had an interest in how things are built.”
“There’s a need for this program,” she continued, taking a break in the Architectural Design Studio, where she’s using glue and chipboard to make a small...
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February
2017
One of the least discussed elements of most student success initiatives in higher education, including the various completion agendas government leaders promote, is the crucial role adjunct or part-time faculty fill in these projects. How to incorporate increasing numbers of adjuncts into the culture of the institution and invite these dynamic and dedicated faculty to share in the enthusiasm of all-inclusive student success is at the very least challenging. For the most part, adjunct faculty aren’t around campus as much as full-time faculty, may have other full-time jobs, and aren’t usually...
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February
2017
As faculty, we all strive for opportunities for students to use what they learn and discover in our classes in real-world situations. Recently, I stumbled on such an opportunity as my students completed an essay assignment establishing criteria for student success. While researching the topic, someone came across an article from 2015, “American Millennials Are Among the World’s Least Skilled,” and wondered why American’s scored so low. The class asked if they could research the topic for the next essay assignment; not wanting to pass up a teachable moment, I agreed.
When we work on research...
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February
2017
New articles pop up daily in email and in the few print sources we still receive to keep up with what’s in the news about higher education. At San Jacinto College, we do our best to stay informed and respond to the news. Currently, much of that coverage is about completion. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on all facets of postsecondary education, and focuses heavily on completion and the data surrounding it. The Chronicle’s site called, appropriately, College Completion: Who Graduates from College, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, gathers, analyzes, and posts graduation data from...
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February
2017
Reading and writing skills aren’t typically taught outside the English or Academic Success departments. But, having worked with faculty in various disciplines, I know even college-ready students struggle to read and comprehend effectively. If the student is deemed college ready, reading is generally not formally taught and students may be asked to complete complex writing tasks with little instruction. One remedy to counter under-prepared, college-ready students is low-stakes writing opportunities.
Peter Elbow suggests that the low-stakes written responses can make learning visible for...
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February
2017
The reason faculty make such good leaders is because they have excellent skills in coordination, organization, and motivation from working with large groups of diverse students in the classroom. I remember an interview for a corporate position early in my career when the interviewer said, “Oh, good, you’re a teacher—there’s not much we could do that would rattle you.” It was true. Juggling multiple tasks all the time, keeping track of all of them, and moving the involved parties forward toward a goal are all in a day’s work for faculty.
Faculty lead discussions, debates, assessment, and...
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