Teaching and Learning

August 2014
The Federal Reserve System conducts monetary policy to help stabilize fluctuations in the economy. It is geared toward altering money supply and interest rates so it can influence decisions pertaining to lending, borrowing, spending, and investing. These decisions have a direct impact on output, income, employment, and inflation rates. Monetary policy uses the following tools: Open market operations Reserve ratio Discount rate Federal funds rate Term Auction Facility Students should understand how the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), financial institutions, and the public act and interact, and...
July 2014
The proliferation of composite materials used in our aerospace, transportation, infrastructure, and recreation sectors is creating a growing need for waste management and sustainable practices. Couple this with current and pending legislation, and it becomes clear why businesses need to focus on new recycling technologies. Although many companies have extensive research and development efforts underway, including both reclamation and re-use of composite materials, training people for careers that utilize recycling technologies is new for educational institutions. One college helping to lead...
June 2014
An anonymous person stated, "E-learning doesn't just 'happen'! It requires careful planning and implementation." New Mexico State University Alamogordo (NMSU-A) understands this statement and is working diligently to become an institution known for the quality of its online instruction.  Online education began at NMSU-A in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, interest in online education began to grow among a small but significant percentage of the faculty, primarily as a means of providing greater access to students in NMSU-A's 6,627 square mile service area. The number of courses offered...
May 2014
Step UP is a grassroots program that evolved from the 25 member, cross-functional Developmental Education Committee that, in 2003, sought to create a program to improve the success and retention of developmental education students. The objective was to design a program at Howard Community College (HCC) that would provide positive support and encouragement to students as they make the often difficult transition and adjustment to college. After researching programs and interviewing students, a model for Step UP was created. The program was piloted with five coaches and students in spring 2005....
May 2014
The engineering technology (ET) program at Del Mar College recently received a significant boost with the approval of a grant for $332,267 by the Jobs and Education for Texans (JET) Advisory Board, chaired by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs. The funds will be used to purchase equipment to train students for high-demand jobs in fields such as automated manufacturing, energy production, and refining. "The grant is very important to our ET program," said Larry Lee, the college's Dean of Business, Professional and Technology Education, who led the grant team-writing effort. "Major industries are...
April 2014
On the second floor of an otherwise unassuming office building in Bellevue, WA, Donna Hudson is leading a lecture on environment and community. It's the type of scene you'd expect to see in a movie depicting college life: The professor asks a question of the class and in short order, a lively discussion is underway that quite possibly brings up more questions than are asked. It's the kind of student-teacher rapport most of us rarely get to experience—let alone on a regular basis. As class progresses, however, it becomes clear that this class is more than just a picture-perfect college...
April 2014
From left: Brett Mellington, LEDA Manager, Business Development and LCTCS Board member; Bud Barrow, CEO, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center; Kathy Bobbs, CEO, Regional Medical Center of Acadiana and Women's & Children's Hospital; Laurie Fontenot, Dean of Nursing, Allied Health, and Safety, SLCC; David Callecod, President/CEO, Lafayette General Health; Dr. Natalie Harder, Chancellor, SLCC A new program at South Louisiana Community College (SLCC) will help fill a growing need within Acadiana's healthcare industry. SLCC administrators, along with the Lafayette Economic Development...
April 2014
While many people dream of turning their good idea into a bestselling product, Colfax High School engineering and design students are off to a quick start because their Fast Forward ski sensor idea is going through the design process with Quirky. The New York based company makes invention accessible by reviewing as many as 4,000 ideas per week from inventors all over the world, and using a community selection and development process to bring the best ideas to market. A limited number of the ideas make it through the first stage so being chosen for evaluation by Quirky was a rare honor for...
March 2014
In May 2013, over 70 students in the first class of Early College High School at Midland College (ECHS@MC) received associate degrees during Midland College's (MC) 40th commencement ceremony. A week later, in a separate ceremony, the 17- and 18-year-old college graduates received high school diplomas when ECHS@MC observed its first high school graduation ceremony at the Al G. Langford Chaparral Center on the MC campus located in Midland, Texas. ECHS@MC is a joint educational commitment by Midland College and the Midland Independent School District (MISD). The majority of students attending...
February 2014
As colleges strive to improve student success and completion, helping students delay pregnancy and parenting (or having additional children) means one less factor that can interfere with their college education. However, pregnancy planning and prevention is not something most community colleges have addressed. Free resources are now available for colleges, including three short and easy-to-use online lessons that have been shown to improve students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intent when it comes to preventing unplanned pregnancy. Unplanned Pregnancy and College Completion Unplanned...
January 2014
With the release of a new report, Community Colleges and Public Health Project Interim Report, November 2013, the longstanding role of community colleges in preparing health professionals may soon expand to offering more courses and programs in public health. Exploring the role of community colleges in readying students for the public health workforce and for transfer education is the focus of the Community Colleges and Public Health (CC&PH) Project, the second phase of which is now under way. The Framing the Future: The Second Hundred Years of Education for Public Health Task Force (Task...
2014
Beginning in fall 2011, as part of a three-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant-funded intervention, nine urban, small town, and rural U.S. community colleges were selected to adopt a Facebook-based application, known as Schools App, for limited use by invited students, staff, faculty, and administrators.  This report on the Getting Connected Project provides an overview of this research, which was the first longitudinal research study to use real-time data generated by the users of Schools App to examine how commuter-based community colleges attempt to use social media technology...
December 2013
I don't blow a whistle, wear a jersey, or give pep talks in a locker room, but I am a coach--an instructional coach. The players are the teachers at a community college, the field is the classroom, and I help a team to practice teaching methods that engage students and improve academic success. Instructional coaches are on-site professional developers who work collaboratively with teachers, empowering them to incorporate research-based instructional methods into their classrooms (Knight, 2007). Interest in coaching has grown dramatically in the last ten years with school districts and states...
2010
This guide is a product of the League's Significant Discussions Project, and was created to facilitate discussions between secondary and postsecondary faculty and administrators, and business, industry, and community partners. The Significant Discussions guide is a comprehensive set of tools to assist these partners in their collaborative work to better align curriculum across institutions, thus easing student transitions from high school to community college and university transfer. The guide is based on effective practices in place at nine participating sites and promising practices...
2008
The League's College and Careers Transition Initiative (CCTI) engaged high schools, community colleges, and businesses in a process to improve career and technical education systems, programs, strategies, and outcomes. This monograph reports on examples of these systems changes that resulted from CCTI participation: expanded use of career pathways; improved academic instruction; improved CTE instruction; measures to improve college readiness; high school-college partnerships and articulation; education-business partnerships; advising and student success initiatives; and data-driven decision ...
2007
As the centerpiece of conferences and federal initiatives across the educational spectrum, career pathways could be seen as be the latest fad offering community colleges the promise of increased funding and student success. In contrast, the authors of this paper contend that career pathways are the building blocks of a critically needed systemic transformation that will position community colleges as leaders in the effort to address some of the most pressing economic and social concerns facing the country today--not as a short term fix or project, but as incubators of innovation capable of...
2007
Community colleges are uniquely poised to prepare tomorrow’s teachers to use internet-based tools and curriculum resources to enhance learning. Through the U.S. Department of Education-funded Pathways project, almost 250 faculty from over 40 community colleges nationwide have incorporated new tools and resources into their courses while modeling best practices in technology-based instruction to their students; approximately 6,900 preservice teachers have been affected by this program.

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