Learning and Organization
Trying to find the new STEM Center at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois, won’t be easy. The virtual center has no bricks and mortar, yet has become a valuable resource for many in the community, including Moraine Valley faculty and students as well as local K-12 teachers and students.
The concept for the center began in spring 2016, when Dr. Paula DeAnda-Shah, Associate Professor of Developmental Mathematics, reached out to her colleagues on campus to discuss designing and offering cross-disciplinary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programming for...
Like most community colleges across the U.S., Kirkwood Community College embodies the widely celebrated educational ideal that it’s never too late to get a college education. This ideal is on display every day at 10 campuses spread out over the college’s seven-county service area in eastern Iowa. In fact, the age range for enrolled, degree-seeking students at the college is from 16 to 74 years old, and that range grows even wider when dual enrollment numbers are considered.
When Kirkwood first opened its doors in 1966, the educational delivery format was the same for every student, no matter...
Those at Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC) in Palos Hills, Illinois, believe that the measure of student success is best determined by the students themselves. With that in mind, the college’s Completion Commitment Committee implemented several initiatives, including a Retention Academy, to help students reach their goals.
Student success can be completion of a degree, but it can also be completing a class or achieving a passing grade. “Of course, when we talk about completion, we want students to earn a degree, but that’s not the only way they are successful,” said Dr. Margaret Lehner...
Over the past few years, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) has prioritized the implementation of an institutional youth engagement strategy. Reliably producing skilled, work-ready graduates in demand by industry is SAIT’s core contribution to the provincial economy (SAIT, 2019).
The youth engagement strategy’s overarching vision is as follows: Southern Alberta Institute of Technology is a leader in creating the future workforce by delivering life-changing experiences for youth. To achieve this mandate, the institute recognizes and embraces its unique support role in overcoming a...
In literature, King Arthur is well-known as the originator of the round table. This table was a place for leaders to meet and discuss important topics. It created a space where each leader could easily see and hear the others and add to the conversation; at a round table, everyone was equal. Mentoring roundtables serve the same purpose, with a focus on mentors’ experiences mentoring new online faculty.
At Wake Technical Community College, a key component of the college’s quality enhancement plan—eLearning Preparedness Initiative across the College (EPIC)—is mentoring for new online faculty....
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Students and community members were invited to the Aims Community College Fort Lupton campus to celebrate National Agriculture Day and participate in the Future Farmers of America (FFA) career development event in March 2018.
Guests who attended the National Ag Day event saw baby chicks hatch; rode on the Precision Agriculture Mobile Educational Technology Unit (a John Deere gator equipped with auto-steer and GPS technologies); learned about dairy farming from June the Cow, an animatronic full-sized fiberglass Holstein that was provided by the Western Dairy Association; and interacted with...
Since the launch of the American Graduation Initiative in 2009, the call to increase college graduation rates and to create a better educated workforce for the jobs of the future has become nearly universal. According to Former President Obama, speaking at the University of Texas on August 9, 2010, “in a single generation, [the U.S. has] fallen from first place to 12th place in college graduation rates for young adults" (as cited in de Nies, 2010, para. 3). He advocated for America to “once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world” by 2020 (as cited in Fry, 2017,...
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...
Meeting the demand for quality professional development programming in times of constrained resources created an opportunity for innovative and creative thinking at Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over 1,200 full-time employees at CPCC are required to complete 20 hours of professional development credit annually, and all full- and part-time employees—more than 1,800—must complete a series of three required annual trainings, thus creating a demand for over 60,000 hours of professional development opportunities annually.
This demand occurs at a time of...
To address the representation gap in the sciences, a partnership of institutions implemented two different early college/dual enrollment courses for high school students as part of a larger project. One program was a concurrent (in-school) enrollment program, and the other was a summer residential program. Each program ran for five years, and all of them successfully prepared students for college STEM. Many students entered STEM programs in college, and 80 percent of them are still there today.
The Larger Project
The Minority Student Pipeline Math and Science Partnership—(MSP)2—was a joint...
San Jacinto College launched a collaborative course in the fall 2015 semester that incorporates algebra and English composition. The new course links college algebra and introductory composition, both gateway core courses for all students who plan to either earn associate degrees or transfer to universities.
“This is a novel concept at San Jacinto College,” commented Mark Johnson, North Campus language arts department chair.
The course explores the power of narrative in math and English. Give a person some facts and part of the brain lights up. Tell a person a story and the whole brain lights...
American College Testing, with over fifty years of college readiness research, defines college readiness as students having “a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in the corresponding credit-bearing college courses, which include English Composition, Algebra, Social Science and Biology” (ACT, 2012, p. 3). Unfortunately, the majority of students graduating from high school are not college ready, and the need for improvement in the American high school educational structure is clear. Test results from 2015 give the percentage of high school...
2015
Expanding Opportunity for All is a Choicework discussion starter produced by Public Agenda for the League for Innovation's Faculty Voices Project. Click here to access the References list for Expanding Opportunity for All.
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