Technology and its Softer side to Learning

Much has been written on the topic of incorporating technology into the classroom, all in the name of increasing student success through increased engagement. Technology has been an important factor in the concept of the flipped classroom and “teaching naked” (José Bowen) where the students are responsible for viewing lectures and doing the readings beforehand so that the classroom can become more activity-focused and engaging.

It has been an established part of online learning where both access to, and preparation for, the use of technology is critical to learning and participation in this digital environment, especially as a way of reducing the distance between students – each other or between them and the faculty. The results are mixed with many claiming that MOOCs are the new egalitarian education. But the results are mixed, especially when applying this to credit-bearing courses. The engagement of both learner and educator become critical and results often depend upon the increased fortitude from highly prepared students and faculty who are both committed to successful completion.

But technology can also play an important pedagogical role in the area of personal narratives as a tool for increased student engagement. Digital storytelling is the subject of a brief guide published by Educause that provides some food for thought on how to incorporate the digital medium effectively and accessibly without requiring a high mastery of advanced digital tools. Today, students and faculty have access to a digital movie studio in their telephones, and can easily edit on mobile devices or their desktop and save it in a format that can be viewed for free online.

The goal, however, is not just to create another way to utilize technology in the classroom. The real objective is to instill passion in the topic leading to the successful achievement in the learning outcome. Humans are natural storytellers. We can ask students to incorporate research and resources into their projects. But by also allowing them to make it personal, they become more engaged. This becomes not just something they have to study, but something they are immediately making relevant to their own worlds.

Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do, would call this deeper learning, something that may be achieved through a series of “goal-based scenarios.” His follow-up book What the Best College Students do addresses the passion that students can find within to motivate their own learning. Hear Ken Bain in this recent NPR interview from May 2015.

What does all this have in common? It is the combination of inspiring student passion and the ability to express a personal connection to the material that creates passion for learning. This makes digital storytelling a powerful tool for student engagement that can be applied within any discipline we teach. To learn more, follow some of the links provided above and discover more ways to be inspired to apply this in your own classroom!

Good Reads on Community Colleges

Diversifying the student body is on the academic radar when examining the student population at colleges and universities across the nation. But diversity is not just about race. It involves the whole sector of students we see on the campuses of community colleges across the nation.

These students may include ones who are first generation college students, ones who dropped out or were not encouraged to continue their education beyond high school. It includes students who come from poverty, crime-ridden urban areas, or depressed rural spaces. It may include working adults returning to school to try and improve their income potential, a stay-at-home mother who needed to develop job skills to return to the workforce, or the factory worker whose job was outsourced to China. And it also includes students whose parents may be concerned about their child’s ability to stand up on their own far from the family support system. Whatever the reason that brings a student here, community colleges provide educational opportunities for some of the most diverse learners in higher education.

With that in mind, three recent articles are worthy of your attention and are shared with you here.

Why Elite Institutions Need to Welcome Students From Community Colleges

This is an opinion piece written by Laura Huober who made the auspicious transfer from Santa Monica (Community) College to Amherst College, an elite private liberal arts college. Her story demonstrates how, with the right supports, community college transfer students not only can thrive, they can make a valuable contribution to the learning environment.

The Challenge of the First-Generation Student

In this article, the First Generation student includes many who are also first generation Americans, as well as the first in their families to go to college. The article examines the tension regarding the stories of first-generation students who reach elite institutions, and the majority who are served by community colleges.

“When elite institutions like Smith, Amherst College, or Harvard University enroll significant numbers of first-generation students, their stories are often splashed across the news. But regional state universities and community colleges have been identifying and supporting these students for decades, through federal TRIO programs, a collection of outreach and student-services efforts geared toward low-income students.”

Looking Beyond the Data to Help Students Succeed

In this article, Katherine Mangan addresses one of the hottest topics at the American Association of Community Colleges annual convention held this week – predictive analytics and retention strategies. What makes this article a good read is the recognition that numbers alone don’t tell us what to do and are only part of the equation on predicting success. Examining best practices, reinventing success strategies to work with our community college student demographics, and implementing them in a thoughtful way – these all help frame data as a reference tool to inform the choices made on how to support students. Those choices may include mentoring, i.e. creating a social connection to help support the student, addressing grit and other noncognitive traits that can make or break a student’s ability to succeed. Tools such as SuccessNavigator can help identify the characteristics that can undermine a student as they manage the intricate balance of academics and life.

Liberal Education, Effective Citizenry and “Democracy’s College” Graduate

You can’t be involved in Community College education without running into the external scrutiny that often comes with a new proposed solution to the challenges of teaching such a diverse group of students crossing the thresholds of our campuses. No sooner have we developed our latest version of General Education requirements when a new approach is before us, one that promises to move more of our students from struggling receptors of knowledge to gleaming graduates.

Whether it is a focus on General Education, Disruptive Advising, Learning Outcomes, or Guided Pathways, the elements of creating a successful graduate are complex and highly variable. All of them contain merit and are worthy of our attention and consideration, especially when blended together in a thoughtful way, with input from all stakeholders and implemented in a balanced approach that still allows for flexible applications within individual student circumstances. The goal, after all, is not to eliminate variability. And it is not to eliminate the liberal arts in favor of more vocational work-preparation skills. The goal, at least as described by one college, was to create a series of outcomes that “modeled the core values of communication, critical thinking, and respect for diverse opinions” (Rodicio, 2014) which are hallmarks of good citizenship. Rodicio, who is provost for Academic and Student affairs at Miami Dade College (MDC), and president of the Association for General and Liberal Studies, shares the story of their college’s transition in an article titled Modeling Democratic Practices through General Education Reform: A Developmental Journey.

At MDC, the nation’s largest community college, faculty, staff and leadership have taken on this challenge. They’ve applied a  very democratically designed approach in reexamining their general education requirements into a series of College Learning Outcomes. Responding to pressures to be more accountable for learning results, they began by defining the question: “What learning outcomes must our students achieve in order to become effective citizens an lifelong learners?” Their resulting goal as “democracy’s college” is both admirable and achievable.

“…for every graduate to become a well-informed citizen who can effectively – and actively – participate in civic and economic life within a diverse and globally connected environment.”

As they moved through a multi-year process that began with college-wide conversations across seven campuses and outreach centers, a series of events were held in such a way as to ensure involvement with faculty, staff, and students. They moved from developing a set of General Education Outcomes, eventually renamed College Learning Outcomes, and developing Learning Outcomes Assessments. Annual campus dialogues are held by faculty to review results and examine the implications they may have on student learning. In 2007, the college community “reaffirmed the importance of liberal learning in developing a well-informed citizenry in a global community” through a covenant which was signed by members of the college community, including representatives from students, faculty, college leaders, and the local community (Rodicio, 2014, Padron, 2008).

Recognizing that different initiatives can be interconnected, Miami Dade College has more recently begun to implement guided pathways which they called a “Roadmap to Completion” in a pilot program that involved bringing together some existing resources into a more comprehensive support system. They believe that the framework that a more defined pathway not only may lead to more graduates, but it can also improve attainment of the broader college learning outcomes.

Read the complete article that tells the full story, and find the full list of Miami Dade’s Learning Outcomes here.

Reflecting on the Continuing Challenges of Teaching at Community Colleges

As we take this time to look back upon 2014, those of us who teach and work at community colleges may consider how much our work has reached the attention of the nation. The challenges posed in educating our students are not completely lost on observers and critics. But when focusing upon the statistics often featured at the center of official reports and white papers, it is easy to miss the narratives of the main stakeholders, the students and educators.

A recent New York Times article highlights some of these challenges as told through the story of Dr. Eduardo Vianna, a psychology professor at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, arguably one of the most diverse community colleges in the nation. The article, “Raising Ambitions: The Challenge in Teaching at Community Colleges” by Ginia Bellafante and published December 19, 2014, reminds us of the important role our institutions play in educating nearly half of all undergraduates nationally. Even more so, community colleges see the majority of our students coming from the “lower half of the income distribution.” Along with this come many challenges in terms of the lack of preparation for college, including poor analytical and critical thinking skills. Yet those skills are vital to meeting the demands of economic mobility and growth.

To create a world of young people skilled at analysis, you first need to create a world of young people receptive to complexity, and many of Dr. Vianna’s students, he said ‘cringe at complexity.’
– G. Bellafante, NY Times, 12/19/14

Many of us who teach at these institutions will recognize elements of the story from our own classroom experiences. Vianna shares how his students found it difficult to assess evidence from data posed to them that conflicted with their own assumptions. By way of example, he shares how he gave his students an assignment based on the work of psychologist Edward C. Tolman. The graph they were reviewing showed that rats could learn to navigate a maze without extrinsic rewards, yet the students could not see this and came to the opposite conclusions.

“Often learning requires changing one’s position toward some issue and they resist this.”
– Dr. Eduardo Vianna

To help prepare incoming students to meet the expectations of critical and conceptual thinking, many community colleges have begun requiring students to take a first year seminar course. The courses also connect students to faculty in their majors, another important aspect in student engagement, according to much of the published research. Community college educators are also leading the way towards facilitating learning rather than simply lecturing facts, involving students in more active learning and collaboration, and offering continuous forms of low-stakes assessment. These are all parts of the arsenal of techniques meant to improve student engagement. These and other pedagogical approaches are addressed in a forthcoming book “Taking Teaching Seriously: Why Pedagogy Matters! that includes contributions by Dr. Gail O. Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College.

At Columbia’s Community College Research Center, assistant director Melinda Karp suggests that in order to engage our students in academic discourse, a more constructivist approach may be necessary, one that involves more active and collaborative learning. These techniques have already been embraced by many community college educators. Bringing it mainstream requires sharing it college-wide.

As we reflect upon the needs of our students, at the Center for Teaching & Learning at Mott Community College, as with similar centers at community colleges around the country, we understand the role of professional development opportunities in addressing the issues raised in the NY Times article. Just as with the students we teach, sharing among our colleagues about successes gained, while working through the challenges, can help community college educators – faculty and staff alike – meet the challenges of raising the ambitions – and ultimately the success – of the students we serve.

With warm wishes for the holidays and beyond!

Measuring Faculty Attitudes towards Technology & Online Learning

Only about 9% of faculty surveyed in a recent Gallup study published by Inside Higher Ed said they would “strongly agree” that online courses have similar achievement levels for student learning outcomes compared to face-to-face courses. Titled The 2014 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, the survey reveals an apparent disconnect between the attitudes of technology officers and faculty on how well online courses address 8 quality factors for online learning.

The authors of the study identified quality factors for online courses for their survey:

1) Ability to deliver the necessary content to meet learning objectives.

2) Ability to answer student questions.

3) Interaction with students during class.

4) Interaction with students outside of class.

5) Grading and communicating about grading.

6) Communication with the college about logistical and other issues.

7) Ability to reach “at risk” students.

8) Ability to reach “exceptional” students.

In general, the authors reported that the majority of Technology officers rated these factors as being equivalent or better than in-person courses. Faculty were a bit more ambivalent indicating that only four of those quality factors might be equivalent for online courses to in-person courses. For instance, 50% indicated that online courses had the ability to meet learning outcomes that were the same for both formats. And 72% of faculty said online was the same or better than in-person for grading or communicating about grades.

On the flip side, 77% of faculty responded that they felt online teaching had a much lower potential to reach at-risk students compared to in-person. For institutions such as Mott, measures have been taken to make sure that students who are identified as at-risk (i.e. lower GPA, attendance, placement test results indicating remediation) cannot register for online-only courses before addressing these issues.

The results are not all negative, however. According to the study’s authors:

More than 8 in 10 instructors say they have converted a face-to-face course to a hybrid course.

This may be in part because a large portion (78%) already use learning management systems to share some basic information such as syllabi, grades, and general communications. Just over half (51%) of faculty agree that more active learning – or what José Antonio Bowen referred to as Teaching Naked – can be done with the flipped classroom approach of blended or hybrid courses.

In reviewing the data shared in the report, it is interesting to note a few elements that were not highlighted by the authors in their summary. For instance, 56% of the respondents fell between the ages of 50-69 with another 6% aged 70 and older. Among faculty, 49% were tenured while 31% were not on any tenure track. Among disciplines represented by faculty, a larger portion – 29% – identified their field with the Humanities, compared to 17% in Social Sciences, 19% in Engineering/Physical Science/Biological Sciences, and only 5% in Computer and Information Sciences. Among faculty 78% who responded were fulltime.

Asked of the technology officers, they indicated that 85% of their institutions offered some blended or hybrid courses, and 73% offered online degree programs. The institutions that were represented in the survey represented a variety, including community colleges (26%), public four-year (26%), private four-year (43%) and for-profit (2%). There were no private two-year institutions represented in the survey respondents.

While the results seem to portray a system that does not have full consensus, there is at least one area where the majority of faculty agree, early warning systems for students at risk of dropping out of their courses do help students. Based on other responses in the survey, and consistent with other research, the early warning system triggers a team response that serves to reach out to the student and provide some kind of intervention before they fail.

Want to read more from this study? It offers some interesting insights into the role of online learning, faculty and technology officer perceptions, and learning outcomes. Download the full study here.

Boosting the Life Chances of Young Men of Color: Evidence from Promising Programs

This is a report recently released from MDRC for June 2014 by Christopher Wimer & Dan Bloom. It is no surprise that we as a society have not achieved success in overcoming the challenges young men of color face. This population faces disproportionately high rates of incarcerated, sky-high high school drop-out rates, and seemingly insurmountable unemployment rates. Research, policies, and education can make a difference.

This article begins by asking the questions:

What can be done?
Are there interventions that can provide real hope and real results?
Can the nation’s institutions do a better job of increasing educational and labor market opportunity?

The paper also takes a close look at the results from some randomized trials that examine different interventions including a) Proactive Approaches; and b) Reconnection Approaches.

The authors remind us that “it is critical to harness the current interest…to finally make a lasting difference in the lives and future prospects of this group.”

Read the full article here. Or download the PDF from here.