community-colleges-blog

Who is behind today’s booming community colleges?


Community college faculty discuss the topics most pertinent to their institutions.

community-colleges-blogAccording to a recent Cengage Learning survey of more than 4,250 community college students, almost 100 percent say community colleges are an integral part of the U.S. education system.

And from the White House’s American Graduation initiative to other large-scale community college initiatives gaining the national spotlight, it seems that these local colleges are quickly becoming an essential cornerstone of American higher education.

“Community colleges are the heartbeat, the backbone of the education system, and we now have the content and technology to make the experience even more effective for today’s students,” said Cengage Learning CEO Michael Hansen. “We need to make sure we have an educated workforce, fit for purpose, and ready to compete in an increasingly global environment. With the majority of new jobs requiring some postsecondary education, community colleges are the often affordable and effective answer for a large percentage of the student population.”

As community colleges increasingly bolster learning for today’s students, it’s never been more important to understand the current issues facing these institutions; specifically, innovations in teaching, learning, and administration.

That’s why eCampus News started the Community College Roundtable—a blog run by community college educators on their thoughts, challenges, and successes involving their community.

Here, you’ll find a sample of our current bloggers’ posts. For those interested in contributing to the blog, either as a guest, or as a more permanent writer, contact eCampus News Editor Meris Stansbury at mstansbury@ecampusnews.com.

The essay—an endangered species?

Ed1aBy Ed Cuoco, adjunct faculty member at Bunker Hill Community College and Wentworth Institute of Technology

Technology is at the gate! A recent opinion piece in the New York Times describes advances in computer-generated articles and what’s called “automated narrative generation.” Soon, computers will generate “human-sounding stories in whatever voice—from staid to sassy—befits the intended audience.” Indeed, many of the news services we read on the Web today are synthesized from databases, news feeds, and underlying advertising requirements. Behind the scenes, keywords and clicks are tracked, counted and eventually “monetized” as the advertising you see is tailored to your interests.

Imagine this: Some crafty education entrepreneur develops a suite of tools, distributed by a leading edu publisher or MOOC as add-on services for courseware. It’s not too far off; in fact, it’s already happening in rudimentary form. Several companies sell products and services today, and Phoenix University has been offering a primitive thesis generator for a few years.

I sometimes ask my students to test drive the Phoenix service as they develop their argumentative essays. Varying results. Most students find it clumsy but useful in helping to zero in on their theses. Although this generator is not quite ready for prime time, it offers a view into the future.

In a few years, our students will not be writing essays so much as designingthem. No need to buy a canned essay, just generate a completely novel one tuned to your intentions!

So, what’s a writing instructor to do? One obvious approach is to ban computers and smartphones—in the style of an often recounted (some say misinterpreted) attempt by King Canute to stop the tides. But would we really want to deprive students of skills that most professions require today, offer them competitive workplace advantages, and enrich, for better or worse, their lives?

I think we should embrace these new capabilities and provide students with the context and conceptual underpinnings to exploit them. Ultimately, it’ll be their choice to adopt these innovations for creative or professional purposes, and if we turn them off or inhibit them from learning these skills and tools, we deprive them of an important future path to follow. Our students need to find their places in this emerging digital world.

After all, only a few years ago, computer-assisted spell checkers were verboten in many English classes! One approach to consider is celebrating the adoption of automated writing tools and exploring their positive aspects as well as drawbacks. If you have used EasyBib or any of the other automated reference and citation tools, you know their utility and limitations. We should ask: Do their benefits outweigh their shortcomings? The arc of disruptive innovation has been well described by Clayton Christensen in The Innovator’s Dilemma—small incremental changes inevitably topple traditional practices if the new solution has compelling benefits—even if the changes are inferior to the status quo.

Today’s academic highly structured essay enables instructors to evaluate student insights, reasoning skills and communication competencies. An essay is a perfect structure for computer modelling—essays have a distinct schema that is easy to clone and “populate” with semantics and familiar grammar patterns. With access to mountains of data and powerful cloud computers, our handheld, networked devices will soon be better (that is, more conformant and information rich) at this game than what we humans can do. Is the essay, as an academic genre, soon to be eclipsed by robo-writers? Technology and digital information trends suggest a new wave of automation will hit our shores soon, and we’ll have to see if the student essay can withstand the digital onslaught.

So the next time you’re reading an exceptional student essay, staid or sassy, ask yourself: How can this essay be humanly better?

(Next page: Digitizing education for the good ol’ days; differentiating tech)

Digitizing education for the good ol’ days

briangoeddeBy Brian Goedde, a lecturer at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, CT.

All of my classes are paperless. It’s not because I’m a tech-wiz. In fact, I’m “all thumbs” when it comes to learning new technology—and not the quick-moving thumbs of text messaging, either. Just thumbs.

I tell my students that making them do all of our classwork on Blackboard increases their computer literacy and equips them for the 21st century workforce, and I really do believe this, but I have another reason: digitizing my classroom has let me be a more old-fashioned.

For example, we writing teachers pine for the good ol’ days when students actually had to learn spelling and grammar, rather than spill out thoughts onto the screen and let the computer clean up the mess. Spell-check, grammar-check, and especially “auto correct” functions are great for writers, but the scourge of us writing teachers.

There is “spell-check” on Blackboard, but the assignment submission text boxes do not have “auto-correct” proofreading. When a student writes “im” on a Blackboard blog post, Blackboard does not change it to “I’m.” It’s great. As a teacher I see all the little faults (and the not-so-little-faults), and I take off points for them. My students tell me that this has made them actually re-read what they’ve written before they click “submit.” They proofread the old-fashioned way.

In the larger picture, digitizing my classroom has returned me to the good ol’ days of student accountability when it comes to grading. We teachers take pains to articulate grading calculations and policies in our syllabi, and this is all but entirely ignored by students. Students rarely know how much their assignments are worth, and at midterm, many students who have done little work are shocked to learn that they are failing. In the good ol’ days, students were responsible for earning—and knowing—their grades.

With the Blackboard Grade Center, students can click on “My Grades” and watch their overall grade go up or down with each assignment. They see how their grade is not something I “give” when the semester ends, but something that they earn over time. I never again have to answer the question, “How am I doing in your class?” This knowledge—and with it, this accountability—is in the student’s domain.

Digitizing education is a clear benefit to me, but does it suit my students? I took an informal poll in my classes last semester, asking how easy or difficult it was to have the entire class on Blackboard. These are developmental English students, by the way, students who, it is commonly assumed, are not self-driven or self-reliant enough to succeed with digital technology. “On a scale of one to ten,” I asked, “with one being ‘as easy as falling out of a tree’ to ten being ‘so difficult I should change my class back to hard copies of everything, how hard is Blackboard to use?’” A few said “two” or “three”: Blackboard can be hard to navigate sometimes, they said. Everyone else said “one.”

I have to agree that Blackboard can be difficult to navigate. If I were to answer my own question, I’d say “three” too; on some days, when I’m learning something new, I’d be at least a “five.” But still I have become a Blackboard enthusiast, not as a tech-wiz but as a fuddy-duddy. Because of features like the Grade Center and the lack of “auto-correct,” what makes students equipped for a 21st century workforce returns us to time-honored pedagogical principles of the past.

Differentiating technology instruction in the community college classroom

daniel downsBy Daniel Downs, Adjunct Professor in the CIT & Web Development programs at Bunker Hill Community College.

Approaching new semesters, community college’s teachers are confronted with a variety of levels of technology skills and fluency of their students. At first it can be difficult to ascertain what level the students are across the spectrum.  It may not be until you assign a writing assignment or one which requires internet research that you can identify large gaps of skills in using web applications, software or current operating systems effectively. I would like to recommend a few of the tools and strategies that I use to better understand my students and differentiate my instruction to meet their needs. Addressing student skills early can help find common ground with the use of technology and enable them to feel connected and part of a team.

Start group work with technology sooner than later in the semester

Engage students in group projects so that they can share skills while working together and engage more quickly with the technology needed in your course for projects. This is the perfect opportunity to help them learn a new tech skill together such as an online presentation with Google Presentations or even just develop a PowerPoint together. Some of the essential fluency skills such as creating, saving and uploading files is part of the collaboration of the group.

Provide a skill assessment of your new students

Identifying the essential skills students need to be successful with technology will help you focus on what you need to teach. Whether it is formal or informal, assess student technology skills based on your expectations for the course early. Create an online form/survey for students to take to identify high need areas such as knowledge of browsers, software, saving or how to navigate the web. Identify high need areas quickly and efficiently and address them with your instruction.

Use Google Docs for collaboration

Create and share work using Google Docs. Collaborate and share ideas around central topics and even if your course does not require technology you can integrate a valuable technology tool into your course. Google Apps technology, which enables students work in the cloud, also assists in commenting, editing, sharing ideas and projects efficiently.

Make screen-cast tutorial videos of often-used content materials

Presentations you use often or online documents you discuss or share can be short informational videos you host and narrate online. Provide access to students at home and school with your ideas and content. The additional time engaging with the videos can address  high need learning areas and increase efficiency of using class time for more meaning full engagement. Providing learning resources outside the classroom which can be revisited anytime can be the first step to “flipping your classroom”.

Show students the value of collaborating online & building their brand

Show students the value of their online identity and improve their LinkedIn profiles for job prospecting. Sit down with small groups of students and discuss the valuable skills they are acquiring. Highlight profiles of professionals in their field of study and discuss related skills.

Teach them to be efficient with Web 2.0 & 3.0 tools

Teach students to shorten and personalize links with tools like Bitly.com and organize commonly used links with sites like Diggo or Pinterest. Efficiency with the resources they collect online will help them stay organized and improve how they share resources and work. Show students the value of taking the resources they collect beyond your course.

Model technology-fluent behavior yourself

Provide a syllabus or assignment document conveniently at one web link for easy access; model ways other than email that the class can meet and collaborate (Webex, Google Hangouts) online. In the Northeast right now classes have missed several hours due to inclement weather, use this as an opportunity to find an effective way to share the weeks work.

The variety of backgrounds that students within community colleges are coming from makes it a challenge to always teach all students with technology. I hope this list has provided you with a starting point for better connecting with your students and improving their skills and supporting their learning at home and in the classroom.

(Next page: 2015 e-learning resolutions)

2015 e-learning resolutions

brandyupload-c9dst7008omnl23t9rqgbpe3b1893836.jpeg-final (1)By Brandy Brooks, adjunct professor for the Department of History and Social Sciences at Bunker Hill Community College.

At the start of every year nearly half of Americans resolve to change. Pay off student loans. Quit smoking. Learn HTML code. Lose ten pounds. The devil, however, is in the details. Resolutions are easy to make, the challenge is sustaining them throughout the year. According to a study conducted by the University of Scranton only 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals. The year that started with such promise and hope dissolves into wishful thinking and broken promises. With this in mind I’ve composed a list of simple, specific, tangible (and hopefully obtainable) e-learning resolutions.

What the Email? I am an offender of the worst kind. I am a Go To Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200 criminal. What is my crime you may ask? I am guilty of unconscious emailing. More than once I have sent one word email responses of ‘Thanks’ or ‘Okay.’ Even worse, I have sent emails with lengthy subject lines to colleagues and students. ‘I received your campaign video but couldn’t open it due to the privacy settings’ being one example. I also need to refrain from sending emails that combine multiple requests and more than one large attachment. No one wants to read a dissertation disguised as an email.  Before hitting send, I need to stop and ask – is it necessary for this email to be part of my digital footprint. Am I consciously emailing?

Demystifying “the Cloud.” I have a storage device problem. The problem is not that I fail to properly save documents for posterity. The problem is that over the last fifteen years I have accumulated too many storage devices. I have 10 USB flash drives of varying storage capacities, three Google Doc accounts, hundreds of Outlook archived folders, a Dropbox account, floppy and zip disks circa 2000. Jurassic technology aside, I vow to spend 2015 organizing my files and syncing my mobile devices and laptop in one place – a la the cloud.

Disconnecting to Reconnect. On my first day as an adjunct professor I remember walking into the classroom energized and ready to teach a section of State and Local Politics. Though I did not expect to be greeted by a standing ovation I did anticipate that students would at the very least acknowledge my presence with a passing glance or ‘hello.’ Instead what greeted me were the tops of 22 heads as it appeared that every student was plugged in to their mobile devices, e-readers, laptops, and tablets. Since that first day to now, digital technology has been a curse and a blessing in the classroom. At the same time that I have developed a course website and Facebook page and integrated YouTube, Poll Everywhere, and learning management systems (LMS) into assignments and discussion; I’ve also had to include statements on electronic usage during scheduled class time on my Government in the United States syllabus. Digital consumption is widespread. From the 2 year old tapping away on an iPad, to the teen that averages 3,500 text messages a month to the adult that spends hours trying to understand ‘Deflategate,’ our time spent plugging in means unplugging from work, sleep and academics. And even when we do sleep our devices are normally within arm’s reach. Instead of simply unplugging my digital device I will spend an hour researching “text neck” and other mental and health impacts of excessive digital consumption. In the words of T.S. Elliot, I am “distracted from distraction by distraction.” While I am not walking-into-a-fountain-while-texting-distracted, I am liking-a-Humans-of-New-York-post and why-isn’t-my-phone-receiving-group-texts distracted. I need to digitally detox and revert back to the good ole days of living and working in digital free zones. Starting with an hour and working my way up to a day I plan to turn my devices off and resist the urge to log-in to social media sites. Of my New Year’s resolutions this one will probably be the hardest but disconnecting to reconnect may be the most worthwhile.

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