Faculty and Staff Library Resources

Given recent economic instability, attendance at community colleges and technical schools is expected to increase. While many community colleges and some technical institutes have embraced online education, others might benefit greatly from the continued development and expansion of blended instruction which seeks to infuse Web-based technologies into the teaching and learning process.

This case study examines two successful career-focused programs at an urban community college struggling with retention. The findings show how these programs create a unique institutional subculture, resulting in relatively higher rates of retention and graduation, and highlight the tremendous potential of the program to mitigate limitations of retention efforts undertaken at the institutional level. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Community college developmental education students face numerous obstacles as they proceed through their years of higher education. One specific area of need is students' inadequate vocabularies. Advanced communication skills are an integral part of higher education, so students may be at an academic disadvantage if these skills are not well-developed. Developmental students' weak vocabularies compound the other challenges they face. The purpose of this article is to present theoretical frameworks and research perspectives concerning vocabulary instruction with developmental students in order to encourage educators to continue examining this area as a critical component of developmental instruction. Additionally, studies exploring successful strategies for vocabulary growth are presented for educators looking for ways to effectively integrate vocabulary instruction into college developmental reading classes.

More students are beginning their college careers at community colleges before completing degrees at four-year institutions. As enrollments swell at these two-year institutions, issues surrounding transfer and articulation agreements are increasingly important, and two- and four-year institutions must work together on the recruitment, retention, and transition of political science majors. Central to this collaboration is the curriculum. Building on conclusions from the 2011 Leadership Collaborative Core Curriculum and General Education track regarding a common curriculum in the discipline, this article examines the political science curriculum using data from 47 two-year colleges with separate political science departments. We examined similarities and differences among these programs and found sufficient commonality in curriculum to allow students to transfer credits to four-year institutions. The article also offers community colleges an indication of common curricular features and informs the wider profession about community college curriculum design. [from abstract]

Faculty workload is based on the amount of time spent on teaching, research, and service. The workload varies according to institutional focus, teaching field, type of course, course level, and instructional format. Compared with traditional face-to-face courses, online courses require a disproportionate investment of time and effort by faculty, necessitating special consideration when calculating faculty workload. The authors examine the workload for faculty teaching online courses in community colleges, specifically, the number of online classes taught per semester, class sizes for online courses, incentives for online instructors and how the workload for online instructors is calculated.