Over 50% of US undergraduates are at community colleges. By many
measures, particularly college completion, America's undergraduate
education is underperforming. This is nationally important since
America's future goes to college in these institutions. This book
offers a successful and scalable solution to the current crisis by
zeroing in on teaching and its corollary - learning. This book
describes the experience of LaGuardia Community College where, each
year, some 80% of new students who enroll need at least one course
in developmental language or mathematics, and historically half of
them have not passed; and presents a successful initiative based on
the realization that pedagogy and engagement with students really
matters, enabling students in developmental classes to not only to
pass but to graduate at the same rate as students who entered
needing no remediation. This book offers a detailed view both of
the underlying rationale for and of the implementation of
LaGuardia's Global Skills for College Completion
research/demonstration project, showing how purposeful
collaboration, reflection, coaching and sharing of practices, along
with the use of video and the development of an online inventory of
teaching strategies, has both helped faculty to improve their own
teaching and resulted in greater student success. The authors
address the unseen and unheard challenges that faculty face;
document and name the parts of pedagogy that have long seemed
invisible to both teachers and administrators; and most importantly
present the voices and work of the faculty themselves to show in
very particular detail how they shared and refined ideas and
teaching strategies, and developed sets of tools to overcome the
complex variables of the barriers to learning that they
encountered. After an Introduction discussing the challenges of
American higher education, what the research tells us about
teaching and learning and what faculty members need in order to
improve their effectiveness in the classroom, the book outlines the
framework and history of the project and its goals. Chapter 1
underscores the complexity and value of reflection for improving
teaching practices, as well as the affordances of technology, and
the benefits of online communities to create open spaces for
dialogue. Chapter 2 walks the reader through the theory of change
that undergirds the model's professional development design.
Chapter 3 describes the tools and routines of faculty engagement,
with many examples, to show what this work looks like. Chapters 4
and 5 discuss in detail the infrastructure of the online community,
with a focus on the interpersonal and technological dimensions.
Finally, in Chapter 6, the authors reflect on the work accomplished
and issue a call to action, to engage faculty in the multi-faceted
process of reflection, adaptation, assessment and improvement.
Ultimately, this book reflects on reflecting, uncovering the key
insights that college teaching have so often fallen short because
there is no common language to discuss obstacles, and that most
professional development does not occur within the context of
practice. Here is a rigorous model of action that meets those
challenges head on to great effect, and will stimulate faculty and
faculty developers alike.
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