The author reports on recent efforts by community college faculty to make the teaching and learning from their classrooms more visible. Spurred on by numerous reports that point to the urgency around basic skills education, faculty members at California community colleges are working together to improve teaching of basic skills, using a variety of…

The author explores how students can become partners in innovation and inquiry, more engaged in the classroom, and better positioned to succeed when educators listen to their students talk about learning. Bueschel concludes that students who have not been successful in school present many challenges, but they can also be an asset in overcoming…

This report details five principles for creating powerful classrooms and offers a new vision for professional development: (1) High Structure; (2) High Challenge; (3) Intensity; (4) Intentionality and Learning How to Learn; and (5) Inquiry and Making Learning Visible. Included are recommendations drawn from the work of the 11 community college…

This report offers suggestions for starting and supporting faculty inquiry groups on individual campuses. Topics include: (1) The Power of Inquiry; Challenging Questions and Powerful Evidence; (2) The Power of Community: Inquiry as a Collaborative Process of Improvement; (3) Suggestions for Starting and Supporting a Faculty Inquiry Group; and (4)…

This document is intended for leaders and decision makers who work with community colleges at the classroom, college, and system level. Readers will find an overview of the purpose, activities, findings, and recommendations from a three-year project involving 11 California community colleges, undertaken as a partnership between The Carnegie…

This multi-year study of undergraduate engineering education in the United States initiated questions about the alignment of engineering programs with the demands of current professional engineering practice. While describing engineering education from within the classroom and the lab, the report on the study offers new possibilities for teaching…

Eighteen months after soundly criticizing a new Harvard general education that proposed to abandon the concept of a structured general education, substituting a minimum distribution requirement under which students could choose a few courses from hundreds offered by the faculty, the writer applauds the shift, encouraged by interim president Derek…

Noting that it is easy, especially for those inside higher education, to take it for granted, the writer notes that none of his grandparents had the opportunity to go to college, let alone graduate. Among parents, aunts and uncles, a single bachelor's degree was earned. It was the next two generations, benefited by the GI Bill, the subsequent…

Quantitative literacy, the ability to discriminate between good and bad data, the disposition to use quantitative information to think through complex problems are capacities that educators across fields should be helping students develop. Burke leads the reader to this conclusion through an extended example of income distribution, clarified and…

As one means to combat the dis-integration of the undergraduate experience, the authors make a case for the kinds of integrated education needed to prepare students to respond creatively and with commitment to our society's most critical challenges.

The writer examines a variety of reasons why test performance may not always be a valid measure of a person's competence or potential. Citing that a sizable percentage of students perform well in their schoolwork but poorly on standardized, multiple-choice tests, Bond defines and discusses four candidates as source factors for the phenomenon: (1)…

Through an examination of one institution's efforts to strengthen teaching and learning on campus, the author makes a strong case for the use of common examinations as a powerful form of assessment as well as a fruitful context for faculty deliberations. Providing a continuing occasion for faculty inquiry and discussion, insuring grade…

This paper, highlights the forthcoming book "Educating for Democracy." The book articulates the conditions under which political teaching and learning in college is and is not legitimate, making the case that education for political development can and should be conducted in a manner that is consistent with the core values of higher education…

Young people in the United States today are much more likely to be involved in volunteer work of an apolitical sort than in politics. As part of a study on political engagement, the author and other colleagues surveyed students at a diversity of colleges and universities and asked them why they and many of their peers are so much more likely to…

The author expresses concern that launching an accountability initiative without careful consideration may do more harm than good. A well-designed accountability system, writes McCormick, motivates substantive change and useful diagnostic tools must not be undermined in the name of accountability. Several new college-quality initiatives offer…