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By Tracy Jan in the Boston Globe, May 5 2010. In Massachusetts, a new plan to "measure and report student achievement," called the Vision Project. Development of the plan included all 29 of the state's public colleges, universities, and community colleges.

By Beth Fertig on WNYC News. Main page with links to full series.

By Melissa Ludwig in San Antonio (Texas) Express-News Jan 21 2011. A pilot program in San Antonio points "students who test at the lowest skill levels toward shorter vocational programs or adult basic education" rather than the remedial classes at community college where they might previously have been assigned. The student profiled participated in a 10-14 week PACE program (combining basic education with college readiness skills) rather than the 4 semesters of remedial classes she would otherwise have been assigned.

By Doug Lederman in the News column of Inside Higher Ed, Jan 25 2011. The Lumina Foundation has released a draft of their Degree Qualifications Profile (see link in article), with broad "degree objectives" for those who earn associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees. This article briefly describes the report and also provides some context, including some criticism from those who work in higher education. See degree_qualification tag for more.

A Frontline (PBS) documentary "investigating how Wall Street and a new breed of for-profit universities are transforming the way we think about college in America...."

Gail posted about College, Inc. after hearing from one of the faculty who was using the video in his class. Part of the documentary was filmed at LaGuardia and Gail appears in the video.

Subtitle: Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce. Prepared by The Conference Board, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families and Society for Human Resource Management, 2006.

TM uses this report in her class to stress the importance of writing in the work world.

By Mike Rose, The New Press: 2012. In this book, Rose looks specifically at the non-traditional students of community colleges, what their needs are, and how community colleges might serve them better. Rose is a popular education writer who frequently writes on basic skills and remediation.

Editorial from The New York Times, February 18 2013. This editorial points out the pitfalls of online college, identifying student attrition rates (in online courses) and the extra attention that "struggling" students need. The Times advocates for hybrid courses, as well as improving course design for any courses that are delivered 100% online.

Posted by Shelley Wright, on the website Powerful Learning Practice: Professional Development for 21st Century Educators, Oct 8 2012. In this post, Wright describes how she no longer adheres to the model of the "flipped"classroom because she has learned to fully use student-centered and project-based learning models. She carefully describes the differences between the two, as well as giving an overview of how -- at semester's end -- her chemistry students learned 10 new concepts in 8 weeks.

Website of John Taylor Gatto. According to his biography (on this website), Gatto was a long-time schoolteacher, eventually winning New York State Teacher of the Year (also multi-winner of NYC Teacher of the Year). He then very publicly quit teaching (that same year) and launched a public-speaking and film-making career, exploring what he feels is wrong with K-12 education.

SB mentions Gatto in a post describing readings that he's used that are critical of the current educational system.

Part of the University of Georgia's College of Education Initiative on Innovation in Teaching and Technology (ITT), this page links to presentations in the Innovation 20/20 series. Each topic is a 20 minute presentation on a specific innovation, followed by a 20 minute discussion period. Topics range from more reflective teaching (e.g. Using Metaphor to Explore Teaching and Learning) to using specific tools or strategies (Designing and Implementing an Undergraduate Blogging Community in EDIT 2000 or Motivating Students with Google Tools and More). Navigation on this page also points users to Innovation Resources, Innovation News, and the Discovery Series (another set of online videos).

By Belinda Allen and Kathryn Coleman (both of University of New South Wales), proceedings of ascilite 2011 conference, Australia, December 2011. ascilite is the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. "The paper explores creativity as a graduate capability, the creative potential of digital media, and how changing directions in assessment practice could support the assessment of creativity, with a focus on using eportfolios in assessment." Full text, as PDF, available on this page.

This edition of UPDATE focuses on partnerships, beginning with an interview with Dr. Gene Bottoms, founder of High Schools That Work (HSTW). Dr. Bottoms provides important insights into the ways partnerships were used to create HSTW, as well as the ways they are necessary to involving high schools and community colleges in the implementation of Programs of Study. This volume also includes two invited articles, one by Dr. Pamela Eddy, College of William and Mary University, and Dr. Marilyn Amey, Michigan State University, that give OCCRL readers a glimpse into their new book on partnerships and collaboration, and a second by Dr. Louise Yarnell, who shares a model that she and her colleagues at SRI are developing for the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

by Jon Marcus on The Hechinger Report, December 26, 2011. Open University, a successful British online public university to be used as a model in the U.S. The goal is to help students who are intimidated by higher education adapt to and succeed in college. Next Generation Learning Challenges, a Gates funded initiative, will adapt two free Open University, at-your-own-pace online courses for use at about a dozen U.S. colleges and universities this academic year: one to help students be more comfortable with math so they do better on placement tests or move more quickly through remedial courses, and another to teach students skills to prepare them for college.

Op-Ed by David Brooks in the New York Times, October 31 2011. Brooks finds that the disparity between college grads and non-grads is much more glaring than that of the "1%" who are the focus of the Occupy Wall Street and similar movements. And he finds that this disparity is seen in small cities and towns all over America. Not only does he cite income disparity, but also family structure and things like health risks.

By Nadine Dolby, Commentary column, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 9 2012. In this commentary piece, Dolby describes a panel in which she invited her undergraduate education students to meet with a panel of "real" parents in the hopes of getting some new perspectives on K-12 education. As a matter of course, she required them to refrain from using cell phones, texting or tweeting. And she observed that these students then had a great deal of trouble just listening. She argues that, in a democracy, it's not enough just to share your own opinions, you must also listen to those of others. She concludes, "Teaching our students how to truly listen may be the most important multicultural lesson of all."

By Evan Weissman, Dan Cullinan, Oscar Cerna, Stephanie Safran and Phoebe Richman, with Amanda Grossman. National Center for Postsecondary Research (NCPR) Teachers College Columbia University. February 2012. Link to full report at the bottom of the summary on this page. The colleges in this study are two of six in the NCPR Learning Communities Demonstration, in which random assignment evaluations are being used to determine the impacts of learning communities on student success. NCPR has presented finding from all six colleges. They show that when one-semester learning communities have impacts, they tend to be concentrated in the semester in which students are enrolled in the program. Another report, a final one will be released in 2012. That report synthesizes the findings across all colleges studied and includes an additional semester of student follow-up at each college.

Brochure from 43rd Annual Conference, New York State Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges. Y.H. intended to present "Keys for Students-Faculty Success in Community College Completion: LaGuardia Basic Skills Initiatives."

By Lynne Truss. New York: Gotham Books, 2004.

By Neil Postman, New York: Viking, 1985.