Tools for online math education.

The Rubik's cube was used as an example of a confidence builder in Choice Event: Instilling Confidence (RB).

This link provides background and live webcast for the debate, The Cost of Higher Education, held on April 27 2010. Panelists include Gail Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College and co-PI of the GSCC project.

By Kevin Carey in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #15, Winter 2010. In this editorial, Carey (policy director of think tank Education Sector) argues that colleges are not fulfilling their mission to students: costs are rising and students are not learning (or even graduating). He argues for transparency and studies of the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and warns of the education-related lobbies that keep the rest of us in the dark about higher education.

By CC (Community College) Times, published April 21 2010. This article reports on Bill Gates's visit to Foothill College to observe the Math My Way program. From the article, "Math My Way groups cohorts of students who have similar math skill levels." Students then work in small groups, and one-on-one with instructors, as well as using both computer and paper drills and games.

GSCC's own Kathy Perino is an instructor in this program, and is quoted in the article.

By Stephanie Banchero, The Wall Street Journal, April, 21, 2010. At the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges, officials pledge to boost student completion rates 50% over the next decade.

On PBS NewsHour, April 20, 2010. Jeffrey Brown interview with Mary Spilde and Hilary Pennington about the increased focus on boosting graduation rates in community colleges. Remedial education, innovative technology models and standards for accountabililty are topics covered.

By Klara Bolander Laksov, Sarah Mann, Lars Owe Dahlgren in Higher Education Research & Development, v 27 (2), June 2008, p 121-132. From the abstract, "this case study describes the process of a collaborative project aimed at increasing the educational quality at a research-intensive department...." Full-text is available for sale at this site. Check with your local library for access.

Published by the Association for Career and Technical Education(ACTE), this 2-page document asserts that career readiness combines academic, "employability," and technical skills, and is not the same as more traditional "college readiness." The document itself is undated, but is footnoted (though most of the sources are also undated).

Description from the test publisher (Riverside Publishing), the test is a popular reading placement test.

By Marisa A. Klages and J. Elizabeth Clark, in Journal of Basic Writing (CUNY), v 28 (1), p. 32-49, 2009. Authors (both GSCC faculty) look at using ePortfolio with basic writers.

This page links to a gallery of student ePortfolios at LaGuardia Community College. In left-hand navigation, you can select ePortfolios at varying levels.

Biography of Lee S. Shulman, President Emeritus of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, served as president from 1997- 2008.

by Lee S. Shulman, in Liberal Education, Spring 2005. Shulman writes on behalf of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and their research on how professionals are educated. The idea is to use this study to better inform liberal education pedagogies.

JEC uses this article as an illustration of Shulman's idea of "signature pedagogies."

From eHow.com; these directions will help convet movies from MAC format to one more appropriate to PC.

By Sugie Goen-Salter, in Journal of Basic Writing (CUNY), v 27(2), p 81-105, 2008. Goen-Salter's program intergrates reading and writing, in a innovative new measure to reduce the need for remediation. Article abstract is available on this page. For full text, check with your local college library.

RA's choice event was a presentation of Goen-Salter's program. PA provided the cite for this article, discussing the same program.

Founded in 1880, today the Conference on Basic Writing (CBW) is a special interest group of the Conference on College Communications and Composition (CCCC). The CBW's mission "is to create a network of basic writing professionals."

By Joshua Kim of the blog BlogU, part of Inside Higher Ed, March 29, 2010. Kim reflects on the more successful online learning experiences that he's taken part in, and points to three attributes that made these experiences successful. The comments section also provides some interesting links.

By Tara Siler on All Things Considered, NPR, March 31, 2010. Siler reports that students miss out on financial aid, particularly in community colleges, because they don't understand the system. Pell Grants can be particularly useful to low income students, if they understand how, when, and why to apply.

By Alan Greenblatt on NPR, March 29 2010. Greenblatt reports that there was initially great promise for community colleges in the health care reconciliation bill that was passed at the end of March. However, "Congress ultimately took a pass on restructuring the mission of the nation's community colleges." The $12 billion American Graduation Initiative recognized the important role that community colleges could play in producing more college graduates, but the initiative was not included in the final law.

See last paragraph for quote from Gail Mellow.