New Roundup: Student Learning and Career Readiness

This week, learn how community colleges can promote student learning and career readiness through faculty guidance.

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Focusing on Relevancy and Flexibility: Solidifying the Place of the Community College
Community colleges need to be vehicles for student success, according to Miami Dade College Executive Vice President and Provost Lenore Rodicio. Equipping faculty with teaching practices that promote student learning and prepare students for their careers is key to remaining relevant and meeting students where they are, she notes. (The Evolllution)

Amid College Success Push, the U.S. Overlooks the Fact that One in Four Students Are Parents
Increasingly, parents are enrolling in postsecondary education programs, write Allison Dulin Salisbury and Michael B. Horn, but support for them is often lacking. Salisbury and Horn suggest solutions such as offering career guidance, courses designed to better use mobile technology, and more support services. (Forbes)

The Either/Or Paradigm: Short-Term Training in Higher Education
Institutions need to create clear pathways for students to earn credentials as steps along the way to completing their degrees, according to Eric Heiser. Instead of seeing short-term training programs as an alternative to a degree, he writes, colleges can blend the programs to meet the immediate career needs of students while offering a bridge to the end goal of a degree. (The Evolllution)

Why One Science Professor Has Students Write a Children’s Book
For the past seven years, Stan Eisen, a biology instructor, has been offering his students a choice of taking a final exam or writing a children’s book about the course content. The book option, he notes, is a form of experiential learning: “If you can make a 7-year-old understand it,” he says, “you’ve accomplished something.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education Teaching Newsletter)

To Teach or to Entertain, That Is the Question
It is possible to balance course content and maintaining student interest, Terence McLean suggests. Ultimately, he writes, the focus of teaching should be on course content and student success, but sharing our personality can help facilitate the teaching and learning process. (University Affairs)