Volume XXXVII, No. 11 | April 10, 2015 Teaching Critical Thinking Dispositions Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great Books program at the University of Chicago, once famously wrote that critical thinking could not be taught. In his essay, “Critical Thinking Programs: Why They Won’t Work,” Adler wrote, “I would almost say that, [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 10 | April 3, 2015 Reading Aloud to Break the Ice Community college students who have a long commute may not be able to participate in peer interactions that are readily available to students attending residential colleges and universities. Also, these students often have jobs before and after class, which [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 7 | March 6, 2015 Measuring General Education Learning: A Faculty-Driven, Distributed Network Approach For three consecutive evaluations by the Aspen Institute, West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) has been named a top-ten community college in the nation. This recognition is due in part to the implementation of a [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 6 | February 27, 2015 Rethinking Honors Programs for Community Colleges The traditional model for a community college honors program, analogous in focus to most honors programs at four-year institutions, centers on providing the best and the brightest students with an enriched education, generally in a rarified academic environment—that is, [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 5 | February 20, 2015 The Chef and His Accountant: A Collaborative Venture Into Progressive Thinking “I’m sorry, Professor, but I just don’t care about what happened to those people so long ago. This is a hard subject for me.” This student comment came after a class in which we [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 4 | February 13, 2015 Return to the Playground: Truly Active Learning in the College Classroom One current trend in higher education is the shift from passive to active learning. In modern classrooms, we rarely see an all-knowing professor standing before a chalkboard disseminating knowledge for two or three hours [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 3 | February 6, 2015 A Method for Adding Balance to Student Groups in the Classroom It is no secret that faculty who teach in the humanities enjoy having students participate in groups. They thrive on the collaborative process that happens when students are given the opportunity to work together [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 2 | January 30, 2015 Using Library Programming to Improve Student Success One of the challenges that students face when they need to access information is the differing and evolving format of available materials. As the availability of electronic databases and e-books continues to rise, there is an increasing need [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 1 | January 23, 2015 Engaging and Empowering Students to Discuss Literature I have loved literature for as long as I can remember, and great stories have always seemed like a conversation with a close friend. As an English instructor, I feel blessed when I read stories that give me [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 29 | December 5, 2014 Redesigning Mathematics for Student Success Recently I asked first-level developmental math students to locate seven-eighths on the number line. Sixty percent of the class located it between seven and eight. On another occasion, I asked the class if someone would come to the board and [...]
