Beyond Retention Programs and Policies: The Habits of Effective Human Levers of Retention Colleges depend upon policies, initiatives, and programs to support student success and college completion. Perhaps the best resource a college has, however, it its faculty. Based upon a qualitative study of faculty identified as "highly effective human levers of [...]
Growth Mindset: Growing the Minds of First-Year College Students At the beginning of each semester or term, college campuses are overtaken by the excitement and curiosity of incoming freshmen students. They are excited, they are eager, and they are enthused. But do they know “how to college”? Do they have the proper mindset [...]
Jumpstart to Successful Instruction Are you interested in becoming a more effective instructor, but aren’t sure where to start? The SkillsCommons Industry Expert to Expert Instructor (IE2EI) IMPACT community has a ready-to-use, free, and open answer for you! The Jumpstart to Successful Instruction course offers ready-to-use teaching solutions for college instructors through interactive modules, videos, and other resources. The Jumpstart to Successful Instruction course modules equip instructors with [...]
The Luddite Instructor in the Wired Classroom: The Trials and Tribulations of Incorporating Information Technology in the Classroom College students in the 21st century are preoccupied by their mobile devices and social media platforms. Consequently, college instructors—even the most troglodyte among them—must find a way to either work around or with this learning [...]
Claiming Our Right to Be Here: The Art of Overcoming Self-Sabotage We’ll call it baggage…the stuff we thought we’d left behind long ago—the old hurts, regrets, and insecurities—that have a way of showing up in our academic careers. We aim low, create conflict, or procrastinate our way away from something we really want [...]
Impacting Student Success Through the Power of Hope Hope is the belief that tomorrow will be better than today and that you have the power to make it so. In his book, Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others,Shane Lopez shares his analysis of hope research and concludes that, [...]
Informational Webinar: NISOD 101: How to Engage With NISOD This complimentary webinar informs attendees about the following membership opportunities: Innovation Abstracts, The NISOD Papers, #NISODProfiles, and Member Spotlights. NISOD’s Publications and Communications Manager, Brigitte Pentecost, will facilitate and answer questions on how to get more involved with NISOD. This webinar is free for both members and non-members [...]
Widening the Aperture: Experiential Teaching for Engaged Learning As community college faculty members and professional staff, we know good teaching. In fact, we specialize in it (i.e., experiential education, applied learning, student-centered instruction, interactive teaching). However, what are the mechanisms by which we practice these pedagogies of engagement? What is the learning science that maximizes students’ prior experiences and activates their working [...]
The Known Unknowns: Some Best Practices for Onboarding and Training New Full-Time Faculty Each year, community college administrators and Human Resources departments are busy hiring new full-time faculty members. These new faculty members then experience the transition from their previous place of employment, whether from an academic institution or industry, to their new campus [...]
The Office Hours Initiative (OHI): Outreach, Support, and Success Office hours at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College (North Carolina) recently became an issue. Although some faculty members were not available during their advertised hours, many were available, yet students did not visit. While factors influencing students’ decisions to use office hours are largely beyond instructors’ control, instructors [...]