The problem addressed in this study was the retention and completion rates at community colleges leave room for significant improvement, particularly with underprepared students who tend to be at a disadvantage and contribute to low graduation rates. A learning community designed to further engage students and improve retention was implemented at…

Effective professional development for course instructors in higher education has long been a point of interest in terms of how not only ongoing training can benefit instructors but also how those benefits could possibly improve student experiences and learning outcomes. This qualitative case study specifically examines a population of teachers…

Learning Expectations and Academic Preparation (LEAP) was a two-year pilot offering a cohort (20 students) of our lowest scoring English and mathematics developmental students an intensive cross-disciplinary semester to accelerate through their developmental courses. Blending learning community and summer bridge best practices, LEAP incorporated…

This article examines transdisciplinarity in developmental education and Basic Writing in the context of externally-driven developmental education reforms. We report on a pilot study survey of 143 developmental educators regarding their professional identity, engagement, and resilience. Respondents identified professional roles and interactions…

This study explores the impact of a first-semester learning community (LC) program on the experiences of developmental students in community college. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, students shared four central benefits of beginning their college careers in an LC program, including: (1) access to a supportive social and…

Community colleges are open access institutions, striving to meet the needs of all students regardless of level of academic preparation or achievement. Community college student enrollment continues to rise; however, the success of community college students has not increased accordingly. A significant number of students begin at community…

Community colleges are increasingly important places for language minority students to access higher education. Unfortunately, this group of students is the least likely to persist in terms of re-enrollment, degree completion, or transfer to four-year institutions. In this study, we used structured equation modeling with a sample of 10,637…

Developmental courses help academically underprepared students to succeed in college. Classroom learning community programs aid intellectual growth through academic and social support. The current study examined whether developmental students in classroom learning communities differed with respect to college GPA and retention from their peers not…

This two-year case study summarizes the views of students, instructors, and administrators toward a learning community program that served first-year developmental reading students at a public two-year college. One-on-one interviews and focus groups revealed that semester-long learning communities helped students overcome obstacles toward academic…