"Three Big Lessons in Six Years" is both a reflection on the past and a look ahead to the future at Charlestown (C-Town) High School (Boston, Massachusetts) and other early college programs across the country. The purpose of this series is to document essential design elements, operational structures, and critical support for students to…

Community colleges increasingly implement various student success programs, including 1st-year seminars, college skills courses, learning communities, and orientation, in an effort to boost degree completion. However, it is unclear how success programs' curricular designs may contribute to these and associated student outcomes. Such inquiry is…

This article explores the design and implementation of the curriculum for City Seminar, an integrated course in the first-year experience at a new community college. This interdisciplinary course focuses on a critical issue that provides content and context for quantitative reasoning (QR), reading, and writing (RW) to strengthen students'…

For the past decade, MDRC has evaluated a number of interventions designed to improve the outcomes of community college students, including enhanced counseling, learning communities, and financial incentives. Encouragingly, many of these strategies have produced positive effects, affirming that changes in institutional practices and policies can…

This study analyzes a foundation year's language curriculum of a Saudi community college which uses English as a medium of instruction with the aim of improving its curriculum. First, both terms "curriculum" and "syllabus" are defined followed by a brief historical account of curriculum studies. Then, theories informing…

Highlights 26 American community colleges that have implemented ground-breaking programs. Describes a survey conducted to glean information from 670 colleges. Discusses projects such as the Chesapeake Area Consortium for Higher Education--a partnership between Chesapeake College (Maryland) and two other institutions--which offers Physical Therapy…

The purposes of this study were to provide a system of classification of the motivational characteristics of the high-risk student, to submit this system to instructors of a selected sample of high-risk students for their classification of the students, to test the reliability of the raters by an analysis of variance formula, and to design a…

A national survey of 216 human services education programs in community colleges investigated trends in program number, curriculum design, standard-setting, student composition and career paths, faculty affiliation, and graduates in further education and at work. Results indicate a period of renewed program growth and a need for involvement of the…

The Loop College's Individual Needs (IN) Program is a total support service and academic program for high-risk students during their first semesters at the college. This descriptive report begins by describing IN's personnel requirements and the duties of the program director, the program advisor, the senior tutor/Developmental Learning Manager…

A selective review is presented of the most recent theoretical pronouncements and practical applications of the interdisciplinary approach that are of significance to foreign language teachers and learners. The central focus is on problems and solutions within the two broad areas of institutional structures and curricula. Fifteen conclusions and…

Curriculum is continually changing because it is based on needs of the student, needs of society, and subject-matter knowledge. In 1973, cultural, communication, and career goals assumed greater importance. Curriculum design involves consideration of interest and ability grouping, self pacing, mastery learning, multiple approaches to learning,…