Gateway courses in English challenge students to strengthen skills in critical thinking, reading, grammar, and writing structure and strategies -- skills that also help build competency in comprehension and composition. They can also prove to be a particular challenge to many community college students. This case study examines the efforts at…

This dissertation examines the relationship between community colleges and prisons as similar institutions that absorb and manage displaced workers, economic refugees, and dispossessed adult populations. Based on interviews with adult learners in two community college settings, I discuss how these two seemingly distinctive institutions work…

An effective team-based, group-oriented personal development from a woman's perspective course explores the effects of several issues on the re-entry woman: the role that society and culture play in influencing women's vocational choices; women's roles; the economic necessity of work; stress; and relationships. A team-based approach provides a…

In spring 1994, a study was conducted to compare student outcomes for instructors use of a mixed teaching repertoire (i.e., lecture, student-centered discussion, cooperative learning, and computer-assisted instruction) and those using lectures alone in social science, science/math, humanities, and business classes at Cosumnes River College, in…

For educators to effectively meet the needs of at-risk nontraditional college students, they must quickly identify such students, utilize the best available teaching techniques, and work to guarantee student retention. Swift identification of potential at-risk students depends on educators' awareness of common indicators, such as the student…

To assess the relative importance of selected educational needs for adult students in New York's two-year colleges, samples of faculty/staff, younger (17-24) traditional college students, and older (25+ years) re-entry adult students were administered the Survey of Student Needs, a 75-item questionnaire tapping the following five facets of the…

This monograph deals with some issues of how adults learn and ways to enhance teaching, thereby increasing adults' learning gains. The issues are the gaps between theory and practice, participation and retention, and methods and strategies, and the perennial debate about literacy's multiple meanings and their implications. "Participation and…

The following papers are included: "Schoolhouse in the Factory: The Phenomenology of Literacy" (Berlin); "The Self-Directed Learning Projects of Employed, Married Mothers" (Boyce); "The Forever Plan: Adult Men Who Continue in Postsecondary Education Compared with Those Who Drop Out" (Brown); "Burnout and Associated Factors among…