Service learning is one of the most effective teaching methods for engaging and retaining community college students, but it comes with its challenges. For many students, the added requirements of a service learning experience can become one more responsibility in an already too-long list. In addition to being responsible for children, holding…

Few professors teaching at community colleges today expect students to learn every nuance of every technological device they are likely to encounter throughout the course of their careers. Educators can expose students to enough of a base so that when the technology does evolve--and it will--they have the confidence and ability to adapt and…

Many distinguished leaders and innovators in higher education who are calling for curricular reform in order to increase student engagement and retention cite learning communities as a powerful model for change. In this article, the term "learning communities" refers to "the purposeful restructuring of the curriculum by linking or clustering…

Analyzes the traditional community college approaches to remedial education. Suggests that a more learner-centered remediation--which is based on an understanding of students' needs--in discipline courses offers students the opportunity to apply the skills they learn in ways that are meaningful, thus decreasing the dropout rate of remedial…

Provides an update on community college responses to the new student majority who lack the skills to succeed in college-level work. Defines "at-risk students," identifies college responses to literacy problems, describes promising instructional strategies, and highlights problems in evaluating programs for at-risk students. (DMM)

Describes the teaching methods used by Hinds Community College in developing a computer-based, two-year academic degree in Criminal Justice for the Marine Corps' Satellite Education Network (MCSEN). Demonstrates a valuable asset of distance learning, which is flexibility for those students whose jobs often require them to be mobile. (VWC)

At Queensborough Community College, the City University of New York, 60% of incoming freshmen were placed into remedial-writing classes in 2001, and 43.9% of these incoming freshmen were from foreign, non-English speaking countries. Before these students could advance into credit courses, they were required to pass both their remedial-writing…