Planning, Implementing, and Assessing an OER Faculty Learning Community: A Facilitator’s Lens

A librarian-led Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on Open Educational Resources (OER) can be a practical, low risk way to sustain campus-based OER programs during and after initial start-up. Creating a space for sharing teaching successes and challenges is an important goal in the iterative journey toward open. The experiences and trust fostered in an FLC can help grow awareness of and commitment to adopting, deepening, and expanding a culture of openness. FLCs provide an opportunity to lean into open that enhances cross-campus relationships, identifies gaps, and emphasizes collegiality while moving toward enriched teaching and learning. They provide a launching point for sharing pedagogical practice, and a valuable venue for new ideas. Key strategies for planning, implementing, and assessing a multidisciplinary OER faculty learning community are highlighted. Practical advice is emphasized to support successful outcomes that can be easily replicated. Ten top takeaways are summarized from a year spent facilitating an OER FLC in a four-year, public, comprehensive college that included the shift to online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it concludes with suggested next steps for continuing the OER conversation among faculty, students, librarians, instructional designers, teaching and learning center staff, administration, and other stakeholders.

Learning How to Tailor Programmatic Offerings to Support Low-income, First-generation, and Racially Minoritized Student Success

This study focused on the process of how the staff at the Thompson Scholars Learning Community (TSLC), a comprehensive college transition program, tailored the programmatic offerings to meet the needs of low-income, first generation and racialized minority students. Because college students are complex individuals, each of whom faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities, it is reasonable to hypothesize that tailoring support services to the multiple needs of each student may make them more effective. The research identifies a four-part iterative and cyclical process to tailor the programmatic offerings for students – beginning with the individual student and then using information about individual needs to scale to broader group level tailoring. This broadening or scaling process is a new contribution to the literature that has not previously been identified. The tailored approach we identified works at both individual and group levels, which makes it viable as an intervention for large numbers of students. The effort to attend to and learn about individual students ensures that the intervention still meets the needs of individuals, but the testing of these interventions more broadly allows for understanding how these approaches will work for diverse group level tailoring.

Identity-Conscious Strategies to Engage At-Promise Students in a Learning Community: Shared Courses in a Comprehensive College Transition Program

Background/Context: Low-income, racially minoritized, and first-generation college students (at-promise students) attending predominantly White, middle class institutions often face inequitable access to enriching educational opportunities, discrimination, and marginalization, creating barriers to their success. Institutions are increasingly designing comprehensive college transition programs (CCTPs) such as the Thompson Scholars Learning Community (TSLC) program to better support this population. Little research has examined how particular elements of CCTPs might foster students’ engagement and outcomes, and TSLC is one of a few existing CCTPs that includes a learning community component where students enroll in shared academic courses. Setting: TSLC operates on three campuses of the University of Nebraska system with different institutional contexts, including mission, size, student population, and geographic location. Study Participants: This study uses quantitative data from 791 first-year students in TSLC who began college in 2015 and 2016 and qualitative data from students and institutional agents who are directly involved with shared academic courses, including instructors and TSLC staff. Purpose: Using a framework of inclusive learning communities defined by Fink and Hummel (2015) , this study explores how and why shared courses may promote engagement and the development of several psychosocial and academic outcomes, including sense of belonging and grade point average (GPA), among at-promise students in their first year of college. Research Design: We use a multilevel mixed methods design, employing quantitative data to examine students’ engagement as well as the link between students’ engagement and several measures of psychosocial wellbeing and academic achievement and qualitative data from students and institutional agents to identify the structures and practices that likely contribute to students’ engagement and outcomes. Findings: We find no significant differences in students’ patterns of engagement in shared courses based on several characteristics related to their social identities, family backgrounds, and prior academic achievement. Engagement is positively linked to students’ sense of belonging and mattering to the institution, academic and social self-efficacy, and first-year GPA. Qualitative data provide insight into the mechanisms that foster these outcomes, including helping students develop connections in academic spaces, having a faculty coordinator who supports shared course instructors and students, and instructors’ use of active and relevant learning experiences. Conclusions: The loose-cohort shared courses model implemented in TSLC supports the success of at-promise students and provides evidence of scalability and adaptability across different institutional contexts, offering a model of inclusive learning community structures and practices that can inform efforts at other institutions.

Enriching management learning with differentiated instruction

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to utilize an exploratory multiple-case design research method using three undergraduate management courses at a medium-sized private comprehensive college near a large metropolitan area in the USA.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores differentiated instruction in relation to experiential learning in management education by examining three teaching applications from different management courses to illustrate these concepts.FindingsThe use of differentiated instruction in management education is supported through varied approaches such as individual student and team-based scaffolding that demonstrate the applicability of differentiation. In addition to improving student learning, other benefits include improved student retention and faculty autonomy in course creation and delivery. The implementation involves a proactive response to learner needs informed by a faculty perspective that recognizes student diversity yet retains quality assurance standards with mindful assessment and planning.Research limitations/implicationsThe comparatively small number of courses and instructional methods may make the specific findings and examples more relevant to the type of institution examined. Yet, the general conclusions and methods identified have potential implications for learners in a wide variety of colleges and universities.Practical implicationsDifferentiated instruction may be a useful approach for enhancing learning in heterogenous groups of students by recognizing student readiness and making appropriate modifications.Originality/valueThis paper offers an exploratory overview of differentiated instruction with guidance for management faculty members in designing and implementing these approaches in their courses.

Balancing Time in College: Examining Time-Use and Academic Outcomes of Students in a Comprehensive College Transition Program

Using a randomized control trial design, this study examines the extent to which a comprehensive college transition program (CCTP) shapes students’ time-use during their first 3 years in college. The CCTP provides comprehensive student-centered support as well as a generous scholarship. We compare students who had access to the CCTP with those who only received the scholarship. Findings indicate that both student groups spent similar amounts of time working for pay, studying, and on social media, and time-use had no differential bearing on college GPA by treatment status. In an exploratory analysis of program components, we find correlational evidence that academic-related interactions with faculty are positively associated with hours spent studying. We consistently find that the strongest predictor of time-use in college is how students spend their time in high school, suggesting that interventions aimed at shaping students’ time-use may be most effective if they are targeted at students’ precollege years.

I never knew a librarian did that! : Exploring how faculty and librarian relationships support meaningful collaboration

This paper examines the relationships that developed over a 10+ year span at a comprehensive college in upstate New York. When the library was reorganized into a generalist model of library support, the faculty members felt unsupported. The paper explains the origin of the department-wide collaboration and then uses reflections to analyze ways in which the relationship with a liaison librarian support the faculty members work. Specific themes include overcoming library anxiety, online teaching support, and scholarship support with suggestions for librarian practice.

Tailoring Programs to Best Support Low-Income, First-Generation, and Racially Minoritized College Student Success

This article draws on a five-year mixed methods study and focuses on the way staff tailor support within a comprehensive college transition program to meet the needs of low-income, first-generation, and racially minoritized students by adapting programmatic offerings and requirements to fit students’ multifaceted needs. The study also identifies the way tailoring reduces cognitive load for students because the tailored interventions are embedded within a single program, rather than having students visit dozens of offices trying to piece together the support they need. The program created an approach to tailoring student support that draws on the best of predictive analytics and case management simultaneously while also being non-deficit and asset-based. Our study contributes to the literature by identifying the value of tailoring approaches to address students’ multiple needs and identities.

Exploring New College Entrance Examination (“Xin Gao Kao”) Policy in China

In China, college entrance examination is the sensitive and important theoretical and practical problem concerned by the whole education system and society. The college entrance examination refers to the unified national entrance examination system for accessing the ordinary higher education institutions. In this study, the national values are examined to analyze the fairness and justice of China’s new college entrance examination system. The regional practices involve the process of new college entrance examination reform. The new college entrance examination is composed of a series of examination systems, including China’s current unified national college entrance examination system, as well as the comprehensive college entrance examination reform pilot program and independent enrollment reform program. In addition, the conclusion and implication have been offered to explore the rationales of shaping new college entrance examination in current China.