Incorporating Reading and Writing in Chats

I think that one interesting way to incorporate reading and writing into video chats would be to have a shared reading, perhaps a news article related to a current hot topic to be read first.  If reading controversial news stories could be assigned before the chat, students would have to recall their reading and talk about the text, which we know helps aid in reading comprehension.  Students could also have the reading in front of them and they could reference while chatting.  Of course, the reading material would have to be carefully selected to ensure that it was interesting and could prompt a good deal of discussion.  I also think that using video chat as a way to form a sort of book club could be a great use.  Maybe prior to chatting, sections of an assigned book could be read and students could be asked to write reflections on those assignments, then they could use asynchronous CMC to share reflections with one another.  They would already have some indication on how their chat partners were responding to the text before interacting in real time.  I think that activities like these could really focus the learning and help ensure that students remain on task.

Future directions for community colleges

This morning, I learned some new information about community colleges that surprised me. While fewer students that come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds attend community colleges than before, those with lower socioeconomic backgrounds are increasing. ​

The Century Foundation released key findings on Bridging the Higher Education Divide.​ According to the report, only a staggering 11% who enter community college with the hope of graduating with a BA actually do. I knew the figures were low, having spent a good deal of time reading and analyzing community colleges when I took an adult basic literacy class when I was in grad school. But I didn't know that they were this low.

To meet the demands on community colleges to pass out more than 5 million new degrees by 2020, the Century Foundation recommends that more federal dollars be spent to fund them, particularly giving more money to the colleges where high needs students are enrolled. Most of the recommendations were aimed at decreasing social and racial stratification. 

Although I do agree that these suggestions could in fact decrease the stratification, most recommendations merely looked at how to better integrate or rearrange the distribution of honors and/or wealthy students in community and four year colleges.  Few suggestions were made on how to actually help those high needs students rather than provide more funding, offer honors programs, make transferring credits easier, and allow high school students to get college credit. These are valuable ways to start to implement change, but high needs students are going to need more support.  These are structural suggestions.  But what can be done on an individual student level to make sure more than 11.6% earn a BA?​

I think we have to look at the critical role that teachers play.  It seems to me that in community colleges, when advisor or counselors are overwhelmed, the instructors need to go the extra mile to make sure their students have a goal and a plan for how to get there.  Until each student has someone helping and looking out for them, only incremental change will happen.​