Articulation Isn’t Enough

Although articulation agreements help to ease the transfer between community colleges and four-year institutions, a new study finds that community college students are no less likely to transfer to a four-year institution in states without them. Other factors, such as the percentage of tenured faculty members and quality advising, were found to have a greater effect on the number of transfers to four-year institutions. The consensus that seemed to emerge at a recent Association of American Colleges and Universities meeting is that articulation agreements are “necessary but not sufficient” to encourage transfer.

Web 2.0-Savvy Teachers

Teachers are often portrayed as being clueless about technology, but shifting attitudes among teachers in recent years is putting that stereotype to the test. Web 2.0 technologies in particular, including blogs, podcasts and online features such as Google Earth, have found a receptive audience among educators. Instead of using class time to lecture, for example, some teachers are recording lessons onto podcasts that their students can listen to at home, thus freeing class time for hands-on learning. "There is a growing perception that student communication and online collaboration are important 21st-century skills," says Jeff Patterson, president of Gaggle.net, a company offering safe email for students. The question now is how can we incorporate these tools and use them to further learning rather than outlawing them as playthings or distractions.

Hands-On Learning

The findings of a Purdue University study suggest that hands-on, problem-solving learning may have advantages over traditional lecture- and textbook-based methods of teaching. In the study, students who were taught science in classes where the goal was to design and build a device to perform a specific task score significantly higher on tests than those receiving traditional classroom instruction. According to researchers, students were able to take what they had learned and apply it, as well answer test questions based on their experience. Samantha A. Murray, the American Society for Engineering Education's K-12 coordinator, said “the findings are 'timely and relevant' considering the nation's growing educational emphasis on boosting youngsters' grasp of science, technology, engineering and math."

Higher Education Accountability

In 2008, Education Sector conducted a comprehensive analysis of state higher education accountability systems, which examined thousands of documents and analyzed Web sites, laws, and policies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. For each state, the report worked to answer two fundamental questions: what kind of information does the state gather about its colleges and students, and how does the state use the information it gathers to make colleges and students more successful? The report concludes with a set of guidelines for designing a model state accountability system.

Developing Early Literacy

Large-scale studies have shown that children entering kindergarten and first grade vary greatly in their attainment of the early precursor skills that provide the launching pad for later literacy learning. In Developing Early Literacy, the National Early Literacy Panel examines the implications of instructional practices used with children from birth through age five. The report finds that teaching young children about letters and sounds before they begin formal schooling helps them develop a broad range of literacy skills deemed essential to learning to read later on. Other popular approaches in early-literacy instruction, such as teaching parents to teach skills and concepts of print, reading to children, and literacy and language instruction in preschool and kindergarten classrooms, are also effective.

Advantages of Associate Degrees and Certificates

A recent study confirms many suppositions about the links between education and work force success. Being from a low-income background hurts students’ chances of educational progress. Those who struggle in high school tend to fare less well in college and beyond. The further one advances educationally, the better one fares economically. But the study, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also suggests that low-income students who struggle in high school get more of an earnings boost by earning a certificate than they do achieving an associate degree at a two-year college. While some researchers warn against a sweeping embrace of that conclusion, they also cite the report as evidence of the need for more states to create longitudinal data systems such as the one that produced data for this report.