This week, we're wrapping up all of our readings. The first set of readings was Chapter 7 and the Conclusion of Educating a Diverse Nation, which focused on best practices for working with today's diverse student populations and common themes among the ways Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) work. Here's a brief look at the best practices:
The common themes among MSIs included:
The next reading was about community colleges. My first thought when I saw this was, "Oh Dr. Latz, you're just trying to get us hooked so we take your other classes!" (Don't worry, we didn't need this reading to get us hooked...) Seriously though, I was excited to read this one. I have not sought out much information on community colleges, so my knowledge is very limited. Even this one article alone helped me consider community colleges from a whole new perspective. I was struck by the sentence, "Community colleges are a uniquely American contribution to higher education" (p. 2). In our other classes, we talk about how our university system is based largely on German and other European models. It made me proud to learn that we are responsible for community colleges rather than just looking to others for guidance. We talked in class about community college's ability to respond to the community and their responsibility to boost the economy around them, so that part of this reading just reinforced our discussion. The small class sizes and - more importantly - the focus on instruction really stood out to me. The article says community college professors/instructors are not required to do research or publish, allowing them more opportunity to focus on teaching. It made me consider the following questions:
The last reading was about adult learners. I was surprised this reading was not with the readings from Week 8 that focused on adult learners. However, I felt like it still presented new information and insights about adult learners. I appreciated the article highlighting the convergence between adult education and higher education. Additionally, I was struck by the reminder that learning is even more of a focus for adult learners than learners straight out of high school; often times, adult learners aren't really at college for the traditional experience of higher education but rather to learn what they need to, develop relationships with faculty, and earn their degree. This shifts how we must try to engage them and support their success. And so concludes the weekly readings for this semester. It's been a fun ride, folks.
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Kristin KreherMy happiness comes from meaningful interactions, the outdoors, thrift shops, and saying "thank you." Archives
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