This blog focuses on my scholarship in my five research projects: learning assistance and equity programs, student peer study group programs, learning technologies, Universal Design for Learning, and history simulations. And occasional observations about life.
My "Deer" Valentine
For the first two week of February a female deer found my backyard a safe place to sleep during the days. Then each evening she disappeared to do what deer do. Finally after two weeks, she disappeared the evening before Valentine's Day. Here is tribute to my short term neighbor. Click on the play button to watch the slides I took through my downstairs bedroom window. Enjoy.
Season's Greetings from My Home to Yours
I hope that you enjoy some of my favorite images and movies from this holiday season.
Go to Animoto.com to create your own account to send cards and create music videos like this that mixes your own photographs and music that Animoto supplies. A free account is available for making 30 second videos. There is a small annual charge for longer ones.
Selecting the Most Appropriate Peer Learning Program
Following is a link to a presentation that I delivered at the 2009 Noel-Levitz Conference on Student Recruitment and Retention. The presentation focused on a decision-making system for selecting the most appropriate peer learning program for a campus. After sharing a system for analyzing not only the proposed academic intervention, but also the capacity of the campus to support the innovation, an overview is provided for seveal of the major national models in peer assisted learning (PAL): Emerging Scholars Program, Peer-led Team Learning, Structured Learning Assistance, Supplemental Instruction, and Video-based Supplemental Instruction. Click on the following link to download the PDF handout of the presentation.
NL 2009 PAL Programs, Choosing the Most Effective Model.pdf
Go to my other blog page, Peer Assisted Learning Groups ("http://palgroups.org":http://palgroups.org). Links on the right hand side of this blog also provide links to other helpful resources regarding PAL programs. The annotated bibliography of PAL programs provides a summary of all the publications related to the major PAL programs. An updated version of the annotated bibliography will be posted by the end of August 2009. Check back then.
Colorado Vacation 2003
The music video below is of a vacation with my friends Pat and Mary that we took to Colorado in 2003. The big highlight was riding the steam train from Durango to Silverton, staying the night, and then riding back. Another was visitng the Royal Gorge. Click on the arrow in the middle of the video screen to start. I used the same software as the previous posting described below from Animoto.com Enjoy.
World War Two Exam Study Review with Music Video
Click on the arrow within the video window below to play a music video that I made by combining PowerPoint slides from lectures about World War II and mixing in music that my students like (and is legal by the way). The PP slides are simplified ones from what were displayed during class. The process for making the music video was by a commercial company called Animoto. http://animoto.com Teachers can apply for a special educator classification and gain access for you and students in the class for six months. Their site provides the legal software to use in mixing witht he video. Go to the webiste and they have plenty of information and provide other samples. This is powerful stuff. My students said that it was useful for a last summary of material that they had been studying in preparation for the unit exam. Enjoy.
USDOE 2008 Digest of Education Statistics
USDOE just released the 2008 Digest of Education Statistics at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009020.pdf It is quite a referencee guide spanning more than 700 pages. I was curious about offerings of developmental-level courses at different types of U.S. postsecondary institutions. That table is found on page 469. USDOE still uses old language when describing these courses. They use the term "remedial" rather than "developmental". While such courses are nearly universal at all public community colleges. However, the percent of public four year colleges has declined by more than 10 percentage points over the past decade.
As more public, four-year institutions seek to improve their standings through external rating services and they also engage in "mission differentiation" to establish a niche for themselves, more and more of them are eliminating developmental-level courses with the hope that students will begin their career at a community college that offers the needed courses and then perhaps transfer to the senior institution later. There was the time when most postsecondary institutions sought to be comprehensive and nearly all of them offered remedial and developmental-level courses for all their students. That is a part of the history of U.S. higher educaton that is too often overlooked and underreported.
One-third of recent PA Students Enroll in Developmental-Level Courses
One third of freshmen enter Pennsylvania’s two-year and four-year public colleges not prepared for college-level math or English and require remedial work to catch up, at a cost to the state of $26 million a year, according to a report released Wednesday by Pennsylvania’s education secretary. This is consistent with USDOE studies that document that about one-third of entering college students enroll in one or more developmental-level courses.
Gerald L. Zahorchak cited the report as evidence of the need for statewide high school graduation requirements. The full press release is available by clicking on the following web link, http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-21-2009/0004958243&EDAT