The Changing Nature of the Teaching and Practice of Nature I

I have been bothered recently, and not been able to directly put my finger on anything concrete, about teaching and learning in the twenty-first century classroom. What has changed; what has not changed; what should be changing; what we should be thinking about. I am wondering what I need to be doing in my history classes, both in person and online, to prepare my students for the environment of the new century--and we are already a decade into the new century.
So much of the teaching that I am aware of at my college is still centered on providing students with information and expecting them to know that information. If you are wandering the halls and listening in on classes, in most cases, 80 to 90% of the time the voice that you will be hearing is the voice of the instructor. I'm not sure that is the way it should be.
What should students be doing (notice I used the verb "doing" not "learning") in the college classroom (or the virtual college classroom).
I'll come back to this.

More on Student Success

One of my colleagues reminded me about the fleetingness of numbers.
Many of the students enrolled in our history courses are students enrolled at other colleges and universities; they are not here to graduate from our community college. And so they are going to bring down our numbers in terms of students successfully graduating from here. I also have a lot of teachers, or future teachers, who just need to take a specific course for their credentials or licensing. They are not here to graduate also. And some students, often adult learners, enroll in the classes just for the fun of learning about history. The have no intention to graduate either.

What is Student Success?

Well, there is that mysterious term again, “Student success.” Been hearing that in all kinds of formulations from college administration these days, and I’ve become increasingly suspicious that no one really knows what it means. Everyone just assumes there is a commonly-accepted definition. Making it more problematic is that supposedly those using the term can cite statistics. Yes, data, but what does that data conceal or not reveal about student success.

Student A enrolls in my course, but student A is working two jobs, just changed jobs, and is signed up for fifteen credits. If student A withdraws from the course because of those demands (instead of failing the course), does that mean student success in the course is diminished according to the data.

Student B has also enrolled in my course, but student B is still working his way up the ESL and developmental reading ladder. Despite all the possible support in the course, student B fails the course. Now that obviously means that the student success rate in the course goes down.
But, what if Student B finishes the course and passes. How does the data reward that effort on the part of both instructor and student.

Student C, just decides he doesn’t like “history.” I guess that means that is not student success.

Student D plagiarizes in the course and, as a result fails. I guess that also is not student success.

Retention

Yes, the "r" word in higher education. Someone always seems to be expressing concern about it; whether students will succeed; whether students will come back and keep enrolling for more courses (and paying more tuition). Sometimes, we talk in the lingo of ATD, Achieving the Dream.
Well, to address retention, you've got to think of some of the factors involved:
a) proportion of courses taught by full-time versus adjunct instructors. Sure there are some great adjunct instructors and some poor full-time faculty, but the odds are not good for a lot of active-learning techniques being used by adjunct faculty
b) skill sets of the students (in terms of, for example, reading ability, writing skills, study skills, time management ability, etc). Some of that can be addressed, but only by a careful outlay of resources.
c) institutional facilities. When libraries and testing centers are not available to students on some evenings or on weekends, then that will put further barriers to students coming back for more classes.
d) course availabilities
e) institutional psychology. Look have you ever tried to brave your way through the Novaconnect/MyNova student information system. It is so un-user friendly, that it has got to frustrate students. We can't even give students a student ID; we have got to give them an EMPLID.
There were two more points, but I can't remember them now.