Higher education is going through a significant period of change following the COVID-19 pandemic. The increased technological capacity and desire for online modalities are both a great opportunity and a potentially challenging burden. Although they serve the most marginalized students, community colleges are often vastly under-resourced, leaving…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to discover the asynchronous online learning experiences that support learning motivation for community college degree-seeking non-traditional adult learners in the United States. The theoretical framework guiding this study is Knowles' andragogy adult learning theory. The utilization of…

Research concerning instructor feedback suggests that it should move beyond just providing "hopefully useful comments" and towards a higher standard of student-centered feedback that encourages self-regulation. Instructor feedback enhances student academic achievement and can positively affect students' self-regulation, especially…

A quantitative predictive correlational study was conducted to find to what extent, if any, gender and adult student status, individually or in combination, moderates the predictive relationships between resilience and self-regulated strategies of Goal Setting (GS), Environment Structuring (ES), Task Strategies (TS), Time Management (TM), Help…

Physiology concepts, such as acid-base balance, may be difficult for students to understand. Systems modeling, a cognitive tool, allows students to visualize their mental model of the problem space to enhance learning and retention. We performed a within-subjects three-period randomized control comparison of systems modeling versus written…

As community colleges create or enhance their online learning programs, campus leaders must find ways to make these experiences equitable for all students, so that everyone has a fair chance at success. Colleges are using a wide array of innovative strategies to do this. These methods include designing online courses with inclusion in mind,…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted community colleges and created a new context in which they were forced to operate. Faculty, especially those who normally taught in-person, were required to transition quickly to fully online classrooms. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted at the start of the pandemic with 17 students pursuing degree…

The demand for college faculty to teach online has increased substantially over recent years (Jaschik & Lederman, 2022; Perrotta & Bohan, 2020). However, online courses are often ineffectual (Hart et al., 2018; Su & Waugh, 2018) and expand gaps in equity and student achievement (Sublett, 2022). These problems may be linked to…

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, embedded tutoring became a popular model to address the need for additional student support in higher education. Four U.S. community colleges collaborated to develop a successful embedded tutoring model that provides a framework and definition for embedded tutoring and training for tutors and participating…

Many colleges have initiated Student Success Coaching programs to support students from enrollment to completion. The purpose of this study was to design and implement an online training program to ensure that new Success Coaches at one community college receive adequate training before beginning to work with students. A review of the literature…

To increase student success, higher education needs highly-trained faculty who are prepared to meet the needs of today's community college students. High-impact faculty professional development is vital to meet that need. With barriers to faculty attendance at traditional, synchronous trainings, leaders are considering alternative options. Using…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the impact of the rapid shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic on a community college. This study focused on examining the attitudes of the faculty towards online teaching and their teaching practices. Additionally, the study aimed to understand the impact of the rapid shift to…

eSports is an increasingly visible part of our popular culture and is becoming both a financial and technological force. In higher education, community colleges are rapidly developing eSports programs for a variety of reasons, including increasing student engagement to developing alumni relationships. Although some discussion exists in sports…

Online learning provides students greater access to higher education opportunities when regular, on-campus options are not viable. However, for administrators and educators, online learning can be difficult to assess and ensure quality, which leads institutions to use quality assurance frameworks such as the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program…

This study used a hermeneutic phenomenology methodology to determine whether the faculty participants at a Midwestern community college used servant leadership (SL) during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of March 2020. The goal was to see how well the participants, through SL, addressed and supported their students' online learning needs and…