Many historically underrepresented students enroll in online classes because they need the flexibility to balance work, family, and coursework (Phirangee et al., 2016). However, community college students are less successful in online classes than they are in face-to-face classes (Xu & Jaggars, 2014). Feelings of isolation and disconnectedness…

Online community college instructors' failure to effectively utilize asynchronous discussion boards negatively impacts student course outcomes. However, it is unclear exactly what practices instructors use in their discussion boards. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study was to investigate community college instructors' practices…

One strategy to transform the high attrition rates among community college (CC) students is for CC instructors to utilize the teaching practices shown to most likely lead to student success. CC students and faculty are underrepresented in biology education research (BER), with only 3% of BER articles addressing CC-specific issues (Schinske et al.…

This research addresses how part-time and full-time faculty roles have changed over recent years and the role that faculty development programs have played in assisting faculty with adjusting to these changes. This phenomenological study explored self-efficacy formation and intrinsic motivation of instructors taking part in a professional…

This author's reading selection for his class provoked an unexpected response: when one of the main characters in the reading "came out of the closet," the students divided themselves into those who were willing to discuss the issues, and those who weren't.

With the rapid growth of online learning at community colleges and the low course completion and performance associated with it, there has been increasing need to identify effective ways to address the challenges in online teaching and learning at this setting. Based on open-ended survey responses from 105 instructors and 365 students from…

Despite the need to provide differentiated instruction to diverse learners in contemporary CTE programs across institutes of higher education, little research has explored the actual classroom instructional strategies employed in postsecondary settings. To that end, this study found 387 CTE faculty most frequently use interactive lecture,…

Engagement matters, and it is critical for student success and for community college faculty and staff who are responsible for helping students learn and achieve their goals. It is particularly critical for community colleges to find ways to engage part-time faculty who are responsible for such a significant part of most students' college…

The "Find Your Classroom Voice Program" has been offered at Kingsborough Community College for the past three years. Its purpose is to enable students who are consistently inactive in class discussions (and who might be called "classroom-specific social phobic") to develop the ability to take a more active role in the classroom. With its success,…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the role of teacher knowledge in the instructional methods of a community college developmental literacy instructor and determine in what ways that knowledge may have impacted the perceptions of the student participants regarding their authority over their academic progress in the class. Therefore,…

Student outcomes in online courses trail considerably behind those in face-to-face courses. In order to gain insight into why this might be, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) undertook a series of studies that examined 23 high-demand, entry-level online courses at two community colleges in one state. CCRC researchers observed the online…

This research investigated faculty choice of web-based technologies for interaction in online economics courses and students' perception of those technologies. The literature review of online interaction has established the importance of learner-learner, learner-instructor and learner-content interaction in distance learning. However, some…

Critical thinking is a highly desirable goal of online higher education courses. This article presents qualitative data from a mixed-method study that explores how asynchronous discussions within online courses influence critical thinking among students. In this study, online discussions were related to higher levels of critical thinking, but…

The purpose of the research was to define online bullying, determine its incidence in higher education, and survey methods instructors used to respond to those students who use the online forum to intimidate or offend their classmates or instructors. The study extended Tattum and Tattum's (1992) definition of bullying to define the term…

For the thirty-sixth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Anaheim, California. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…