MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center Posts Promising Practices

As I have shared previously through this blog, I lead a team of volunteers working to identify best education practices for TRiO and GEAR UP federal grant programs.  These programs focus on assisting first-generation college, poor, and historically-underrepresented students complete high school and college.  It is called the MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center.  It is cosponsored by the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota and the Mid-American Association of Education Opportunity Program Personnel.  To help highlight the MAEOPP Center through this web page I have added a new tab to the top menu bar, "Best Practices."  The web page displays my thoughts about best education practices and then provides web links to the MAEOPP Center web site.

We are beginning to post best education practices to the MAEOPP Center web site that have been approved through an external expert panel.  The practices range in age from middle school through college.  As new ones are approved, they will be posted to the web site.  Each submission will be complete enough to provide basic information about it and how to implement.  Contact information is provided so you can follow up with the developers to talk more. 

New Research Confirms Old Findings for Improving Academic Success of Students of Color

From Inside HigherEd.  Click on this link for the entire article.  His research identifies practices that many TRiO programs use to support academic success of the students they serve.

Dr. Shawn previews research findings he'll be releasing formally today about the black and Latino male students who succeed in New York City high schools (and he said there was no reason to believe similar qualities don't help similar students in other urban high schools). The study wasn't of elite charter schools or wealthier parts of the city, but of students who had achieved academic success in regular high schools. Harper found not only that such students exist (no surprise to him, but perhaps to those who lament the dearth of such students) but that many of them have no idea that they would be attractive candidates for admission to some of the most elite colleges in the United States.

Harper -- director of the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania -- attracted considerable attention last year for a study in which he identified successful black male college students and examined the factors that led to their success. This new study is in a way the flip side of that research -- as his focus was on students in New York City high schools who could succeed in college (although he also included a group of New York City high school graduates who were in college for comparison purposes).

But what were the common characteristics that seemed to propel these students to succeed?

• Parental value of education. Many spoke of parents who related their own lack of education to their lack of money, and told their children they wanted better options for them.
• High expectations. The report says that "almost all" of the students in the study "remember being thought of as smart and capable when they were young boys."
• Learning to avoid neighborhood danger. Those who lived in unsafe neighborhoods reported parents who kept them inside whenever possible. Likewise, many of the students reported spending after-school hours in school buildings, in settings where they could study and also socialize in safer environments than were available to them near their homes.
• Avoiding gang recruitment. Many said that by becoming known as smart, and by having parents who didn't let them spend time outdoors, they weren't recruited into gangs.
• Teachers who cared and inspired. Harper asked the students to name and describe favorite high school teachers, and he noted that none of them had difficulty doing so, describing challenging teachers who knew and cared about them. He said that the teachers of these students are working in ways counter to the image of out-of-control urban schools.
• Reinforcement of college-going culture. One student noted that, at his high school, every day that a student was accepted at a college, the entire school was told about this over the public address system. While college-going might not be the norm for his socioeconomic group, he came to think of college-going as the norm from hearing these messages over and over again.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/30/new-study-explores-qualities-help-black-and-latino-males-succeed-high-school#ixzz2gOH4XCrF 
Inside Higher Ed 

Federal "Doing What Works" Website for Dissemination of Best Education Practices Suspended Abruptly Without Explanation

An important website for helping disseminate best education practices identified by the federal What Whats Clearinghouse has abrubtly suspended without explanation.  The "Doing What Works" website was a companion to the Institute for Educational Sciences' "What Works Clearinghouse" that evaluate educational practices regarding a stringent evaluation model.  While the WWC is very good at evaluating practices (some would argue the point their standards miss many worthy practices), they were not as user-friendly to understand "how" to implement the practices that they deemed worthy.  Doing What Works was a website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and developed by the Innovation Studies Program at WestEd in partnership with American Institutes for Research and RMC Research Corporation.

The Department of Education sent the following email to those on the mailing list for the Doing What Works website:

From: “U.S. Department of Education”
Subject: Update on the Doing What Works Website
Date: September 20, 2013 8:29:36 PM EDT
Dear subscriber:  The U.S. Department of Education has suspended operation of the Doing What Works website. We sincerely regret this unfortunate event. You can still acquire many DWW media and materials through other channels. Please email dww@wested.org for specific instructions on how you can gain access to DWW media and materials.  Sincerely, The DWW Team

Key web links for this news:

1. Report of the website closing by the Washington Post Online  From the author:  "I won’t mention the irony in the fact that department spends millions on school reform that has no proven record of success but ran out of cash for its Doing What Works website."
2. Link to an archieved copy of the Doing What Works website.  The website has now been erased without even a single web page directing people to other sources.  This "Wayback Machine" archive records every web page ever posted.  They archived so far 240 billion web pages.
3. Link to official Facebook page for Doing What Works. 
4. Link to official Facebook page for Doing What Works. 
5. Cosponsor WestED's announcement about suspending Doing What Works. 

Why is it important to note the demise of the DWW website?

The federal government spends hundreds of millions each year on funding grant programs in the Department of Education and other agencies.  The Government is very effective in spending enormous amounts of money, but lacks a coherent, sophisticated system to disseminate the lessons learned from the money spent.  The What Works Clearinghouse is effective at evaluating educational practices in K-12 education, but ignores postsecondary education.  However, WWC is not focused on providing easily understood and user friendly reports, videos, sample curriculum, and the like to implement the education practices that meet their standards.  Just sending us to "Google" is not an answer for understanding how to implement best education practices.  Last time I used the search words  "best", "education", and "practices" Google identified 274 million web pages.

A simple solution

When the government awards grants to education institutions, they allow them to charge "indirect costs" to the government for the costs to spend the grant money.  The argument is that the institution has to pay for the basic services (utilitis, bookkeeping, laboratories for experiments, etc) to host the project.  The government limits these indirect costs to perhaps eight percent for a grant from the Dept of Education and as high as 40 percent from the scientific agencies.  The government agrees it is part of the cost of doing business and permits the charges.

Why doesn't the government add their own "indirect cost" to grants that go to education institutions?  Hold back one or two percent of the annual appropriation for a grant program and use that to fund a sophisticated best education practices center that provides a user-friendly means to help people implement best education practices.  Why not spends a penny or two on the dollar to help people implement what already has been learned?

An example of this approach is a small pilot project I am involved with.  I lead a team of volunteers who have created a pilot best education practice center focused on college readiness and college success approaches.  It is cosponsored by the University of Minnesota and the Mid-America Association of Educational Program Personnel (MAEOPP), a regional association representing professionals involved with TRiO and GEAR UP programs.  Click on this link for the MAEOPP Cener for Best Education Practices.  If a group of volunteers can create something like this with next to no budget, what could be created if something more sophisticated was funded with that one or two percent hold back  of grant funds from the govenment?

California Basic Skills Completion Practices to Increase Student Success

The following is from the document and states its purpose.  I highly recommend it for reading on practical resource guide.  Click on the following link to open the document and download it if you like.  [Open Document] I think it is important to consider as we rethink the future of learning assistance and developmental education programs.

"This document is intended to be a practical resource guide for faculty, administrators, and staff to use as they develop, modify, and adapt data-supported and scalable programs and projects on their campuses. These programs include orientation, helping students learn to help themselves, classroom interventions, and course redesigns. Each year, the 112 California Community Colleges receive supplemental Basic Skills Initiative funding. Our hope is that this resource will help our colleges research, plan and implement programs and practices that will assist their students. This resource is neither a research paper nor a thought piece. It is also not a step-by-step “how to.” Instead, the resource is a guide to assist colleges in developing and implementing action plans for using their Basic Skills Initiative funds and any other available funding to increase student success. We encourage colleges to use these funds to institutionalize successful programs and practices and we discourage colleges’ use to implement new pilot programs that cannot be scaled up or sustained long term."

Disruptive Innovation: Embedding Learning Technology into the Classroom (Kellogg Institute Workshop)

On July  15 and 16 I presented a workshop at the Kellogg Institute on embeding learning technology within the classroom and campus learning center.  Click on this link to connect with a special web page that contains all the handouts, PP slides, and web links to other resources.  Most of the technologies shared are those I actually use with my gobal history course at the University of Minnesota.  Others are ones that I plan to pilot text over the upcoming years.

One basic principle to remember when contemplating use of a new learning technology is a basic one, why?  How will the technology help achieve student outocmes better than what is currently used?  How difficult will it be for the instructor and the students to use the technology?  Students have told me repeatedly that they like learning technology in the classroom as long as it is meaningful.  Never make the assumtion that it is easy for students to use without tutorials and support.  It is a learning curve for both the instructor and the students.

I am geeky by nature, but make a point to conduct focus groups with students before I introduce new technologies into the classroom.  These focus groups often give me insights into new emerging technologies that they are using that could be adapated for use within the classroom.  It has taken me a decade to add the learning technolgoies into my class, generally no more than one new thing during an academi semester.  I hope you find one or two ideas to experiment with from all the materials provided through this web site.  Best wishes with your work.

Embedding Universal Learning Design in the Classroom Workshop, Maricopa Community College System, June 4, 2013

On June 4th I conducted a workshop with a group of educators from the Maricopa Community College System in Arizona on how to embed Universal Learning Design in the Classroom and within Student Services.  Below are links to some of the resources shared during the workshop that help explore this topic.

Click on this web link for a separate web page of all the resources shared during the conference.

Additional resources are available through a blog page maintained on this topic.  The web site contains audio interviews with some peer study group leaders, links to online resources, and links to training programs from nationally-known organizations.  Click on the following web link, PALgroups.

Intentional Teaching Conference, 05/22/13, Eau Claire, WI

On Wednesday May 22, 2013 th I provided an online presentation for a 2nd annual gathering of Wisconsin college developmental educators and others involved with college student success.  The host institution was Chippewa Valley Technical College. The following items were referenced through the keynote and concurrent presentations and may be helpful as the reader explores this topic. Click on the web link to download.

Click on this link to open a web page of links to resources shared during the keynote and concurrent conference sessions.

Additional resources are available through a blog page maintained on this topic.  The web site contains audio interviews with some peer study group leaders, links to online resources, and links to training programs from nationally-known organizations.  Click on the following web link, PALgroups.