Microsoft Founder Chips In To LaGuardia
LaGuardia Community College Foundation has been awarded a grant of over $1 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the development of Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC), it was announced.
GSCC, a project partnership between LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City and Knowledge in the Public Interest, is a network of community college faculty and researchers committed to the idea that improving our nation’s graduation rates starts with the professors who teach basic skills in mathematics and English.
GSCC has created an online practice improvement strategy that allows college faculty across the country to connect with and learn from each other in order to help students achieve better pass rates in basic skills classes.
Over the past two years, GSCC worked with 25 of the country’s most effective professors teaching remediation at community colleges across the country, gathering information about their classroom methods of success. Using innovative technology and a set of powerful digital tools created by GSCC, faculty examined and analyzed their personal teaching patterns.
GSCC faculty also connected and worked with each other to create more engaging, inspiring and effective classrooms by testing and adapting new tactics that improve student outcomes. GSCC has analyzed its data to identify classroom practices most commonly used by great teachers and found that it’s not just about what they teach, but how it is taught.
“At a time when an educated workforce is more important than ever before, the time for a bold new look at college-particularly in remedial classrooms-is now. This generous grant from [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] will enable GSCC to continue our important work with faculty across the country, using new tactics and technology to improve our nation’s graduation rates,” said Dr. Gail O. Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College and a co-principal investigator for GSCC.
The current award will allow GSCC to launch a second cohort of full time and adjunct faculty who teach remedial mathematics or English, to be recruited from community colleges across the country as well as to refine GSCC’s innovative online tools. A call for the faculty participants will be issued later this month for a fall semester launch.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation award will also fund the development of a business plan for an online research and development network that will capitalize on the success of the GSCC. The network will be a linked system that can support and supplement research in developmental education by providing a ready set of faculty to explore and test activities, curriculum, online tools and other items that are being developed by other projects-in real time in actual classrooms.
“Our paradigm-shifting methods help faculty re-examine their own practices, test and adapt methods most appropriate to their own challenges and connect with fellow educators for a larger network of support and ideas,” added Dr. Diana D. Woolis, founding partner of Knowledge in the Public Interest. “This funding will allow GSCC to bring this innovative approach to community colleges across the country in order to bring better outcomes to the students who need it most.”
For information about GSCC, contact Dr. Marisa Klages, project director, by phone at 1-718-482-5677 or e-mail mklages@lagcc.cuny.edu.
