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Category: CCRI Staff News

Transition Coming for CCRI

Welcome Dr. Lia Wetzstein, our new Acting Director of CCRI

We’ve seen tremendous change in education and the economy since Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) opened its doors on May 1, 2016. Since those early days, we at CCRI have used our research skills to study policy and program improvements to transfer and baccalaureate attainment, always seeking to advance equity in community college reform. We’ve accomplished a lot over these last four years and more good things are coming. 

In this August 2020 newsletter, we spotlight our New Directions for Community Colleges on “Transfer Partnerships for Improved Equity and Outcomes” just published by Wiley, thanks to NDCC editor and colleague, Pamela Eddy at William & Mary. I am grateful to my co-editors Theresa Ling Yeh, Lia Wetzstein, and Elizabeth Apple Meza who authored chapters and encouraged authors in Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and Washington to write about their efforts to ensure more equitable bachelor’s degree completion for community college transfer students. This focus on equity threads through all of our work, undergirding our decisions about what thorny issues to study and problems to help solve.

We are also wrapping up the first phase of our research on community college baccalaureates (CCB) with our partner, the Center on Education and Skills at New America (CESNA), where I am a Fellow for Community College Education. CCRI’s collaboration with Mary Alice McCarthy, CESNA’s director, and her colleagues Iris Palmer and Ivy Love, has created a treasure trove of briefs, blogs and materials on state and institutional adoption of CCB degrees in states across the country. Delving deepest in CCB attainment, employment and wages in Florida and Washington, we are expanding knowledge on the CCB in substantive ways. I am so proud of our work, and I look forward to seeing where our collaboration will take us in the future.

Most importantly, we welcome new leadership for CCRI at UW. At the end of August, I will step back from my director role to pass the baton to Dr. Lia Wetzstein. Dr. Wetzstein has received her UW Service Award for dedicating 20 years of her professional career to the University of Washington. Lia has been a thought leader since joining the team, and she has the vision and energy needed for this important transition. Lia was the first research scientist that I hired for CCRI, and she has been a dedicated collaborator and creative contributor ever since. Many more good things are coming for CCRI as the team’s plans evolve, and I urge you to remain an integral part of the journey.

I am pleased to recognize another transition that is happening at this time. Starting July 1 Elizabeth Apple Meza, Senior Research Scientist, joined Grant Blume, Senior Lecturer, in the Evan’s School for Public Policy and Governance to work on an exciting initiative focusing on data-driven decision-making. Their grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) supports a partnership with Washington community and technical colleges to study and support data use by faculty for program improvement. Their group is actively pursuing partnerships in and beyond Washington to grow this exciting work.

I want to thank colleagues across UW who gave me the opportunity to serve the citizens of our great state. Special thanks to UW President Ana Mari Cauce for seeing the value of my work and to Janice DeCosmo, Ed Taylor, and Christine Muongchanh for creating a home for it to flourish. I am also very grateful to the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) for partnering with CCRI. To Jan Yoshiwara, Kristi Wellington-Baker and countless others, I express pride in our shared accomplishments. I also share my gratitude with CCRI team members during my tenure, Elizabeth Apple Meza, Grant Blume, Tim Harmon, Katie Kovacich, Joe Lott, James Siap, Maria Claudia Soler, Jaylen Willingham, Theresa Ling Yeh, and William Zumeta. Every one of you is an incredible talent and true blessing to UW and Washington state. 

Finally, to colleagues, family and friends back in my home state of Illinois, I’m giving you fair warning that I’m coming back to the place my love for community colleges began and evolved over many years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My passion for Illinois’ deep commitment to addressing systemic inequities to improve all of education couldn’t be stronger, and I very much look forward to working with you again.

Sincerely,

Debra Bragg
Founding Director, CCRI

Connecting Learning About the Earth to Societal Issues: Downstream Effects on Faculty Teaching

This past Spring we had CCRI’s very own Lia Wetzstein’s work published! Read about the paper below, then download the article directly or access via Wiley Online Library.

About this article

This study provides an empirical look at the impact on instructors interacting with sustainability curriculum in different ways across multiple institutions and disciplines via InTeGrate. While international studies underscore an emergent relationship between sustainability curricula, active learning pedagogies, and student learning outcomes, a gap exists in the literature in understanding benefits perceived by faculty who create such curricula.

Moreover, even less is understood about the downstream influence on the teaching practices of faculty. In this chapter, downstream, is used to describe faculty who did not create sustainability curriculum but adopted the curriculum created by others.

Research Questions

What did instructors find beneficial while creating, modifying, and utilizing InTeGrate sustainability materials and overtime? How did the creation and utilization of the sustainability curriculum influence instructors’ use of active learning techniques? How did structuring the curriculum around guiding principles focused on sustainability education influence instructors’ teaching?

Read & Download  
Access via Wiley

New America

Hear from our Director about how community colleges can help their communities recover from COVID-19. As well as why the US government should assist them to do so based on lessons learned from the TAACCCT grant!

Read Article

New Journal Article on Science Education

We’re thrilled to announce a new STEM publication in Cognition and Instruction that CCRI’s Lia Wetzstein co-authored with former colleagues, Susan Bobbitt Nolan and Alexandra Goodell, from their research together at the LIFE Center, University of Washington.

Keywords: Science education, project-based learning, motivation and engagement, material tools, design-based research, cultural-historical activity theory

Designing Material Tools to Mediate Disciplinary Engagement in Environmental Science

Published online February 4, 2020

ABSTRACT
Disciplinary activity in science is tool-mediated, and instructional designers often build in opportunities for students to use the conceptual and material tools of the discipline as they engage in activity. When this activity takes place in schools, students and teachers may modify or reject disciplinary tools to fit the goals of schooling. We report collaborative, design-based research to develop and optimize material tools to mediate student and teacher activity in a project-based high school environmental science course along dimensions thought to promote productive disciplinary engagement. We use Engestrom’s Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to understand both the collaborative design process (university-based researchers and classroom teachers) and the implementation in classrooms. In addition to quantitative analyses of student engagement, two cases of design-test-redesign-retest cycles are presented to illustrate our methods and provide evidence for the use of material tools to support productive disciplinary engagement. Based on our research, we suggest design principles for developing material tools to support disciplinary engagement which take into account the necessary hybridity of project-based learning in schools. Implications for design and implementation of project-based science are discussed.

Here is the suggested citation and access the full article:

Susan Bobbitt Nolen, Lia Wetzstein & Alexandra Goodell (2020) Designing Material Tools to Mediate Disciplinary Engagement in Environmental Science, Cognition and Instruction, DOI: 10.1080/07370008.2020.1718677

CCRI in U.S. News!

CCRI Director Debra Bragg was mentioned in a recent article by U.S. News & World Report! The
article discusses the rise of bachelor’s options at community colleges nationwide and three
reasons why international students should consider community college as an option.

Read the Article

AERA Annual Meeting 2019

CCRI researchers enjoyed presenting research on high performing transfer partnerships and faculty as change agents at the American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in April. It is great to engage and learn from our colleagues at these events – especially those who show up ready to ask questions at 8 a.m. sessions! 

Continue reading “AERA Annual Meeting 2019”

Developing Faculty Change Agents: CSCC Presentation Recap

Improving access to STEM education and jobs depends in part on rethinking how science is taught in the classroom and how students are introduced to career pathways. CCRI’s Debra Bragg is an external evaluator for an NSF-funded project that supports and encourages faculty to lead that kind of change. In March, she joined the researchers involved in the project to facilitate a session at the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) Annual Conference. Continue reading “Developing Faculty Change Agents: CSCC Presentation Recap”