"I Came in Unsure of Everything": Community College Students' Shifts in Confidence

To improve low rates of credential attainment in community colleges, individual schools as well as a number of national organizations have developed a range of initiatives focused on increasing rates of college completion and student success. Although the importance of non-academic factors in college completion and student success has been well established, questions remain about the best ways to structure the community college environment to foster students' sense of belonging and promote behaviors that are associated with success. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by focusing on the academic confidence of students at the outset of their community college careers, the ways in which their confidence may impact student behaviors and persistence, and how student confidence is affected by students' experiences in college. Using data from nearly 100 community college student interviews, this paper examines students' descriptions of their confidence upon entering college and of the shifts in confidence they experienced early in their college careers. Our findings suggest that student confidence is shaped in part by past academic experiences and expectations of college upon entry. Using student descriptions of their perceptions of college and of themselves, we describe the characteristics of students who describe themselves as self-assured and those who identify as apprehensive. The interview data reveal that student confidence is continually shifting as a result of interactions with peers, faculty, and others. Our analysis also indicates that academic confidence can impact student motivation and academic behaviors that are associated with success. Importantly, this paper identifies the nature of those experiences that positively reinforce student confidence, events that we term experiences of earned success. Finally, we describe ways to structure classroom and other on-campus environments to create opportunities for students to experience earned success and ultimately enhance their commitment to academic pursuits

Enhancing Rigor in Developmental Education

How can instructors prepare students for college-level courses and beyond when many students enter the classroom in need of significant support to develop their academic skills and knowledge? This issue of Inside Out, a publication of CCRC’s Scaling Innovation project, addresses this question by describing how community college faculty are working to increase rigor within reformed developmental education classrooms. The authors focus on three strategies instructors have utilized to create a more rigorous curriculum and new instructional approaches, and they describe faculty and student experiences with these strategies in developmental courses

IHS Roundtable: Between Neocolonial Collecting and Anticolonial Resistance? The Logic of Afro- Latine/Latine/Latin-American Archives in the United States

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Accelerating the Integrated Instruction of Developmental Reading and Writing at Chabot College

This paper uses qualitative and quantitative data to compare the outcomes of students at Chabot College who participated in an accelerated, one-semester developmental English course and their peers who participated in a two-semester sequence. The sample included first-time students who entered college between summer 1999 and fall 2010; students were tracked for up to five years. Propensity score matching and regression analyses show that participation in the accelerated course was positively associated with a range of positive short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes, including entry-level college English completion, credit accumulation, grade point average, transfer to a four-year institution, and certificate and degree attainment. To better understand the quantitative findings, the authors draw on data from interviews with faculty, administrators, and staff; student focus groups; and classroom observations. The authors posit that the benefits of an accelerated course structure are amplified at Chabot College by a developmental English curriculum that is well aligned with college-level English and that develops critical academic literacy skills

Strengthening Developmental Education Reforms: Evidence on Implementation Efforts From the Scaling Innovation Project

In this paper, the authors draw on empirical data from the Community College Research Center’s Scaling Innovation project to examine trends in developmental education instructional reform and outline a framework for reform adoption and adaptation. The paper’s findings are based on two qualitative data sources: a scan of developmental education reforms that involved changes to curricula, course structure, and/or pedagogy; and fieldwork conducted at 11 colleges working to replicate highpotential instructional innovations developed at other colleges. The data suggest that colleges tend to enact developmental education reforms in ways that may unintentionally undermine their potential benefits. The authors present a framework for engaging practitioners in activities that will increase the impact of their developmental education reforms while strengthening institutional capacity

The Body in Isolation: The Physical Health Impacts of Incarceration in Solitary Confinement

We examine how solitary confinement correlates with self-reported adverse physical health outcomes, and how such outcomes extend the understanding of the health disparities associated with incarceration. Using a mixed methods approach, we find that solitary confinement is associated not just with mental, but also with physical health problems. Given the disproportionate use of solitary among incarcerated people of color, these symptoms are most likely to affect those populations. Drawing from a random sample of prisoners (n = 106) in long-term solitary confinement in the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2017, we conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary files for these subjects. We also conducted a paper survey of the entire long-term solitary confinement population (n = 225 respondents) and analyzed administrative data for the entire population of prisoners in the state in 2017 (n = 17,943). Results reflect qualitative content and descriptive statistical analysis. BPRS scores reflect clinically significant somatic concerns in 15% of sample. Objective specification of medical conditions is generally elusive, but that, itself, is a highly informative finding. Using subjective reports, we specify and analyze a range of physical symptoms experienced in solitary confinement: (1) skin irritations and weight fluctuation associated with the restrictive conditions of solitary confinement; (2) un-treated and mis-treated chronic conditions associated with the restrictive policies of solitary confinement; (3) musculoskeletal pain exacerbated by both restrictive conditions and policies. Administrative data analyses reveal disproportionate rates of racial/ethnic minorities in solitary confinement. This analysis raises the stakes for future studies to evaluate comparative prevalence of objective medical diagnoses and potential causal mechanisms for the physical symptoms specified here, and for understanding differential use of solitary confinement and its medically harmful sequelae

Terapia con mascotas: perspectivas en la Salud Pública.

La terapia con mascotas es un término amplio que consiste en terapia y otras actividades asistidas por animales. La terapia asistida por animales es un campo en expansión que utiliza perros u otros animales para ayudar a las personas a recuperarse o a afrontar mejor los problemas de salud, como las enfermedades cardíacas, el cáncer y los trastornos mentales. Por otra parte, las actividades asistidas por animales tienen un objetivo más general, como brindar consuelo y esparcimiento a los residentes de las casas de reposo. Tradicionalmente la función de los perros ha estado direccionada a las labores de caza, protección al ganado y la defensa de las cosechas; la función del gato mayormente se ha desarrollado en la captura de roedores y otros animales que ponían en peligro las áreas de asentamientos humanos, a pesar de sus diferencias, estas mascotas han mostrado hasta nuestros días habilidades para proporcionar mejoras a las personas en el campo de la Psicoterapia, Educación Especial y la Rehabilitación, convirtiéndose en ayudantes o coterapeutas

College 101 Courses for Applied Learning and Student Success

College 101 courses—also called student success, introduction to college, orientation to college, or freshman experience courses—provide students with information about college and campus services, assistance with academic and career planning, and techniques to improve study habits and personal skills. This study investigated College 101 courses at three community colleges in Virginia through interviews with 169 college staff members, faculty members, and students combined with observations of 19 course sections. Although College 101 courses were found to be widely supported by stakeholders, contextual factors made implementation challenging and undermined the courses’ potential to create long-lasting impacts on students’ outcomes. College 101 courses provided students with important information, but they did not offer sufficient opportunities for in-depth exploration and skill-building practice. However, the authors found strong evidence of the worth and promise of College 101 courses and identified ways to optimize them and generate long-term results

Drug discovery for Diamond-Blackfan anemia using reprogrammed hematopoietic progenitors

Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a congenital disorder characterized by the failure of erythroid progenitor differentiation, severely curtailing red blood cell production. Because many DBA patients fail to respond to corticosteroid therapy, there is considerable need for therapeutics for this disorder. Identifying therapeutics for DBA requires circumventing the paucity of primary patient blood stem and progenitor cells. To this end, we adopted a reprogramming strategy to generate expandable hematopoietic progenitor cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from DBA patients. Reprogrammed DBA progenitors recapitulate defects in erythroid differentiation, which were rescued by gene complementation. Unbiased chemical screens identified SMER28, a small-molecule inducer of autophagy, which enhanced erythropoiesis in a range of in vitro and in vivo models of DBA. SMER28 acted through autophagy factor ATG5 to stimulate erythropoiesis and up-regulate expression of globin genes. These findings present an unbiased drug screen for hematological disease using iPSCs and identify autophagy as a therapeutic pathway in DBA.National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (U.S.) (Grant R24-DK092760)National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (U.S.) (Grant R24-DK49216)National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (U.S.) (Grant U54DK110805)National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Grant UO1-HL100001)National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Grant U01HL134812)National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Grant R01HL04880)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R24OD017870-01