This is a qualitative study that explores how successful supplemental mathematics instructors prepare their students for on-level mathematics, that is taken as a corequisite, at a rural Midwestern community college. Using the Zone of Proximal Development with educational scaffolding as a theoretical framework, this study considers how scaffolding…

Mathematical problem posing, or authoring mathematical tasks, can allow students to integrate their interests and experiences into the classroom. Little research has explored different designs for scaffolding or facets of posed problem quality, particularly when problem posing is based on students' interests. We created an environment that enabled…

The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the effect of instructional scaffolding on information literacy skills of college students in an English Composition I (ENG 101) course at Urban Community College in the Southeast. Information literacy is defined as a set of skills to recognize an information need as well as locate, evaluate, and…

Limited research examines writing tutors' self-efficacy, or how tutors believe "in their abilities to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 2006, p. 307). This qualitative constant comparative study explored self-efficacy's impact on tutoring strategies writing tutors use in recorded digital tutoring conferences with community college…

The past 10 years have seen a major shift in English and English as a Second Language (ESL) placement and pedagogy in California's Community Colleges (CCC), driven by a developmental education reform movement known as acceleration. Popularized by the faculty-led California Acceleration Project (CAP), the acceleration movement focused on reducing…

Librarians at a community college in New York City identified that, unassisted, undergraduate students often find it difficult to categorize the various information formats they are locating and citing, such as a newspaper article, a book, a scholarly article, a blog or wiki entry, or a reference source. Due to their untrained approach defining…

This paper presents an overall educational philosophy of working with students underprepared for college-level work, which we term "a pedagogy of preparation." We consider how instructors scaffolded instruction to foster college readiness in students who were now able to enroll in college-level work regardless of academic preparation…

This study aimed to investigate the differences in learners' emotion, cognitive load, and cognitive performance among various scaffolding DGBLs, and the influences of emotion and cognitive load on cognitive performance when using DGBLs. Participants were 97 adult learners from some community college, randomly divided into the control group with 32…

There has been a little research on emotion, cognitive load, or learning performance for digital game-based learning (DGBL). However, there is still a dearth of research on investigating the interactive effects of scaffolding DGBL and cognitive style on the above three outcomes. Participants were 97 middle-aged and elder adults from a community…

This paper presents an overall educational philosophy of working with students underprepared for college-level work, which we term "a pedagogy of preparation." We consider how instructors scaffolded instruction to foster college readiness in students who were now able to enroll in college-level work regardless of academic preparation…

When looking at today's Community College graduation rates, dropout rates and time to completion of degrees, it is abundantly clear that a problem exists. This study examined the characteristics of community colleges in New Jersey and student experiences that contribute to the dismal statistics. Mathematics curriculum in P-12 falls short on…

Instructor-made-videos (IMVs) are often used to foster learning in higher education. However, there is a dearth of studies on IMVs for any instructor to understand and replicate the success. In response, to better inform practice, the impact of IMVs on learning effectiveness and satisfaction was evaluated. Thereafter, an actionable framework…

Handwriting is a multisensory process known to enhance memory, focus, engagement, and cognition in the learner, thereby making it a valuable study skill. In an attempt to embed handwriting as a study skill in a gateway science course, I used a combination of scaffolding and individual student consultations. Scaffolding emphasized the use of…

Understanding community college English language learner (ELL) goals may help educators better support ELLs to set and pursue those goals. One lens that has illuminated important differences in ELL goals is constructive-developmental theory (CDT). Using a CDT lens, this qualitative case study investigated the goals of six community college ELLs…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how educational scaffolding may explain changing patterns of student success in mathematics in the era of developmental education (DE or remediation) reform in Florida College System (FCS) institutions. Specifically, we apply the concept of scaffolding to underprepared FCS students who are at…