The Role of the Classroom in College Student Persistence : New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 115 (Paperback)

EDITOR'S NOTES (John M. Braxton).

1. Curricular Learning Communities and Unprepared Students: How Faculty Can Provide a Foundation for Success (Cathy McHugh Engstrom)
This chapter richly describes four teaching practices used by faculty in learning communities. These teaching practices foster the persistence of underprepared college students.

2. Promoting Persistence and Success of Underrepresented Students: Lessons for Teaching and Learning (Jillian Kinzie, Robert Gonyea, Rick Shoup, George D. Kuh)
This chapter describes curricular and classroom practices that benefit underrepresented students by increasing their chances for success in college in the form of engagement and persistence.

3. Closing the Gate: Part-Time Faculty Instruction in Gatekeeper Courses and First-Year Persistence (M. Kevin Eagan Jr., Audrey J. Jaeger)
The authors of this chapter give empirical attention to the effects of staffing introductory gatekeeper courses with graduate students and part-time faculty members on first-year college student persistence.

4. Effective Instruction and College Student Persistence: Some New Evidence (Ernest T. Pascarella, Tricia A. Seifert, Elizabeth J. Whitt)
The influence of teaching skills such as organization and preparation and clarity in instruction and answering student questions on first-year student persistence is described in this chapter.

5. The Role of Active Learning in College Student Persistence (John M. Braxton, Willis A. Jones, Amy S. Hirschy, Harold V. Hartley III)
The findings presented in this chapter add to a growing body of evidence that links faculty use of active learning practices with key aspects of the college student retention process.

6. Classroom Practices at Institutions with Higher-Than- Expected Persistence Rates: What Student Engagement Data Tell Us (Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Daniel Chen, George D. Kuh)
The authors of this chapter compare faculty teaching practices at colleges and universities with better-than-expected persistence rates with those at colleges with as-expected persistence rates.

7. Toward a Scholarship of Practice Centered on College Student Retention (John M. Braxton)
Three contributions to a scholarship of practice derived from the pattern of findings of this volume are described in this chapter. This chapter also advances four recommendations for institutional policy and action designed to improve institutional rates of student retention.

INDEX.