Tutoring Resources

Now that the fall quarter is underway, you might be starting to feel the weight (and stress?) of attending class, doing homework, writing papers, and attending study groups. Maybe the work's piling up.  Maybe you're falling behind.  Maybe you need additional help to be successful.  If so, today's blog post is just for you.  Specifically, let's briefly talk about three different free tutoring resources available on the main campus at Green River Community College. 

1.  The Writing Center.  The Writing Center is located in RLC 173, and offers both one-on-one and online tutoring services for students at all stages in the writing process.  Check the Writing Center website for hours of operation and for a more detailed explanation of available services.

2.  The Math Learning Center.  The Math Learning Center is located in SMT 335, and offers help to those who are struggling with math.  In addition to tutoring services, students can also access a variety of free learning resources including math videos, computers, and textbooks.  Check the Math Learning Center website for hours of operation. 

3.  The Tutoring & Resouce Center.  The Tutoring & Resource Center is located on the second floor of Holman Library, and offers tutoring in all subjects except math.   Services are available by appointment or on a walk-in basis.  Check the Tutoring & Resource Center website for hours of operation.

Mind Your Study Habits

In a recent article entitled "Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits," Benedict Carey discusses good study habits.  Specifically, he outlines a handful of effective learning approaches that may improve how much a student learns from studying, and he also cites a variety of cognitive scientists to back up his claims. Some of the approaches outlined by Carey, interestingly enough, contradict conventional wisdom on the subject of retention. 

As a way to kick off the start of the fall quarter at Green River Community College, and in the interest of stimulating more productive study habits, this post will briefly address three of Carey's findings.  Also note, the three study habits discussed below can help anyone, from a fifth grader doing long division to a retiree learning a new language, at least according to Carey.  So let's get started.

Study Habit #1 - Instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room or location where a person studies can improve retention.  This contradicts the conventional practice of finding a specific place - a study room or a quiet corner in the library, for example - and plopping down for hours on end to do school work.  The research on study habits, says Carey, shows that switching up the locale in which one studies can dramatically improve retention.  As Carey writes,

"The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time...regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious.  It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard.  Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding."

Study Habit #2 - Spacing out the study of a specific skill or concept, as opposed to cramming / intense immersion, can also improve retention. The spacing approach to studying favors shorter, more frequent study sessions and goes against the common practice of cramming, say, Math, English, Anatomy, or whatever for 8 hours on a Tuesday and then ignoring the subject until next week.  As Carey observes,

"Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a give exam. But hurriedly jam-packing the brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn - it holds its new load for awhile, then most everything falls out....When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far far longer.  An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort."

Study Habit #3 - Studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing, can also improve retention.  This habit, again, contradicts the common practice of studying one, and only one, subject for long stretches of time and then moving on to the next.  Interweaving different subjects allows the brain to pick up on a deeper patterns and leads to more nuanced understandings of a given subject.  As Carey observes,

"Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting - alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading. and speaking a new language - seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time.  Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces, and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed, and skill drills."

In sum, change up the locale in which you study. Also, avoid cramming and space out your study of a given subject.  Finally, try interweaving and studying different but related subjects in one sitting. Cognitive science argues that these habits may lead to improved retention and increased academic success. Give them a test drive, see what happens, and make it a great fall quarter!

Make Career Development Pay

In turbulent economic times like these, attending a community or technical college to update a skill set or retrain for a new occupation is a logical course of action to pursue.  But the decision to go to school, according to a recent New York Times article by Tara Siegel Bernard, needs to be treated like any other investment decision. You need to weigh the potential returns and closely manage the costs.

When considering an "investment" in education and especially before enrolling in a training program, Bernard argues that you should ask the same sorts of questions that a portfolio manager might ask when analyzing a stock investment, including: 

• Am I earning a reputable credential, degree, or certificate?
• Is the cost of earning that credential feasable?
• How can I minimize my expenses?
• What is demand like in the field I'm retraining for?
• What are my earnings potential?

As Bernard goes on to observe in her article, the more radical the shift in careers you contemplate, the more research you should do in answering these questions.  This is an obvious but important point to make. She therefore proceeds to offer the following tips for those who are considering a change in careers.

Research Career Options.  Bernard recommends O*NET OnLine, which is a website maintained by the Department Of Labor and which allows users to research employment opportunities and salary information for different professions.  Washington State residents can also cross-reference O*NET findings with www.wilma/org/wdclists, which is a website that allows users to reseach employment and salary information on jobs across the state.

Seek Employer Aid. If you have a job, writes Bernard, ask your employer about available tuition-assistance programs.

Ask For Government Help.  Bernard correctly points out that people collecting Unemployment Insurance may be eligible to collect benefits while going to school and even to receive additional benefits after their regular unemployment claim has run out. This is true in Washington State.  The Employment Sercurities Department offers the Training Benefits Program to unemployed workers who are in need of retraining. For more information, check out our ealier blog post entitled "Let's Talk Training Benefits."

Apply For Grants.  A no-brainer.  Before you borrow money, cautions Bernard, search for grants and scholarships to help you pay for school ("grant" = gift aid = money you don't have to pay back).  For potential Green River students interested in job (re)training, significant funding streams may include Worker Retraining, Opportunity Grant, Basic Food Employment & Training, WorkFirst, Federal Financial Aid, GRCC Foundation Scholarships, Workforce Investment Act Funding, WAVE scholarships, as well as scholarships advertised on http://www.thewashboard.org/.  

Investigate Tax Breaks.  Bernard also highlights the fact that the Lifetime Learning Credit, which is geared for continuing education, can be used for an unlimited number of years and for a wide range of schooling.

Green River On Washington Monthly's List of Top 50 Colleges

Washington Monthly, founded in 1969, is a well-known magazine based in the nation's capitol.  Recently, the magazine ran an article entitled, "America's Best Community Colleges."  In a nutshell, the article, as evidenced by its title, offers a list of the top 50 community colleges in the nation.

To create this list, Washington Monthly "graded" colleges in six different areas including: Active and Collaborative Learning, Student Effort, Academic Challenge, Student-Faculty Interaction, Support for Learning, and 4-Year Graduation Rate. 

After crunching the numbers and assessing community colleges nationwide using this 6-part rubric, Washington Monthly ranked Green River Community College number 29 out of a possible 50. 

Another reason to become a Gator.

Popular Healthcare Programs

Here in Workforce Education, we meet a lot of students who are interested in healthcare-related training programs at Green River Community College. And for good reason - the employment outlook for jobs in healthcare is excellent. 

Three healthcare-related training programs in particular are especially attractive to new students.  They include the:

• Practical Nursing Program (LPN),
• Occupational Therapy Assistant Program (OTA) and
• Physical Therapist Assistant Program (PTA). 

According to www.wilma.org/wdclists, all three pathways of employment - licensed practical nurse, occupational therapy assistant, and physical therapist assistant - are classified as "demand" occupations in Washington State, with mean (or average) yearly wages of $44,796, $53,614, and $49,049 respectively.

The students we meet with in Workforce Education who are interested in any one of these three training programs frequently ask, "How do I get started?"  It's a good question, and this post intends to answer it succinctly in three parts.

One, if you're interested in enrolling in either the LPN, OTA, or PTA program, do a little bit of homework by reading a detailed breakdown of each training program.  You can find these breakdowns on www.greenriver.edu/ (or you can click here for a shortcut). 

Two, you may want to consider taking a career assessment and speaking with a counselor at the college to determine whether your interests and strengths align with the rigors of healthcare-related occupations.  For more information on available career assessments at Green River, see our earlier blog post on the subject.

Three, attend an information session (or "info session," for short) at the college to learn even more about the specific entry requirements for each training program.  Green River offers three different types of info session - one for each training program - on a regular basis and they are facilitated by eminently qualified ed planners.  Interested in LPN? Click here to sign up for the next available info session.  Or OTA? click here.  Or PTA? click here. 

There you have it.  Do some homework, take a career assessment, and attend an info session at the college. Three simple steps you can take to investigate three popular training programs at Green River Community College.  Good luck!

Is E-Learning For You?

(adapted from greenriver.edu)

Today's post is about e-learning.  What's e-learning?  In simple terms, the phrase denotes the use of electronic formats to conduct learning.  In even simpler terms, e-learning means online classes. 

Green River Community College offers a wide variety of online classes in both university transfer and professional technical pathways.  This is a good thing.  Online classes provide a convenient alternative to the traditional classroom experience, especially for students who are home-bound due to injury, the raising of children, or care of a family member; place-bound due to living far away from their college campus; or job-bound due to working rotating or sporadic job schedules.  Online classes also provide a convenient alternative for students with disabilities or for students who simply prefer learning from the comfort of their own home.

While online classes provide a convenient alternative to the traditional classroom experience, and while they are becoming a more permanent fixture in the two-year college system, they also imply a certain type of learner who already has the skills needed to succeed in an electronic learning environment.  Not everyone, in other words, is cut out for online classes, at least not right away.  So today, let's briefly talk about what makes a good online, or e-learning, student.

First off, students who typically succeed in online formats are self-starters who:

• Are highly motivated
• Have a capacity for self-guided learning
• Have good time management skills
• Take responsbility for learning outcomes
• Take the initiative to contact an instructor with questions

In addition, successful e-learning students possess a key set of skills going into the class.  Specifically, they already know how to:

• Use the Internet
• Use a search engine
• Send and receive email with attachments
• Use word processing applications
• Use a chat room

Finally, Green River recommends that before taking onlines classes, students should first score five points or more above the qualifying minimum for transfer classes on the COMPASS assessment.  That is, students who take the COMPASS English and Math assessment should have higher than the lowest possible qualifying score before signing up for online classes.  If those COMPASS scores are only at the qualifying minimum (and not at least 5 points above), you may want to start with traditional classroom courses to build up your English and Math skills before making the transition to online classes.

Oh, and one last thing.  If you decide to take an online class, make sure you have a back-up plan in case your primary computer crashes, malfunctions, or is stolen.  It happens.  Identify a second computer you can use to complete the online class in the event something like this happens, be it a computer at a friend or relative's home, or a computer at a county or college library.

To recap, e-learning might be good fit for you if you're a self-starter, if you have a key set of computer skills up front, if you score above the qualifying minimum on the COMPASS, if you have a back-up plan, and, of course, if you like completing work on your computer.

Washington Jobs Requiring Postsecondary Education

In our previous post, we briefly discussed the Help Wanted report, which claims that some college education after high school (or postsecondary education, in other words) is becoming more and more of a prerequisite to find a good job. 

The report also incorporates a state-by-state analysis of the the job outlook through 2018.  The statistics it provides regarding employment in Washington State are of particular interest.  Specifically:

By 2018, 67% of jobs in Washington will required postsecondary education.  This is 4 percentage points above the national average of 63%.  Washington ranks 6th (out of a possible 50) in postsecondary education intensity for 2018.

Interested in reading more of what the report has to say about the future of jobs in Washington State? Click here.

More Employers Will Require Some College

A recent New York Times article by Jacques Steinberg highlights a report recently released by the Center of Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University entitled, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018.  

The Help Wanted report, most notably, argues that some college education after high school is becoming more and more necessary for entry into the middle class. As evidence, the report states that the number of jobs requiring at least a two-year degree will outpace the number of people qualified to fill those positions by at least three million in 2018 (click here for a visual). 

College education hasn't always been necessary in this country to find a good-paying job.  The report, for example, shows that in 1970, about 75 percent of workers considered to be middle class didn't have education beyond high school.  The workforce landscape has changed since, significantly so.  In 2007, under 40 percent of workers considered to be middle class didn't have education beyond high school.  And that percentage, according to the report, will continue to drop in the coming decade.

The Help Wanted authors conclude, "High school graduates and dropouts will find themselves largely left behind in the coming decade as employer demand for workers with postsecondary degrees continues to surge." 

The moral?  A college education is not simply a luxury - it's increasingly a necessity and a prerequisite for better earnings and a higher qualify of life.

10 Reasons To Pick A Community College

"One of the faster-growing and most important segments of the American college scene is the community college." 

So reads the first sentence of a frequently cited US News & World Report article by Lynn F. Jacobs and George R. Boggs entitled, "10 Reasons To Pick A Community College."  The article first appeared in June of 2009. As envinced in its title, the article highlights the top 10 reasons why students should consider applying to a community college (in some cases called two-year, junior, or technical colleges).

The top 10 reasons to attend a community college include the following:

1. Affordability.  It's no surprise affordability tops the list.  The average annual tuition and fees for a full-time community college student, according to Jacobs and Boggs, is around a third of the cost of tuition and fees at four-year colleges and universities.  Attending a community college translates into big savings.

Just compare Green River's resident tuition and fee rate with that of any four-year university.

2. Convenience.  Community colleges, as Jacobs and Boggs also observe, offer classes at times and locations that are convenient for students who have jobs, kids, or other family responsibilities.

Take Green River, for example, which offers early morning, morning, afternoon, evening, online, flex, and weekend classes to accomodate diverse student populations who want to attend on a full-time or part-time basis. Also at Green River, students can take classes on the main campus, or the Kent Station campus, or the Enumclaw campus, or the Auburn Center location.

3. Open Access.  Community colleges, write Jacobs and Boggs, do not have exclusive admissions standards that require high scores or a certain grade point average from high school.  They provide open access to the community. 

It usually only takes a day or two to have your application for admission to the college processed.  In addition, at Green River, students don't even need their GED or High School Diploma to begin attending college level classes.  Open access is the name of the game and puts the community into community college.

4. Teaching Quality.  Jacobs and Boggs correctly point out that community college classes are taught by experienced faculty, not graduate students or teaching assistants.  Community college faculty members, while still committed to their respsective academic disciplines, aren't pulled away from the work of teaching by stringent research / publishing requirements.

Click here to read about three distinguished faculty members at Green River. 

5. Class Size.  Jacob and Boggs state that class sizes at community colleges are significantly smaller than freshman and sophomore level classes found at public universities.  Nationwide, most community college classes have fewer than 35 students. 

The average class size at GRCC is 30. 

6. Support Services.  Community colleges, write Jacobs and Boggs, offer a variety of services to help students. 

Green River has three different tutoring centers, financial aid tutorials, workforce education funding workshops, counseling services, a variety of student clubs, and extensive library services, only to name a few.

7. Choices.  Community colleges, according to Jacobs and Boggs, frequently offer a variety of educational pathways, from transfer degree programs to vocational training.

Green River fits the bill on this point.  We are a comprenhensive community college.  That is, we offer academic transfer programs, a wide variety of professional technical programs, adult basic skills, GED preparation, High School Completion, study abroad programs, international student programs, and continuing education classes designed for personal enrichment and professional development.  The choices are endless.

8. Diversity.  Jacobs and Boggs keenly observe that community college serve the most diverse group of students in higher education.  The opportunity, they write, to interact with and to learn from other students of diverse ages and diverse backgrounds is invaluable.  Attending a community college, therefore, prepares students to live and flourish within an increasingly globalized, diverse world. 

Green River's chief aim is to help diverse students reach their goals.  One only needs to visit any one of our campuses to see a student population of diverse age, enthinicity, culture, and socio-economic status.   

9. Access To Modern Technology.  Because of the strong partnerships with business and industry, community colleges, according to Jacobs and Boggs, often have cutting-edge equipment that is used by students in the classroom.  Since community colleges offer two degrees, the use of the best equipment isn't reserved for upperclassman or graduate students.

Green River offers 44 different professional technical training programs.  Professional technical programs typically combine classroom learning with hands-on training using technologies specific to a wide variety of occupations.  Professional technical programs are also guided by Industry Advisory committees which ensure training meets the demands of local industry and business.

10. Good Company.  Jacobs and Boggs, in jocular fashion, point out that some of the most accomplished people started their education at a community college - from J. Craig Venter (who mapped the human genome) to Ricahrd Carmona (the former US Surgeon General) to Eileen Collins (the first NASA female shuttle commander) to Nolan Ryan (famous MLB pitcher). 

Green River alum extend far and wide.  Read more about Green River alumni by clicking here.

 

Tipping Point Research

You may be asking yourself, 'why go back to school?'  If you look hard enough, you might eventually find a job. However, most new jobs and the majority of jobs that pay a wage that is sufficient to support a family, require at least some education beyond high school. A research study called the "Tipping Point" was conducted in April of 2005 by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.  The study examined the educational achievements and the employment earnings of a cohort of students five years after they first enrolled in a community college. Here are some of the more salient results from the study:

• Individuals who went through community college occupational degree programs were eight percent more likely to be employed and they earned over $4,400 per year more on average that did similar individuals in the Washington labor force who did not enroll in any training program.
• Not only do workers with at least a year of college and a credential earn substantially more, they are also in higher demand among employers.
• Short term training (1-2 quarters) without receiving a credential, may help individuals get into the labor market, but it usually does not help them advance beyond low paying jobs. Adult basic education classes and/or a limited number of college level classes do not provide much benefit in terms of employment or earnings.
• Students who start with a plan to attend college for a year or longer were more successful than students who did not know upon enrollment how long they would attend.

In sum, the Tipping Point Research Study confrms that education and training have the power to transform the quality of one's life - it shows that earning a professional technical certificate (equivalent to 3 quarters of full time study) can provide a significant earnings advantage compared with those with just some college but no degree. 

But in attending college you need to have a plan before you begin.  Investigate the different types of degrees and certificates offered at Green River Community College, and read about the kind of jobs you might qualify for once you finish the degree or certificate. Once you decide on a training program, plan out how long it will take you to finish it.  The more you plan, the more successful you will be.

To read the Tipping Point Research Study in full click here (it's relatively short, weighing in at about 6 pages).