In response to President Barack Obama’s challenge to community colleges to educate an additional 5 million students with degrees, certificates, or other credentials by 2020 the AACC started on their 21st-Century Initiative.  According to the 21st century initiative, “The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is leading advancement of the next era of community college’s development through its two-phase 21st-Century Initiative Phase 1, the 21st-Century Initiative Listening Tour, consisted of gathering information from a diverse group of stakeholders from across the country in the following areas: (1) student success, (2) Voluntary Framework of Accountability, (3) strategies for dealing with budget constraints, (4) big ideas for the future of community colleges, and (5) what AACC can do for members” (executive summary).

As part of the national listening tour, several points were made which support the mission of the Active Learning Leaders:

• Support the emergence of active student, learner-centered, cognition-based education, including discovery, experiential learning, and technology enhanced instruction.
• Integrate the use of mobile devices to enhance active teaching and learning and to increase access to college services.
• Foster engagement between and among students, faculty, and staff through the use of collaborative synchronous online strategies as a complementary tool to asynchronous and face-to-face teaching and learning, student support, and service delivery.
• Expand the use of social media to enhance student engagement in teaching, learning, and college services.

Reference:

American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). (2012).  Final Report on the 21-st Century Initiative Listening Tour.  Retrieved from http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Publications/Reports/Documents/ListeningTour_report.pdf