Innovative Educators Presents Creating Learning Communities to Enhance Student Success

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Innovative Educators Presents Creating Learning
Communitiesto Enhance Student Success

• Dr. Jodi Levine Laufgraben
• Temple University

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Focus for this Webinar

• Things to consider when
• Developing
• Overview of models and definitions
• Implementation issues
• Sustaining
• Benefits
• Maintenance issues
• Assessing
• Methods
• Outcomes
• Learning Communities.

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Outcomes

• After this webinar, participants will be able to
• Identify the goals and purposes of implementing
  learning communities on their campus
• Describe the basic definitions and models of
  learning communities
• Imagine a learning community offering
• List the implementation and sustainability issues
  facing their campus efforts
• Consider ways of assessing learning communities

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Background Knowledge Probe

• Before we start, take a few moments to answer the
  following questions
• A learning community is
• Our Campus is implementing learning communities
  to
• Evidence of success will include

Background Knowledge Probe is a classroom
assessment technique that can be found in Angelo
and Cross (1993) Classroom Assessment Techniques.
Jossey-Bass.
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Your responses

• With your colleagues, share your response to the
  question
• Our Campus is implementing learning communities
  to
• ..And email me (QA feature) some of your answers
  for the group discussion.

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Part I Develop
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Aims/Goals of Learning Communities

• It begins with goals
• Increase curricular coherence
• Promote deep learning
• Connect skill and content areas
• Build community
• Revitalize faculty
• Revitalize the institution
• Promote diversity
• Enhance student engagement
• Increase retention
• Enhance student achievement

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What is a Learning Community?A variety of
approaches that link or cluster classes during a
given term, often around an interdisciplinary
theme, that enroll a common cohort of students.
This represents an intentional restructuring of
students time, credit and learning experiences
to foster more explicit intellectual connections
between students, between students and their
faculty, and between disciplines.Source
Gabelnick, MacGregor, Matthews, and Smith (1990)
Learning Communities Creating Connections Among
Students, Faculty and Disciplines. Jossey-Bass.
Curricular Learning Communities
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Dimensions of LCs

• Student collaboration
• Faculty collaboration
• Curricular coordination
• Shared setting
• Interactive pedagogy
• Where is your campus on each dimension?
• LowMid.High
• Love, A.G. and Tokuno, K.A. (1999) Learning
  communities models. In J. Levine (Ed.) Learning
  Communities New Structures, New Partnerships for
  Learning. Columbia, South Carolina National
  Center for the Freshman Year Experience and
  Students in Transition Monograph Series.

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Learning and Community as both means and
end

• COMMUNITY as a strategy to strengthen LEARNING
• and
• LEARNING to work and to understand more deeply
  the value and challenges of COMMUNITY

Slide provided by Jean MacGregor, National
Learning Communities Project, The Evergreen
State College
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Learning Communities can be structured as
Programs in which a small cohort of students
enrolls in larger classes that faculty DO NOT
coordinate. Intellectual connections and
community- building often take place in an
additional integrative seminar.

Programs of two or more classes linked
thematically or by content, which a cohort of
students takes together. The faculty DO plan the
program collaboratively.
Programs of coursework that faculty members
team-teach. The course work is embedded in an
integrated program of study.
shading represents the student cohort
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F.I.G.s - Freshman Interest Groups
Goal The creation of small effective academic
learning communities in a large college setting.
Vehicle Triads of courses offered around an area
of interest, an interdisciplinary topic, or
courses related to a specific major. Each F.I.G.
has a peer advisor, a more advanced student who
convenes the group weekly to form study groups,
to learn about campus resources, and to plan
social gatherings.
American Government

Intro. to Philosophy Ethics
Pre-Law F.I.G.

Fundamentals of Public Speaking

F.I.G. Discussion Group
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Linked or Paired Courses

• Goal Curricular coherence and integrating skill
  and content teaching
• Two courses for which students co-register.
• Generally, faculty work to coordinate syllabi and
  assignments, but teach their classes separately.
• Often, a writing or speech course is linked to a
  lecture-centered course, or a mathematics course
  is linked to a science course.

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Some Examples
American Political Systems College Composition
College Math Introduction to Psychology
General Chemistry Calculus
First-Year Writing Introduction to Philosophy
Theater Humanities
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Team Taught Coordinated Studies
Two, three or more courses fully team-taught as
an integrated program. Goals

• More intensive student immersion in interrelated
  topics, a theme or question
• Faculty participating as learners as well as
  teachers
• The blurring of boundaries between disciplines or
  courses in favor of a larger whole
• The faculty development that emerges from
  collaboratively planning, delivering and
  reflecting on a coordinated program

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Coordinated StudiesSample Schedule
Problems Without Solutions? A year-long program
at The Evergreen State College
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Successful Learning Community Implementation
Successful Learning Community implementation
requires extensive cross-unit coordination
Goals for the LC Effort
Faculty Recruitment
Assessment Evaluation
Faculty Development Support
Program Delivery
Locus of Learning Community Leadership
Registrar Registration
LC Offerings Models
Publicity Student Recruitment
Planning Calendar
Scheduling - Time - Rooms
Involvement of Academic Advisors
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Critical Elements of the Change Process
Learning Communities represent a transformation
in how we think about structuring teaching and
learning environments. Impetus for
Change Administrative Support Leadership
Team Comprehensive View/Shared Vision Strategic
Plan Inclusive Planning Student-Focused
Goals Faculty Involvement Project
Director Information Networks Resources Incentives
and Rewards Source National Learning
Communities Project http//www.evergreen.edu/w
ashcenter/lcFaq.htm
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Part II Sustain
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Teaching in Communities

• Responsibility for learning is shared with
  student
• Teacher
• Invests expertise into designing new learning
  tasks
• Performs helping functions
• probing
• encouraging
• explaining
• Listens to students
• Evaluates and assesses student learning and tasks

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Successful Teaching Practices

• Use information technology
• Allow as much time as possible for pre-semester
  community planning
• Anticipate problems
• Consider the community plan bendable
• Frequently debrief and adjust plan

Adapted from Strommer, Teaching and Learning in
a Learning Community
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Successful Teaching Practices in LCs

• Emphasize active learning approaches
• Allow time for process
• Build in classroom assessment
• Feature a community-defining event early in the
  term
• Attend a film, concert or theatrical performance
• Participate in a community service project

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Connections

• Successful learning communities create or deepen
  the connections between and among students and
  teachers
• INTERPERSONAL
• Students with each other
• Students with their teachers
• Faculty with each other
• CURRICULAR
• Between academic disciplines
• Between in-class work and homework
• Between theory and practice
• CO-CURRICULAR
• Academic programs and residence life
• Academic Affairs and Student Affairs
• Students with academic advising and support
  resources

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Critical Elements to Sustaining LCs

• Organizational dynamics and change as a process
• Purposes of learning communities
• Integration of LCs with mission of the
  institution
• Expansion of LC leadership across campus
• Continued buy-in and involvement of new faculty
• Extent of curricular integration
• Sustained faculty development
• Availability of resources
• Assessment, and
• New ideas, new energy,
• new vision!

Source Love, A.G. in Levine Laufgraben Shapiro
(2004), Sustaining and Improving Learning
Communities. Jossey-Bass.
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The 10 minute Community
Theme A Different Angle

• Consider what courses/disciplines you might like
  to bring together to create a community around
  this theme. Discuss the type of learning
  community (FIG, link, ) how the theme will be
  addressed across the courses, assignments or
  learning activities for students, and teaching
  strategies to engage students in active and
  collaborative learning.

Report out in just 10 minutes!!!
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Part III Assess
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Effective Learning Communities

• Effective Learning Communities have a number of
  distinctive features
• They are usually smaller than most other units on
  campus.
• They have a sense of purpose.
• They help overcome the isolation of faculty
  members from one another and from their students.
• They encourage faculty members to relate to one
  another both as specialists and as educators.
  (In effect this encourages the development of new
  faculty roles.)
• They encourage continuity and integration in the
  curriculum.
• They help build a sense of group identity,
  cohesion, and specialness.
• Source Involvement in Learning, 1984.

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Assessment

• Some Purposes of Learning Communities Assessment
• Program description
• Describing the program to others
• Program monitoring
• Monitoring the program over time
• Program impact
• Assessing program impact
• Program improvement
• Evaluating program for improvement
• Program validation
• Building support through assessment

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Methods

• Collaboration and Multiple Methods
• Building partnerships through assessment
• Understanding learning communities through
  multiple lenses
• Quantitative Methods
• Comparative descriptive data
• Comparative longitudinal tracking
• Comparative survey data
• Qualitative Methods
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Diaries, journals, etc.
• Portfolios

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Are Learning Communities Effective?

• Student outcomes
• Student retention, achievement
• Student involvement, motivation
• Time to degree, degree completion
• Intellectual development
• Faculty outcomes
• Faculty development in terms of expanded
  repertoire of teaching approaches, revised course
  content, and new scholarly interests.
• Faculty mentoring
• Faculty engagement with beginning students, with
  general education offerings.
• Institutional outcomes
• Learning communities as skunk works, i.e., RD
  sites for curriculum development, and the
  strengthening of teaching and learning

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Final Assessment

• On a piece of
• paper, list 5-7 items/issues that will be
  essential to the success of learning communities
  on your campus. Include one approach for
  assessing your learning community initiative.

Focused Listing is a classroom assessment
technique that can be found in Angelo and Cross
(1993) Classroom Assessment Techniques.
Jossey-Bass.
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• National Learning Communities Project
• National Learning Commons Website
• http//www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/project.asp?pi
  d73

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Resources

• Shapiro, N. S., and J. H. Levine. 1999. Creating
• Learning Communities A Practical Guide to
  Winning Support, Organizing for Change, and
  Implementing Programs. Jossey-Bass.
• Smith, B. L. 2001. "The Challenge of Learning
  Communities as a Growing National Movement." Peer
  Review. Association of American Colleges
  Universities. 3/4, (4/1) Summer/Fall 4-8.
• Laufgraben, J. L. and Shapiro N. S. 2004.
  Sustaining and Improving Learning Communities.
  Jossey-Bass.
• Smith, B. L., J. MacGregor, R. Matthews, and F.
  Gabelnick. 2004. Learning Communities Reforming
  Undergraduate Education. Jossey-Bass.

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• Q A

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Final Thoughts

• Slides and Recording
• https//www.innovativeeducators.org/creating.ppt
• We will send you a link to view the recording by
  the end of the day on Friday
• jodi.levine_at_temple.edu
• Evaluation
• Exit
• Thank You