Developing Faculty While Developing Learning Communities

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Developing Faculty While Developing Learning
Communities

• Richard C. Burke
• Mari K. Normyle
• Lynchburg College
• Lynchburg, VA

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Lynchburg College Is

• a small liberal arts college (with some
  professional majors) in central Virginia
• 2,000 full-time undergraduates
• 175 full-time faculty
• 35 majors, 43 minors

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And we are

• Rich Burke
• Professor of English
• Mari Normyle
• Assistant Dean, Academic and Career Services

Co-directors of the Learning Communities Program
at Lynchburg College
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Learning Communities at Lynchburg College

• Two (or three) linked courses, sharing all
  students
• Freshman courses
• General education courses
• Offered in fall
• Include co-curricular
• activities

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And a Program

• All our learning communitiesmore importantly,
  all faculty teaching in themare part of the
  Learning Communities Program
• an organized, on-going, collaborative effort

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Budget

• 15,000 p.a.
• 500 professional development stipends
• co-curricular activities
• workshops and meetings
• conferences
• Co-directors pay ? 0

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Goal-directed

• Have all entering freshmen in a learning
  community by fall 2007

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Three-part presentation

• Launching
• Sustaining
• Results

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1. Launching The Origins

• Fall 2003 need to improve student learning and
  engagement in order to help improve retention

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Why Learning Communities?

• Established as being effective at increasing
  student learning, engagement, and satisfaction
• a means to help students make sense of general
  education courses
• Augment students sense of belonging
• Experience with linked courses
• Co-directors familiarity and interest
• Consultants recommendation
• Anticipation of faculty interest
• Low(ish) cost

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Challenge

• Developing faculty interest
• program simply wont work without serious
  commitment from faculty
• to be effective, will require a significant
  portion of the faculty (50-60, ultimately)

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Response Instructional Development Workshops

• Meet a perceived need among faculty
• Well-established interest on campus in
  instructional development
• Worthwhile even for faculty without interest in
  learning communities

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First Workshop August 2004

• 2 days, five hours each day
• 35 faculty participants
• from many departments/broad range of experiences
  and disciplines
• Lunch included (food is a must)
• Most of the presentations done by co-directors
• Intentionally structured and highly interactive

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Workshop Content

• Current best practices for engaging students
• Updates on student development theory
• Characteristics of Millennials
• Characteristics of Lynchburg College students
• Who are our students?
• Learning Communities
• underlying principles
• different types
• benefits

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Introducing Faculty to LCs

• Broad introduction to types, purposes, and
  effectiveness of LCs
• Copies of relevant articles and resources
• Observations by participants who taught earlier
  linked courses
• Designing a learning community in one hour
  activity from the Evergreen State Univ.

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Winding Up With

• Invitation to propose a learning community
• Timetable for coming weeks and coming year
• Connections among faculty members that might not
  have existed before
• Credibility for co-directors
• Lots of enthusiasm

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Comments from Faculty Participants

• Opportunities to share with colleagues was
  helpful.
• Enthusiasm of speakers contributed to learning.
• I had fairly negative and low expectations . . .
  but feel that I learned some important and novel
  (for me) approaches to my teaching.
• I found incorporating actual information re
  how LC students compare nationally . . . will
  help me teach them better.
• I gained some knowledge of how to improve
  communication to students of exactly what I
  expect, especially with regard to writing
  assignments.

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Subsequent Instructional Development Workshops

• August 2005
• 16-18 participants
• August 2006
• 70 participants
• Topics included
• best practices in teaching
• articulating expectations for freshmen
• low-stakes writing assignments
• continuing focus on learning communities

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Challenge

• Recruiting faculty to teach in the Learning
  Communities Program
• participation demands time, energy, thought,
  change, compromise, and close cooperation with
  another instructor
• scheduling needs require early commitment by
  faculty and their departments

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Response to Recruitment Challenge

• Enthusiasm generated by workshop helped
  enormously
• Plenty of email contacts and encouragement
• Match-making offers
• Clear, specific, and shared procedures for
  proposing a LC and for selecting ones to be
  offered

Having two directors helps as well more
accessible for questions different personalities
. . .
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Challenge

• Preparing faculty for learning communities
• understand nature and goals of program
• carefully think through how theyre going to link
  their courses
• get comfortable with idea of such close
  collaboration
• Planning is crucial to the success of an LC

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Response to Preparation Challenge

• Meet, communicate, communicate, meet
• Communicate
• Did we say communicate?

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Response to Preparation Challenge

• Further workshops (January, May), dealing with
  collaborative teaching and course design
• team building partnership building
• Guidance and group discussions to help faculty
  determine how to connect courses, readings,
  writing assignments, etc.
• Discussion of marketing LCs (web, letters)
• Discussion of co-curricular activities and their
  integration into courses

In the second and third years, weve been able to
use participants experiences and insights
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The Years Cycle of Work
Fall Semester LC proposals submitted and reviewed
Spring Semester Learning community development
Summer LC Promotion Registration
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Challenge

• Creating student interest
• value of student buy-in the learning community
  was their choice
• some costs to students (cant drop just one
  course)
• be able to show administration that LCs can
  appeal to new students

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Response in Order to Create Student Interest

• Pitch LC titles to 18-year-olds
• You Have The Right To Remain Silent. Or Do
  You? Politics and Liberty in Western Culture
• An Indecent Proposal  Would You Like Fries With
  That?
• Blood, Sex and Power Global Issues and Latin
  America

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Know the Audience and Speak to It

• Write LC descriptions that also appeal to the
  target audience
• Are you filled with curiosity to know how Latin
  American History and Global Politics are full of
  stories of blood and gore, and explosive issues
  of sexual politics and power play?

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Publicize

• LC titles and descriptions available online
• Information in course preference materials
• Comments at Admitted Student Open House
• Letters to students before Orientation
• Information to freshman advisors, in order to
  reduce confusion and error

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Challenge

• Managing administrative logistics
• ensure same enrolment in both courses
• no surprise changes in section staffing
• get students into requested LCs

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Responses to Logistical Challenges

• Lots of little details to see to
• Communicate!
• communicate with school deansand be sure that
  instructors do as well
• Keep everyone working to schedule, to minimize
  disruptions
• Work closely with registrar
• Oversee placing of freshmen in requested LCs
• Directors should simplify logistics for faculty

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2. Sustaining How to Keep Things Going

• The greater the initial enthusiasm, the greater
  the decline as reality sets in
• Requires continual work and frequent revision
• Requires recruiting additional faculty (returns
  us to initial challenge)

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Challenge

• Maintaining a strong, continuing program that
  meets its goals and evolves as needed
• dealing with faculty frustrations (and failures?)
• responding to the unexpected
• getting things done and done on time not losing
  track of what needs to be accomplished and when
• coping with instructors competing priorities

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ResponseProviding Support for Faculty

• Importance of a carefully structured and
  implemented program
• Meetings and workshops for continuing faculty,
  with attention to
• program goals and objectives (meeting and
  refining)
• cross-disciplinary cooperation
• pedagogy
• assessment
• co-curricular activities

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Central Questions

• Whats working in your LC?
• What problems are you facing?
• What can be done to deal with the problems?

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Challenge

• Continuing to generate faculty interest in order
  to expand the program
• to meet goal of including every freshman in an
  LC, we need to increase faculty participation
• familiarity (no longer new)
• inertia
• curricular obstacles
• loss of some original faculty

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ResponseKeeping Focus on Recruiting

• New instructional development programs
• specific and practical advice
• administrative support
• Publicizing successes
• Revising as needed
• Using current faculty to raise interest

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3. Results How Well Did We Do?

• Assessment for program and course improvement
• Assessment to support budget requests

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How We Assess

• Several elements of the assessment emerge
  organically, from processes that are part of the
  programs activities
• Assessment not imposed from without

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Assessment Tools

• Course evaluations
• Learning Community evaluations
• Instructional development workshop evaluations
• Retention data
• Qualitative assessment by faculty
• Faculty surveys
• Faculty involvement in professional activities

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General Benefits

• Increases cross-disciplinary cooperation among
  faculty
• Breaks down some disciplinary boundaries for
  students without a full revision of gen ed
• Helps students see connections between two or
  more disciplines
• Creates sense of belonging among students

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Effect on Retention

• Fall 2005 Learning Communities
• students in lower 60 of class benefited by
  increased retention and grades
• students in all of our learning communities
  (including Honors) retained at 5 greater than
  non-LCs
• their stronger retention continues into 4th
  semester

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Freshmen Returning from Fall Semester

• Fall 2006 Learning Communities
• Fall-Spring results
• Class (553) 92.6
• LCs (171) 91.2
• Non-LCs (352) 92.7
• ????????????????????????????????!
• OY!
• But this is in the context of the HIGHEST
  fall-spring retention rate in over 13 years.

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Impact on Students

• I benefited from being in this LC 72
• I believe being in this LC helped me learn more
  67
• I felt more strongly connected to the students in
  my LC 86
• I was more comfortable working with my
  professors 66
• The co-curricular activities helped me better
  understand what I was learning in the classroom
  64
• As a result of being in this LC, I have a greater
  understanding of the connections between the
  content area of these courses 71
• I would recommend this learning community to
  other first year students 67

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And more from students..

• In my learning community, I was more likely to
  _________than in my other courses
• ask questions in class 62
• participate in class discussions 70
• talk about course materials outside of
• class 58
• Seek assistance from professors 61
• Work collaboratively with my classmates 64

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Faculty Reflections

• What Ive noticed about the learning community
  cohort is that they are more answerable to one
  another. Its the good peer pressure. . . . I
  think if the linked courses hold high
  expectations for students . . . treat them as
  intellectuals who can make difficult connections
  between disciplines . . . then they become that.

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Impact on Faculty as Teacher

• I became a better teacher working with Jim. He
  was always challenging me to think about what I
  was doing and whyhow I could do it differently.
  He was the older faculty member sharing his
  experience with a new one.

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Impact on Faculty as Learner

• I profited from the experience for at least
  three reasons a) I ventured into an areaand an
  approachthat have long been of interest to me
  b) I learned a considerable amount about
  economics from my colleague c) I had the
  pleasure of meeting regularly with Dr. Turek on
  matters relating to our project, which yielded
  countless fruitful ideas and good conversations
  on wide-ranging subjects.

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Programmatic Revisions

• More explicit integration of course materials
• Better balance of students by ability
• Addition of specific teaching applications in
  instructional development workshops

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Additional Directions

• Sophomore-level learning communities
• Residential interest-based LCs
• Course Activity LCs

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Summarizing the Key Points

• Capture faculty interest with instructional
  development programs that address their specific
  teaching concerns
• Provide a structure of support that will
  facilitate both the development and
  implementation of learning communities
• Take a long view of the process and results

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Questions?

• Contact
• Rich Burke
• burke_at_lynchburg.edu
• Mari Normyle
• normyle_at_lynchburg.edu