Learning Communities

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Learning Communities

• MCCCD Dialog Day
• October 8, 2004

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Leadership Abstracts

• The learning revolution aims toward creating a
  new culture and a new architecture of education,
  a new system in which the learner is placed at
  the center of everything that occurs in the
  educational enterprise. The learning community
  is a curricular innovation that can help achieve
  that purpose
• Terry OBanion, 1996 President Emeritus of The
  League for Innovation

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AAHE National Conference on Higher Education

• Many researchers believe that knowledge is
  constructed by humans through social interaction.
  Education, therefore, should be based in
  learning communities where teachers and students
  act interdependently to construct meaning and
  understanding.
• Pat Cross, 1998

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Secretarys Commission on Achieving Necessary
Skills (SCANS)

• Employers want graduates to have competence in
  problem-solving, teamwork, social skills,
  communication, among other skills. The report
  notes that people learn best when taught in the
  context of situations, activities, and problems.
  
• Sticht, 1984, 1986, 1987 Resnick, 1987 Lave,
  1988

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AACU Report The Greater Expectation (1999)

• Among other things, this report identifies
  integrated and linked learning communities,
  diverse forms of experiential learning, and
  collaborative research projects as powerful and
  effective strategies for deepening student
  preparation for a knowledge-intensive society and
  increasing their opportunity to persist and
  succeed.

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AACC Issue Paper Fulfilling the Promise of
Access and Opportunity

• Community colleges should design validating
  teaching and learning environments that are
  relationship-centered, connecting faculty and
  students. This article cites learning
  communities as an example of validating,
  democratic classrooms in action.
• Laura Rendon, 2002

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Honored but Invisible

• One common benefit of LCs is that they create
  communities among students. Students report that
  they come to know their fellow students better
  and are able to work with them more both in and
  out of classin constrast to conventional
  practice in community colleges, where students
  typically find a new group in virtually every
  class they take.
• W. Norton Grubb, 1999

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Liberal Education (Fall 1993)

• A five-year study indicates that students in
  learning communities at North Seattle Community
  College have higher retention, persistence, and
  graduation rates than students in traditional
  courses, a finding that is generally consistent
  in learning communities throughout the state of
  Washington.

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Commission on the Future of Community Colleges

• Community is not only a region to be served, but
  also a climate to be created. The most
  challenging task before our colleges is to
  participate in the building and rebuilding of
  their communities to the ultimate end of building
  learning communities that empower people to
  participate in continuous individual and
  community renewal.
• Harlacher and Gollattscheck, 1992

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Seven Principles for Good Practice in
Undergraduate Education, AAHE

• Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team
  effort than a solo race. Good learning, like
  good work, is collaborative and social, not
  competitive and isolated. Working with others
  often increases involvement in learning. Sharing
  ones own ideas and responding to others
  reactions sharpens thinking and deepens
  understanding.
• Chickering and Gamson, 1987

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Honored But Invisible

• Sometimes the skills in one course can be used to
  help emphasize the content of the other course
  and instructors can argue with one another,
  providing varying interpretations and modeling
  for students the active debate and discussion
  they want to encourage.
• W. Norton Grubb, 1999

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Time Magazine

• Time recently hailed Seattle Central Community
  College for creating one of the nations most
  expansive programs of learning communities.
  The secret is a first-year curriculum that is
  carefully designed to inspire repeated,
  meaningful interactions among its students.

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Pat Cross

• When faculty show an interest in students, get
  to know them through informal as well as formal
  channels, engage in conversations with them, show
  interest in their intellectual development, then
  students respond with enthusiasm and engagement.

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Chickering and Gamson

• Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of
  classes is the most important factor in student
  motivation and involvement. Faculty concern
  helps students get through rough times and keep
  on working. Knowing a few faculty members well
  enhances students intellectual commitment and
  encourages them to think about their own values
  and future plans.

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Jean MacGregor

• As they look back on their learning communities
  teaching experiences, the faculty teams who feel
  the most engaged speak repeatedly about their own
  learning and their own sense of community, beyond
  what they created for and with their students.
  They speak of the intense stimulation of
  discovering each others disciplines and teaching
  practices, the affirmation of reflecting together
  on students they had in common, and the deep
  satisfaction of learning to collaboratively
  create a curriculum.

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One Instructors Perspective

• Its very, very enriching to see other teachers
  work, teachers who are already quite adept, quite
  experienced veteran teachers with enormous
  reserves of technique. So theres an enormous
  kind of fertilization that kind of enrichment
  that would never be possible in the normal
  traditional venue where you are going into the
  classroom every day by yourself.
• Grubb, 1999

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• MCCCD Dialog Day
• October 8, 2004

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• At Skagit Valley Community College one learning
  community paired a sociology course with a
  nutrition course. It was called, Culture,
  Poverty and Diet.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Seattle Central Community College has a
  thematically linked learning community called
  Our Ways of Knowing The African American
  Experience and Social Change which combines
  sociology, political science, art, and English
  courses.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• The Puentes Project in California has developed
  learning communities for Latino students in more
  than thirty colleges. They typically emphasize
  language and cultural issues and incorporate
  success strategies for college.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• At Daytona Beach Community College in Florida,
  the Quanta Program offers a two-semester learning
  community experience as part of the general
  education program. Fully integrated and
  team-taught by three professors, it combines
  Freshman English I and II, Humanities I and II,
  and General Psychology and Psychology of
  Adjustment.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Collin County Community College in Texas offers
  several learning communities as part of their
  civic engagement initiative. A history and
  English pair is called Rhetoric and the
  Republic while another pairs government and
  sociology, Exploring Americas Communities
  Problems and Policies in Society.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Metropolitan Community College District in
  Missouri institutionalized learning communities
  as one way to provide coherence for general
  education. Called learning enhancement
  requirements, the interdisciplinary requirements
  provide opportunities for the pursuit of
  individual learning objectives in the context of
  interdisciplinary, human diversity, or
  integrative studies objectives.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• North Seattle Community College in Seattle offers
  a learning community called Ways of Knowing How
  to Choose What to Believe, which explores
  classic epistemological questions from several
  different discipline perspectives, including
  philosophy and science.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• At Skagit Valley Community College in
  northwestern Washington, the Daily Planet
  learning community combines introductory
  composition with astronomy. !Viva--Mexican
  Voices/American Dreams combines literature and
  ethnic relations. SEX.comm combines human
  sexuality with mass communication.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Lane Community College in Oregon offers learning
  communities for both health occupations and
  culinary arts. BioBonds Blocks for Your Body
  combines chemistry and cell biology, while Food
  for Thought links culinary arts, basic math
  applications, and English as a way to examine the
  influential role of food.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• LaGuardia Community College in New York City
  offers a variety of developmental learning
  communities. The New Student House was first
  piloted in 1991 and includes a cluster of basic
  skills courses. An ESL version was developed in
  1994. In addition, ESL faculty have successfully
  paired 50 percent of their courses with
  college-level content courses.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, has
  Integrated Studies Communities designed for
  students with a 10th 12th grade reading level.
  They combine basic skills courses with one
  college-level course in either communications or
  psychology. Parkland also offers a team-taught
  Forensic Science pairing between Chemistry and
  Criminal Justice.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, has
  several basic skills learning communities.
  Summer Express is one offered during the summer
  months. It combines pre-college reading,
  writing, and college orientation for students who
  have not qualified for college-level work.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Grossmont Community College in San Diego offers
  the award-winning Project Success model designed
  to increase academic success and student
  retention. It now involves 30 faculty and 600
  students each semester.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Tacoma Community Colleges Bridge Program with
  the Evergreen State College is a 12 to 16 credit
  yearlong general education program for working
  adults that meets three or four days a week,
  including Saturdays. The Bridge Program is a
  block of general education courses organized
  around a theme.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• At LaGuardia Community College, Movies and the
  City Intercultural Images has students visit
  the Tenement Museum to deepen their understanding
  of immigrant conditions as they do research
  projects based on the novel and film, Ragtime.
  They also visit the Museum of the Chinese in the
  Americas, the Museo del Barrio, the Museum of the
  City of New York, and the New York Historical
  Society, as well as Little Italy, Orchard Street,
  and Loisaida, three neighborhoods on Manhattans
  lower east side.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Also at LaGuardia Community College, the Harlem
  on My Mind cluster has students examine
  historical documents and then take a walking tour
  of Harlem for a research project on the Harlem
  Riot of 1935. In the Moral Thinking cluster
  students focus on ethical dilemmas raised by the
  World Trade Center disaster while taking English,
  philosophy, and film courses.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• At Collin County Community College, a learning
  community called The Road to the White House
  combined English, history, and government.
  Students worked with the Secretary of States
  Office, Project Vote Smart Youth Inclusion
  Project, and Rock the Vote to conduct a
  nonpartisan voter registration drive on campus.

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Learning Communities Around the Country

• Also at Collin County Community College, the
  study of people with disabilities was the focus
  of The Politics of Liberation Civil Rights,
  Civil Liberties, and Multiculturalism in the 21st
  Century combining government, history, and
  sociology. Students worked at a residential
  barrier-free camp for the physically challenged
  and an equine- assisted rehabilitation program
  for children and adults.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• MCCCD Dialog Day
• October 8, 2004

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At PVCC, the First Year Experience (FYE) is an
  academic program for any student entering college
  for the first time. Students enroll in 2-4
  courses as a cohort (6-12 credit hours) and
  remain with the cohort throughout the first
  college semester. FYEs include co-curricular
  elements, such as student gatherings, activities,
  study skills, life skills, and college success
  skills.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• In Spring 2004, a PVCC learning community called
  20th Century Visions Exploring the Art of
  Filmmaking included Contemporary Cinema and
  First-Year Composition. Students studied
  contemporary films, directors, and critics with
  emphasis on evaluating films as an art form.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At PVCC, The Literate Scientist combines
  science and technical writing skills for the
  science major. Writing assignments are focused
  on using the technical library as the main
  source. ENG 111, Technical Writing, is combined
  with CHM236, General Organic Chemistry.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• The Dynamic Learning Program at SMCC focuses on
  education majors. It takes cohorts of incoming
  freshman and with block scheduling provides
  instruction that reflects a shift from teacher
  centered classes to cooperative, constructivist
  and engaging learning experiences.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At Glendale Community College, one learning
  community is called Looking for the Truth in
  Fiction. Students complete both humanities
  requirements in one sweep by reading what the
  great philosophers and authors have to say about
  the human condition. They explore good and evil,
  heroes and villains, and how the world is
  constructed by applying philosophy to
  literature. 

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• Also at Glendale, The Way We Really Are  The
  Police Function and Society Issues for the 21st
  Century examines the realities of police work,
  coupled with the stress of personal
  relationships.  Courses in Family Studies and
  Police Science are taught by two police marriage
  survivors and examine the demands of the job and
  the demands of maintaining a healthy personal
  relationship. 

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• In Spring 2004, at Glendale, Be Techie, Not
  Tacky or Survivor's Guide to Technical Writing
  Skills combined BPC110 (Computer Usage and
  Applications) with ENG 111 (Technical Writing).

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At CGCC, one popular learning community pairs
  anthropology with first-year composition designed
  around the theme, Native Americans of the
  Southwest Voices of the Past and Present.
  Another Weaving the Tapestries of our Lives
  integrates first-year composition with Sociology.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At CGCC, Community Through Art links ENG 101
  and ARH 100, Arithmetic and Study Skills links
  MAT 082 and CPD150AB, while Currents of American
  Life integrates HIS 108 and ENH 255. Another
  focuses on cultural diversity by integrating ENG
  101 and PSY 132.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• Also at Chandler-Gilbert CC, the Community
  Participation and Student Success (COMPASS)
  learning community combines English,
  communication, and counseling courses. Teachers
  Today and Tomorrow is a four-semester education
  cohort learning community.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At Scottsdale Community College, the Digital
  Storytelling integrates ART 199 and COM 199.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• At Phoenix College, Exploring Your Natural
  World links Environmental Biology and Critical
  Reading.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• A guide called Learning Communities Getting
  Started was written by Geri Rasmussen and
  Elizabeth Skinner of GateWay Community College.
  It is available on the MCLI website.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• The Fall 1996 Forum and Labyrinth published by
  MCLI contained articles from faculty at Phoenix
  College, Mesa, Gateway, Paradise Valley, and
  South Mountain about team teaching, integrated
  learning communities, and using technology in
  learning communities. It is available on the
  MCLI website.

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Learning Communities Around Maricopa

• Marybeth Mason and Maria Hesse from CGCC
  contributed to two monographs, Learning
  Communities in Community Colleges and Integrating
  Learning Communities with Service-Learning, which
  were published by the National Learning
  Communities Project in conjunction with AAHE.