Learning Communities
The outcomes of Option 1 come from
research on the First-Year Seminar, and the outcomes from research Learning communities. The good news is that the first-year
experience course is a natural for new students, with its focus on positively
promoting new student adjustment and assimilation into college, to be an anchor
in a learning community.
OPTION 1: Why Have First-Year Experience Courses?
Retention
(persistence) and Academic Performance (achievement)
“It is reasonably safe say to say that there
has been more well-conducted research on, and more
compelling empirical gathered in support of the first-year seminar than any
other course offered in the history of higher education. The two most
significant and well-replicated effects of the first-year seminar have been on
two important student outcomes: (a) retention (persistence) and (b) academic
performance (achievement).”
(Cuseo)
Other
Institutional Outcomes of FYE: Viewed from this programmatic perspective, the first-year seminar may have
the potential for contributing significantly to some or all of the following
institutional outcomes: (1) promoting curriculum development, (2) stimulating
instructional development of the faculty, (3) building campus community and
promoting professional partnerships across different divisions or units of the
college, (4) promoting positive perceptions of students among faculty and
staff, (5) enhancing institutional awareness and knowledge among faculty,
staff, and students, (6) sparking new students’ enthusiasm for and commitment
to their institution, (7) increasing student utilization of campus support
services and participation in campus life, (8) increasing student satisfaction
with the institution, (9) facilitating students’ selection of a college major
and rate of progress toward degree completion, (10) enhancing college marketing
and student recruitment, (11) enhancing enrollment management and institutional
revenue, (12) early identification of first-term students who may be
academically “at risk,” (13) serving a vehicle for gathering assessment data on
students at college entry, (14) promoting greater gains in student development
from college entry to college completion. (Cuseo)
http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/fye.html
OPTION 2: Why have Learning Communities?
“In a variety of
institutional settings and in a number of forms, learning communities have been
shown to increase student retention and academic achievement, increase student
involvement and motivation, improve students’ time to degree completion, and
enhance student intellectual development.
Students involved in learning communities become more intellectually mature and
responsible for their own learning and develop the capacity to care about the
learning of their peers.
Faculty members involved in learning communities that
facilitate cross-faculty collaboration are expanding their repertoire of
teaching approaches, continually revising their course content, and acquiring
new scholarly interests. Learning community faculty
members are also building mentoring relationships with each other and are more
frequently engaging with beginning students and general education offerings.
Institutions use learning communities as sites for testing out new curricular
approaches and strategies for strengthening teaching and learning.
These programs offer more coherent opportunities for the teaching of literacy
skills, such as reading, writing, and speaking, and more coherent pathways for
students to engage in the general education curriculum. They also offer a
robust way to address interdisciplinary ideas and offer a more coordinated
platform for study in the major. Partnerships between student and academic
affairs divisions are strengthened as these organizations work to develop and
maintain learning communities and these programs are a relatively low cost
method for accomplishing all of the above.
Learning community programs also address a variety of societal issues such as
the increasing fragmentation of information and student alienation toward
participation and engagement. With an emphasis on interpersonal dialogue,
collaboration, and experiential learning within the context of diversity, these
programs address a decreasing sense of community and connection and allow
students to relate their college-level learning to larger personal and global
questions.” (Learning Commons)
http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/03_start_entry.asp#23
What Works in Remediation:
Lessons from 30 Years of Research
By Boylan and Saxon
http://www.ced.appstate.edu/centers/ncde/reserve_reading/what_works.htm
“Learning communities and paired courses.
The use of learning communities in remedial courses has also been found
to improve the performance of students participating in remediation. Learning communities have combined courses
and groups of students organized as cohorts.
Typically, these cohorts of students took courses linked together by a
common theme, and instructors of these courses functioned as a team to insure
that the content of each course was related to and supportive of the other
courses (Adams & Huneycutt, 1999).”
“The use of paired courses has offered another example of the learning
community concept. A reading course, for
instance, might be “paired” with a social science course and students would
enroll as a cohort in both courses. The
instructors of these two courses would then collaborate to insure that concepts
taught in reading related directly to what was being learned in sociology
courses (Adams & Huneycutt, 1999). “
“Tinto (1997) found that underprepared
students participating in remedial courses organized around the principles of
learning communities had better attitudes toward learning and had higher course
completion rates than students in traditional remedial courses. In later research Tinto
(1998) found that the use of learning community concepts to teach remedial
courses resulted in improved retention for participating students. Commander, Stratton, Callahan, and Smith
(1996) found that participating in paired courses improved student performance
and resulted in higher levels of reported student satisfaction.”
From “Yes
We Can” by Robert McCabe:
Developing
Human Beings: The Nonacademic Considerations:
·
Learning Communities –
“One of the most significant collaborative activities that connects underprepared student learning with non academic concerns
is the learning community. … Learning communities purposefully restructure the
curriculum to link together coursework or courses so that students find greater
coherence in what they are learning as well as increased intellectual [and
social] interaction with faculty and fellow students. …In commuter colleges
such as community colleges, underprepared are at high
risk. If they are to make lasting connections to the college, those connections
most likely will occur in the classroom.”
·
The First-Year
Experience Course – Tinto, “The first six months of
college are the most critical in determining whether or not a student will
become integrated into the academic and social communities of the college. In
fact, nearly half of all beginning students leave college before the start of
their second year.”….Research by
The Empirical Case for First-Year Seminars: Well-Documented Effects on
Student
By Joe Cuseo
http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/jcase.html
“The two most significant and well-replicated
effects of the first-year seminar have been on two important student outcomes:
(a) retention (persistence) and (b) academic performance (achievement). Using
virtually all major types of research methods (quantitative & qualitative,
experimental & correlational), these outcomes of
the seminar have been replicated for all types students (e.g., at-risk &
well-prepared, minority & majority, residential & commuter) across
institutions of all types (2- & 4-year, public & private), sizes
(small, mid-sized, large), and locations (urban, suburban, rural). The two most
significant and well-replicated effects of the first-year seminar have been on
two important student outcomes: (a) retention (persistence) and (b) academic
performance (achievement). Using virtually all major types of research methods
(quantitative & qualitative, experimental & correlational),
these outcomes of the seminar have been replicated for all types students
(e.g., at-risk & well-prepared, minority & majority, residential &
commuter) across institutions of all types (2- & 4-year, public &
private), sizes (small, mid-sized, large), and locations (urban, suburban,
rural).”
See
First-Year Experience:
http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/fye.html
See Learning Communities:
http://www.oocities.org/depeky/community.html