Folks:
The first excerpt below gives a very useful definition of the increasingly
common phenomenon of learning communities. The second excerpt outlines
some
practical advice on how to meet common sources of resistance to the
establishment of such communities. Both pieces are from: CREATING
LEARNING
COMMUNITIES: A Practical Guide to Winning Support, Organizing for Change,
and Implementing Programs, by Nancy S. Shapiro and Jodi H. Levine.
Copyright
© 1999 by Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
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CREATING LEARNING COMMUNITIES
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WHAT IS A LEARNING COMMUNITY? (pp 3-4)
There is no proprietary definition of a learning community, in spite of
all
the essays, monographs, and other volumes that attempt to construct the
essential definition. A common definition is this one:
Any one of a variety of curricular structures that link together
several existing courses - or actually restructure the material
entirely - so that students have opportunities for deeper
understanding and integration of the material they are learning, and
more interaction with one another and their teachers as fellow
participants in the learning enterprise (Gabelnick, MacGregor,
Matthews, and Smith, 1990, p.19).
Although many learning communities subscribe to this definition, others
prefer a broader description that describes the curricular as well as
co-curricular potential of learning communities. For example, Alexander
Astin, who recommended organizing students into learning communities to
overcome feelings of isolation common on large campuses, offered a
definition that recognized that learning occurs in a variety of settings:
Such communities can be organized along curricular lines, common
career interests, avocational interests, residential living areas,
and so on. These can be used to build a sense of group identity,
cohesiveness, and uniqueness; to encourage continuity and the
integration of diverse curricular and co-curricular experiences; and
to counteract the isolation that many students feel (Astin, 1985, p.
161).
The debate over what a learning community is will not end with this book.
It
is a lively and active discussion out of which emerge a core set of
assumptions, beliefs, and values as to what constitutes a learning
community. Our contribution to this debate, in terms of defining the
"what"
of learning communities, is to advance the notion that learning
communities
initiatives share basic characteristics:
* Organizing students and faculty into smaller groups
* Encouraging integration of the curriculum
* Helping students establish academic and social support networks
* Providing a setting for students to be socialized to the expectations of
college
* Bringing faculty together in more meaningful ways
* Focusing faculty and students on learning outcomes
* Providing a setting for community-based delivery of academic support
programs
* Offering a critical lens for examining the first-year experience
-----------------------------------------
MEETING SOURCES OF RESISTANCE (pp 58-60)
In 1972 Robert Halfman and colleagues at the MIT Education Research Center
published "Tactics for Change: Checklists for the Academic Innovator."
Numerous items on the lists they produced still resonate in today's
academic
climate and provide a useful starting point for
campus faculty and administrators looking to institutionalize learning
communities on their campuses.
* Make Sure the Idea Is Not Seen as Being Owned by One Individual
Halfman called this the "entreprenuer effect" and suggested that any
innovation that is too closely linked with a single person will survive
only
as long as the person who initiated it keeps it alive.
In this book we have emphasized the importance of working through
committees
in part to address this potentially damaging scenario. A related danger is
the "isolation of infection" effect". Any program thought to be the
exclusive purview of one administrator or faculty member gets quarantined
and effectively isolated.
* Be an Advice Seeker, Not a Permission Seeker
For both faculty and administrators who want to begin discussions of
learning communities on their campuses, the best advice is always to
invite
campus participants to consult on the project. This strategy accomplishes
two goals: first, the more people who contribute to an idea, the more they
feel ownership of it; second, the more people involved in defining the
idea,
the fewer surprises when the group begins asking for resources.
* Protect the Program from Too Many Levels of Approval
If the proposal for the learning community has to pass through an
exhaustive
committee process before it is piloted, the faculty and administrator
sponsors of the learning community could easily lose their enthusiasm
before
they begin the real work of creating the new model The decision makers who
have the authority to approve (or not approve) must come to the table from
the beginning or as soon as possible.
* Use Shared Governance to your Advantage
Institutions of higher education are sometimes faulted for the cumbersome
structural organization of shared governance, which some on the outside
think ties the hands of visionary administrators and slows change to a
glacial pace. Yet the advantage of shared governance is that a structure
is
already in place to integrate a new idea into the very fabric of the
institution. It is precisely because of the concept of shared governance
that we can talk in terms of changing campus culture, which can happen
only
through this transformative process.
* Be Realistic About Costs
Burgess (1994) recognized a number of institutional features that affect
teamwork at a university, among them faculty autonomy, discipline
boundaries
and biases, administrative obstacles, and
dysfunctional reward systems. These are formidable obstacles to any
collaborative enterprise at a university and can become significant
barriers
to an initiative as integrated as learning communities.
Any effort to get learning communities started on campus must be realistic
about the costs to departments and colleges in faculty time and work with
units to reach compromises on sharing resources and costs. Frequently
change
within a department looks more viable than collaboration between
departments
and colleges. Departments are leery of sacrificing their autonomy, yet
central administration can leverage cross-departmental collaboration by
offering small carrots. Because cross-disciplinary learning communities
are
more interesting and more viable in the long run than individual courses
taken in a predetermined sequence, it is worth the extra effort and time
it
takes to work out the details between departments.
Maryland's College Park Scholars Science, Technology, and Society Program
was created collaboratively between the College of Engineering and the
College of Arts and Humanities. Operationally the provost's money went
into
the engineering college budget to buy out the faculty director's time and
the extra funds for the graduate assistant and staff support. However,
since
the whole concept of Science, Technology, and society required a partner
from the humanities (history or philosophy of science, or social
sciences),
the Director of the Science, Technology, and Society Program redirected
resources to provide course release to a historian, who became a
co-director
for the program. Eventually they added an instructor from the history
department who helped shape the colloquium and worked with the writing
instructors to suggest composition assignments based on the Science,
Technology, and Society curriculum. Thus, learning communities money went
through the engineering college to the history department, ultimately
strengthening the program.
REFERENCES
Astin, A.W., "Achieving Educational Excellence." San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1985.
Burgess, P., "Why Don't We Have More Teamwork in Higher Education?"
Paper presented at AAHE Forum: Faculty Roles and Rewards, New
Orleans, Jan. 1994
Gabelnick, F., MacGregor, J., Mattthews, R.S., and Smith, B.L.,
(eds.) "Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students,