Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

FROM THE SERIES EDITOR

About This Publication

About This Volume

EDITORS’ NOTES

Chapter 1: The Growth and Current State of Learning Communities in Higher Education

Learning Communities and Student Engagement

Definitions of Learning Communities

Learning Community Growth and Expansion

The Current State of Learning Communities

The Impact of Learning Communities

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Curriculum-Based Learning Communities Centered Within a Discipline

Models of Discipline-Centered Curriculum-Based LCs

Brain Matters: A Discipline-Centered, Embedded Cohort Curriculum-Based LC

Benefits of Curriculum-Based LCs and Lessons Learned

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Transitioning Students Out of College: The Senior LC in Psychology at Wagner College

The Capstone Course

The Reflective Tutorial

Linking the Capstone Course, RFT, and Field Placement

Assessment of SLC

Lessons Learned

Chapter 4: Residential Learning Communities Centered Within a Discipline: The Psychology Early Awareness Program

Definition and Theoretical Foundations of Residential Learning Communities

The Context and Origins of LMU’s Residential Learning Community

The Design and Implementation of PEAP

Examining the Effectiveness of PEAP

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

Chapter 5: Creating Learning Communities in the Classroom

Interteaching

Team-Based Learning

Cooperative Learning in Large, Lecture-Based Courses

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Using Student-Based Organizations Within a Discipline as a Vehicle to Create Learning Communities

Examples of Student-Based Learning Communities

Common Challenges Facing Student-Based Learning Communities

Recommendations for Developing Successful Student-Based Learning Communities

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Virtual Learning Communities Centered Within a Discipline: Future Directions

Definition of Virtual Learning Communities

Technological Components of VLCs

Intersections Between Virtual and Other Learning Communities

Benefits of VLCs

How to Build Successful VLCs

A Look Ahead

Chapter 8: The Evolution of Learning Communities: A Retrospective

Learning Communities as a Maturing Movement

Patterns of Evolution, Practice, and Support

New Partnerships and Shared Goals

Assessment

Inter-institutional Partnerships and Networks

Pedagogy with Purpose

Next Steps, Future Directions, and Prospects

Index

Appendix: General Learning Community Resources and Examples of Other Discipline-Centered Communities

DISCIPLINE-CENTERED LEARNING COMMUNITIES: CREATING CONNECTIONS AMONG STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND CURRICULA

Kimberly Buch, Kenneth E. Barron (eds.)

New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 132

Catherine M. Wehlburg, Editor-in-Chief

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FROM THE SERIES EDITOR

About This Publication

Since 1980, New Directions for Teaching and Learning (NDTL) has brought a unique blend of theory, research, and practice to leaders in postsecondary education. NDTL sourcebooks strive not only for solid substance but also for timeliness, compactness, and accessibility.

The series has four goals: to inform readers about current and future directions in teaching and learning in postsecondary education, to illuminate the context that shapes these new directions, to illustrate these new directions through examples from real settings, and to propose ways in which these new directions can be incorporated into still other settings.

This publication reflects the view that teaching deserves respect as a high form of scholarship. We believe that significant scholarship is conducted not only by researchers who report results of empirical investigations but also by practitioners who share disciplinary reflections about teaching. Contributors to NDTL approach questions of teaching and learning as seriously as they approach substantive questions in their own disciplines, and they deal not only with pedagogical issues but also with the intellectual and social context in which these issues arise. Authors deal on the one hand with theory and research and on the other with practice, and they translate from research and theory to practice and back again.

About This Volume

Discipline-Centered Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Curricula describes and reflects the changing uses of learning communities in higher education focusing on discipline-centered communities. This issue is a resource for those who work with or are interested in learning communities as it provides not just models of what is working but also abundant resources and future directions for this educational approach. Focusing on the academic discipline of psychology, the authors provide a reflective and exciting approach to the development and use of learning communities.

Catherine M. Wehlburg
Editor-in-Chief

CATHERINE M. WEHLBURG is the assistant provost for institutional effectiveness at Texas Christian University.

EDITORS’ NOTES

We set out with several goals for this volume. First, we wanted to extend the existing learning community literature by presenting an intradisciplinary perspective as a complement to the interdisciplinary perspective traditionally used in discussions of learning communities in higher education. We certainly appreciate the interdisciplinary perspective, and have seen learning communities used as an effective vehicle for interdisciplinary curricular reform and student engagement at our own institutions. At the same time, we have also observed an increasing use of learning communities as vehicles for achieving departmental or program-specific goals and enhancing major-specific or discipline-specific student learning outcomes. Learning communities at our own institutions have followed a similar developmental pattern, beginning with general education-based learning communities for undeclared students and expanding in the direction of discipline-centered learning communities for students interested in particular majors. Currently, over half of the learning communities at our two institutions are centered within a discipline. As faculty members who developed discipline-centered learning communities in our own departments, we have been a part of this evolution.

Thus, we offer the current volume hoping to carry forward the work begun two decades ago in another New Directions volume, Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Disciplines. Its authors—Faith Gabelnick, Jean MacGregor, Roberta Matthews, and Barbara Leigh Smith—inspired many faculty, staff, and administrators to join the learning community movement by showing their potential for creating connections among students, faculty, and curricula across disciplines. And, as indicated by our title, we have found learning communities to be a powerful vehicle for creating connections among students, faculty, and curricula within a discipline as well.

However, this evolution has brought new conditions and challenges, along with a new audience of faculty and administrator stakeholders. Thus, our second goal for this volume is to provide a useful resource for these stakeholders. We have met many faculty and department chairs who want to learn more about the viability and versatility of creating learning communities in their departments; they are asking about their potential benefits, required resources, and common challenges. We also have been asked about the nuts and bolts of designing, implementing, and evaluating discipline-centered learning communities. We hope this volume will provide practical answers to these questions as well as links to additional resources to help others create similar initiatives in their departments and disciplines.

Our third goal is to highlight another evolution of the learning community movement that offers alternative definitions and new models on how to promote learning communities. Anne Goodsell Love, a contemporary leader in this movement, has contributed an introductory chapter on the background, growth, and evolution of learning communities. Part of this evolution is a broad view of learning communities that includes not just the traditional curriculum-based approach but also communities based within a classroom, communities defined by student organizations, and communities enabled by virtual connections. In 1999, Lenning and Ebbers proposed a typology of learning communities that recognized all of these as vehicles for creating connections that may lead to desired academic outcomes. We have used Lenning and Ebbers’s typology—which includes curriculum-based, residential-based, classroom-based, student-based, and virtual-based learning communities—to structure the current volume.

We have recruited faculty from one particular discipline—psychology—to showcase how all five types of learning communities can be created to enhance student engagement. Specifically, Chapters Two and Three describe different approaches for creating curriculum-based learning communities within the discipline of psychology. In Chapter Two, Mark Zrull, Courtney Rocheleau, Corinne Smith, and Shawn Bergman describe the Brain Matters learning community that they offer for first-year students at Appalachian State University, and in Chapter Three Laurence Nolan and Steve Jenkins describe Psychology: Then and Now, a capstone LC for seniors at Wagner College. Chapter Four features a residential-based learning community at Loyola Marymount University, The Psychology Early Awareness Program (PEAP), developed by authors Cheryl Grills, Adam Fingerhut, Vandana Thadani, and Ricardo Arturo Machón. In Chapter Five, Bryan Saville, Natalie Kerr Lawrence, and Krisztina Jakobsen describe how they create learning communities within a wide range of undergraduate and graduate psychology classrooms at James Madison University, using a variety of active learning strategies. In Chapter Six, Michael Hall describes how a discipline-centered student organization—in this case, Psi Chi, the international honor society in psychology—can be the foundation for a student-based learning community within a major. Although not included as an existing type of learning community in the 1999 typology, Lenning and Ebbers predicted that virtual learning communities had great potential for the future. The past decade has supported their prediction, and in Chapter Seven, Anita Blanchard and James Cook of the University of North Carolina Charlotte describe the potential for virtual learning communities to make connections among students and curricula and for supplementing the other types of learning communities described in Chapters Two through Six. In Chapter Eight, we are delighted to end the volume with a retrospective chapter by three of the original learning community pioneers—Roberta Matthews, Barbara Leigh Smith, and Jean MacGregor.

Although Lenning and Ebbers’s typology can help illustrate the variety and versatility of learning communities, we also acknowledge that any typology can create the appearance of artificial boundaries between different types of learning communities. For example, although an initiative may be classified as a residential-based learning community because of its residential component, most are also combined with a strong curricular component. Similarly, although we intentionally focused the book’s examples on one particular discipline to showcase how all five types of learning communities can be applied to psychology, we intend the content to be generalizable to learning communities centered in any discipline in higher education. Toward that end, we provide an appendix of additional learning community resources with a comprehensive list of example learning communities from a wide array of other disciplines. We hope readers walk away inspired by the rich variety and vast versatility of learning communities and how they might be used within their own disciplines and academic programs.

Kimberly Buch
Kenneth E. Barron
Editors

Reference

Lenning, O. T., and Ebbers, L. H. The Powerful Potential of Learning Communities: Improving Education for the Future. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Vol. 26, No. 6. Washington, D. C.: Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University, 1999.

KIMBERLY BUCH is professor of psychology and coordinator of the Psychology Learning Community at the University of North Carolina Charlotte.

KENNETH E. BARRON is professor of psychology and coordinator of the Psychology Learning Community at James Madison University.

1

The Growth and Current State of Learning Communities in Higher Education

Anne Goodsell Love

Learning communities carry on a tradition of educational reform, resulting in improved student learning outcomes.

Learning Communities and Student Engagement

Over the past two decades, growth in learning communities (LCs) has increased steadily on college campuses (Barefoot, 2002; Smith and MacGregor, 2009). Colleges and universities of all sizes and types now implement LCs for some or all of their students, usually with the aim of improving student learning, improving students’ experiences in and out of the classroom, providing integration of ideas and disciplines to combat increasing specialization and compartmentalization of disciplines, and increasing rates of student retention and degree completion. As the cost of higher education soars so have expectations for student success, and calls for undergraduate education reform appear on a regular basis. LCs are one reform effort to change how students, faculty, and student affairs professionals work together to form a more holistic learning experience, both across and within disciplines.

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Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!