(continued)

These engaged classrooms, called “learning communities,” are generally a set of linked college classes for small groups of students. It clusters students into a cohort identified by a common quality, such as having an undeclared major, or simply being a first-year freshman.The clustered cohort attends courses together where the content is integrated and the faculty collaborate.

Cleveland State University (CSU) is in its fourth year of implementing a learning community on its campus. This year 179 freshman out of a class of 1,300 self-selected to be part of this unique approach to their first year of college.

The learning communities at CSU use field trips, service-learning projects, inquiry-based discussions, projects and intensive writing assignments to heighten the learning experience. Faculty, peer mentors, and an embedded librarian are resources available to students whenever they need assistance.

What would it look like to have these elements in an adult education classroom?

While field trips and service-learning projects may be beyond the reach and resources of most adult education programs, a program that utilizes group projects, extended writing assignments, and draws upon the knowledge and skills of peer mentors and librarians could provide the rigor and links a learner needs in order to be prepared for post-secondary education.

The Director of Learning Communities at CSU, Dr. Charleyse Pratt, describes this model as a good fit for the students being served. “Faculty are able to honor the integrity of the academy but also the spirit of the students who come,” Dr. Pratt says. “We've been encouraging professors to examine not only their own practice, but also the students that are coming now, who are very different from those years ago. They have different expectations, driven by their sense of immediacy and technology.”

CSU's approach to a learning community is just one of many. However, in the article “Learning Better Together: The Impact of Learning Communities on Student Success,” Dr. Vincent Tinto suggests that all models share the following characteristics:

Shared Knowledge

• cohort attends linked classes together
• classes are organized by a theme that allows for interdisciplinary learning
• provides a connected, coherent learning experience where integrated content is more meaningful

Shared Knowing

• the learning environment is active and participatory; using study groups, field trips, problem-based investigation, and service learning projects
• this approach encourages the sharing of ideas, experiences, and interpretations; enriching and challenging the group
• constructing knowledge together promotes cognitive development

Shared Responsibility

• small class size creates a role for each learner in the knowledge acquisition
• joint commitment for completing the work assigned, especially for group projects
• higher levels of accountability and support from faculty, peer mentors, and classmates

Learning communities are not new. Various forms of learning communities have been present at colleges since the 1920s, though usually segregated, small, and many times short-lived. Being a special-project versus a catalyst of institutional change continues to be a challenge for the learning community movement.

While reformers and organizers of learning communities tackle the issues of getting institutional buy-in, resources for staff development, and a pathway for scaling-up the model, the known benefits of learning communities continue.

In 1999 the National Learning Communities Dissemination Project completed a three-year, multi-campus assessment of learning communities at 19 institutions, including seven community colleges. It explored the advantages of learning communities and provided a compelling argument for other entities that work in education to implement learning community components into their practices. The benefits discussed in this assessment were:

• higher retention,
• positive perception of learning,
• stable and improved grade point averages, and
• improved intellectual development

Research tells us that high expectations, academic and social support, frequent feedback, and involvement from students are the conditions that promote learning. Learning communities take these conditions and make them the pillars of their program, organized through cohorts and interdisciplinary study.

Adult education programs understand the importance of these conditions too, but have not organized their programs by cohorts and interdisciplinary study. The start-stop nature of adult learners, the lack of cross-curricular materials, and limited resources may point to why there are not many cases of these promising practices in the adult education community.

Perhaps there are other challenges too. Further study, as well as partnering and mentoring with community colleges that have learning communities could certainly be helpful in addressing the barriers and integrating learning communities in the design of adult education programs.

Preparing students for post secondary and/or the workplace is a firm mandate for adult education so programs must continue to innovate and improve to meet the needs of learners. Learning communities remind practitioners of the importance of relationships (peer to peer, learner to teacher, and student to subject), and how coordination of those relationships can powerfully affect teaching and learning.

 

What do you think?

How do you envision learning communities in the adult education classroom? Continue the conversation on our Facebook page and learn what ABLE directors Susan Sheehan, Monica Nagle and Rosary Joyce-Kennedy think about learning communities.

 

For More Information Explore these Links:

National Learning Communities Project:

http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/project.asp?pid=73

ERIC review: learning communities at the Community College - community colleges much work out the problems that arise with the use of learning communities:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_3_30/ai_99115088/pg_5/?tag=content;col1

Designing a Learning Community in an Hour:

http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/resources/lchour/lchour.htm

 

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