Building Communities of Active Learners

Southwest Regional Learning Communities Conference
February

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Collaborative Learning Community Teams: Lessons Learned from ASU West's Inaugural Class of First-Year Students
Arizona State University West
Vincent Waldron, Glen Irvin, Emily Cutrer, Gaylene Armstrong, Alice Christie

ASU West welcomed its inaugural class of first-year students this academic year. The majority of these students enrolled in learning communities, lead by collaborative teams of faculty, librarians, instructional technology specialists, and upper division students. Learning community curriculum included three linked courses, two in content areas and one university success course. This presentation will focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by learning communities on a nonresidential, prveiously upper-division campus. Particular emphasis will be placed on practices that have promoted successful collaborations among members of the learning team. The potential for these practices to increase collaboration in the upper division also will be addressed.
    contact information:vincew@asu.edu

COMBINED SESSION:
Community Involvement and Civic Participation
FACILITATOR: Chris Schnick, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Maricopa Community Colleges

Freshmen Write Memoirs with Elders from Retirement Center
Eureka College
Kathy J. Whitson

This presentation will demonstrate how a nationally recognized (featured on the NBC Nightly News) Freshman Seminar and English Composition Learning Community participated in an intergenerational writing class with residents from a local retirement center. The focus will be on the ways in which the project fulfilled the goals of the course and the mission of the college, the development of writing skills, and the relationships formed between the freshmen and elders.
    contact information:kwhitson@eureka.edu

NOTE: this session is combined with the following session

"We" Is as Inevitable as "I": An Integrated Learning Community Fostering Civic Engagement
Mesa Community College
Jonelle Moore, Brian Dille, Mary Stewart

The presenters will share their learning community model designed to promote civic understanding and involvement by combining the study of education and government with essay and research writing. Linking Introduction to Education (EDU221) and American Government (POS110) with first-year Composition (ENG101 and ENG102), our community offers a two-semester shared learning experience for first-year students majoring in education. Service learning is a key component of the program. After a brief discussion of the goals and design of our model, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of students currently enrolled in the program and engage in a hands-on learning activity.
    contact information:jonelle.moore@mcmail.maricopa.edu

COMBINED SESSION:
Residential Models for Success
FACILITATOR: Margaret Hogan, Maricopa Community Colleges

Mayo College: A Residential Learning Community
Texas A&M-Commerce
William E. Thompson , Rick Miller

We began Mayo College (named after the university's founder, William Mayo), a residential learning community, in the fall of 2000 with 83 first-time, full-time students. We retained 81 of those students from Fall to Spring (97.6%) and 67 of them from Fall 2000 to Fall 2001 (80.7%). This fall, in its second year, we have 156 first-time, full-time students enrolled. Students live on the same floor of a residence hall with other students who are enrolled in a cluster of three courses: a Freshman Success Seminar and two general education required courses. In addition to common living quarters and a common class schedule, each student is assigned a peer mentor (a sophomore who went through the program last year) and a faculty mentor. This presentation will discuss the process and procedures we went through to establish the program as well as some of the potential pitfalls to try to avoid. We will discuss the role of the President, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Deans, Faculty, Student Affairs personnel, Housing people, and others who have been integrally involved in making this program a success.
    contact information:wt@tamu-commerce.edu

NOTE: this session is combined with the following session

Building a Residential College
University of Minnesota
Scott Gilbert

In 1993, the University of Minnesota launched its Residential College program. Designed to encourage more engagement with academic material, it was intended to cultivate intellectual and social growth through conversations between students and faculty. Over the past eight years, the Residential College has taken many forms, from faculty academic advisors to a core course to a public-private partnership in order to offer students better housing. We will share with you what has and what has not worked, and where we are focusing our resources. This presentation will discuss what we have learned and the progress that we have made, and what we would recommend to other institutions that are looking to start similar initiatives. Come learn how a Residential College can create the feeling of a smaller private college atmosphere within the context of a large research university.
    contact information:gilbe062@umn.edu

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Planning, Assessment, and Accountability for Learning Community Faculty
De Anza Community College
Marcy Betlach Marcos Cicerone

The road to implementing successful learning communities is filled with potholes and detours. Planning and formative assessment are critical components for paving this road, especially for learning communities that combine developmental with general education classes. Presenters will share several planning and assessment processes and instruments which they have developed and involve participants in a discussion of how these could be effectively incorporated into their own learning community programs.
    contact information:betlachmarcy@fhda.edu

COMBINED SESSION:
Living and Learning on a Large Urban Campus
FACILITATOR: Duane Roen, Arizona State University

Innovations and Tribulations: Building a Learning Community on a Large Urban Campus
University of Houston
William H. Kellar

This presentation will explore the development and evolution of the Scholars' Community program at the University of Houston. The Scholars' Community provides a case study of how to establish a learning community program on the campus of an urban university with a large commuter population. The Scholars' Community is, first and foremost, a retention program. Because of this, the program is expected to achieve certain goals and is subject to certain outside pressures that have an impact on the types of class linkage and block scheduling that can be offered. But this also provides opportunities for the program to create innovative models to deal effectively with large numbers of contemporary urban students. The Scholars' Community has developed a model that includes optional "satellite" learning communities (QuickStart, Drop-in) and a required Freshman Success course. During its seven-year history, the program has expanded from an initial cohort of 324 freshman students to three cohorts for a total of nearly 1,000 freshman students in 2001. This overview of the Scholars' Community's development provides a useful look at the challenges of building and maintaining a learning community program while expanding its capabilities to serve a broad base of students.
    contact information:wkellar@uh.edu

NOTE: this session is combined with the following session

Towards Establishing/Refining a Living and Learning Community for First-Year Engineering Students (Prospects and Constraints): The ASU Perspective
Arizona State University
Mary Anderson-Rowland, Joseph Urban, Osaro Ighodaro , Andrea Muchinsky

This presentation will address the process of establishing a learning community for first-year engineering students. In 1997 the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), in partnership with the Division of Student Affairs, established a residential learning community for first-year engineering students at Arizona State University. This living and learning community was designed for first-year students in any of the sub-disciplines in the CEAS. Although the program has undergone some changes since its inception, the students that have participated indicate that living in the community enhanced their overall first-year experience at ASU. The students are challenged and supported as they engage like-minded peers, residence hall staff, and faculty from the CEAS. The meaningful contact with faculty, advisers, and their peers helps to familiarize the students with the relevant engineering career paths. Participating students experience computers in an environment conducive to learning. Close proximity to those around them allows the students to become more connected as a community, affording the students an opportunity to set up study groups, utilize tutoring and participate in review sessions. The students who live in our communities are better informed about the requirements of their major as well as various events (both academic and non-academic) sponsored by their college as well as the university as a whole. Students who participate in this community and similar communities at ASU persist at a higher rate than those who do not. During this session, a team of faculty and staff speak to the original purpose of the community, the challenges faced thus far, the varying opportunities for enhancing the community, and the results of three years of surveys in which students have answered questions about their experience in this community. Participants will be able to glean insight about collaboration amongst university departments that foster the curricular and co-curricular development of first-year students.
    contact information:osaro@asu.edu

What Learning Communities Can Accomplish: Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment
University of Northern Colorado
Phyllis Endicott , Sharon McMorrow

Over the past 10 years the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) has created a variety of learning communities which provide support for entering students. By linking content classes, a one-credit new student seminar, and a strong academic advising program, these communities have proven effective in promoting the satisfaction, persistence, and success of approximately 650 participants per year. Presenters will explain the structure of UNC's learning communities (five different types) and then describe the assessment strategies used to evaluate the programs. Each fall, coordinators obtain survey data to assess students' perceptions of their learning community experience and the institution as a whole. In addition to these qualitative responses, UNC's Office of Institutional Research and Planning provides quantitative student outcome information each semester. These reports summarize student grade point averages, hours earned, and rates of return to UNC. Minority and high-risk students are included as subgroups in the data, and learning community students' performance is compared to the performance of other freshmen. Finally, during spring 2001, focus groups were conducted by UNC graduate students to strengthen the qualitative aspect of program assessment. Results from all assessment approaches will be summarized, and presenters will explain how these results have been used to gain institutional support and to improve and expand UNC's learning communities. The presenters will encourage audience participation and allow ample time for questions and for discussion of nuts and bolts programming issues, including the importance of thorough and thoughtful assessment.
    contact information:psendic@bentley.unco.edu