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Building Communities of Active Learners
Southwest Regional Learning Communities Conference
February
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COMBINED SESSION:
FACILITATOR: Duane Roen, Arizona State University
University of Arizona
Chris Johnson, Barbara Hoffman, Sylvia Mioduski
Have you ever had a situation where a brother or sister brought the whole family to live with your family for an extended period of time? Were there tensions and difficulties mixed with joyous times? The University of Arizona has created such a house with nine highly different families under one roof. Our recently dedicated Integrated Learning Center (ILC) brings together the communities of students, faculty, advisors, tutors, library staff, professional development staff, student preceptors, assessment experts, and information technology staff to create an integrated learning environment. The ILC was designed as a space to help us form a freshman learning community within the large context of the ILC and to help us facilitate the formation of smaller, fluid learning communities consisting of students, teaching team members, and staff. However, a physical space is static and dead without the people who inhabit it. Therefore, what allows us to create a fluid community to support our new scholars are the members of the teaching and support teams that we have developed. This presentation will detail the path we have taken and the campus communities that have been involved in creating our new learning environment. We will discuss the things that worked and those that didn't from the perspective of each new community's members. We will also discuss how the current budget problems have impacted the process. We will then detail our plans for creating an ever-changing learning community to support our new students as they begin their scholarly path.
contact information:cgj@u.arizona.edu NOTE: this session is combined with the following session
Penn State College, Schuylkill
Marianne Goodfellow, Tom Eberlein, Susan Barrows
The Penn State Capital College, Schuylkill Campus, had in place all components needed for first-year student success- advising staff for first-year testing and advising (FTCAP), a first-year seminar (FYS) supplemented with a Peer Mentor program, a Center for Academic Achievement (CAA) for student tutoring, as well as a core of faculty committed to first-year students. Although the campus is small enough to create a sense of community without linkages, pedagogy suggested that integration of components would be beneficial in terms of positive student outcomes. For Fall 2001, two learning communities were piloted that linked sections of the FYS with an academic course: a) a first-year seminar for students interested in science, engineering, and technology majors was linked to General Chemistry, and b) a first-year seminar for students interested in behavioral science majors was linked to Introduction to Sociology. All first-year seminar students were embedded in larger sections of either General Chemistry or Introduction to Sociology. Advisors promoted the linked sections during FTCAP. Peer Mentors who were also tutors for the subject areas were assigned to the linked sections. Due to the pilot nature of these linkages, a "nonequivalent control group design" was used to assess outcomes. In this presentation, we will discuss the steps taken to integrate the components of this learning community effort as well as the assessment strategy and results.
contact information:mxg10@psu.edu
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