learning communities at lane community college

Learning Communities at Lane Community College

From “Boutique Model” to FYRED UP! First Year Experiences

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Overview

Phases and History of LCs at Lane LC Course Arrangement Options Incentives for Faculty to Teach LCs Assessments for LCs Applying the Advice from the Experts

at Evergreen to Lane’s LC Program

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Phase I: “Catalyst” ca. 1994

Dynamic, engaged faculty interested in developing their teaching

Response to pedagogical research about “Learning Colleges”

Put courses together whose subject matter lent itself to team teaching

Cohorts took all-day back-to-back classes in new classrooms.

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Advantages of Fast Forward Approach

Strong student and faculty bonding (social and academic factors of retention/success)

Lively engagement reinvigorated faculty pedagogy and engagement

Some students still talk about the learning that occurred in these classes…..

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Disadvantages of Fast Forward

Faculty “ownership” of the LC Dependent upon ongoing faculty

engagement (burnout) Enrollment challenges brought about

by structure (classes offered targeted a smaller population of Lane’s students)

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Phase II: First “Redesign” of Instruction at Lane

Strategic Learning Initiative founded to support cross-disciplinary learning involved in holistic “learning college” projects

Learning Communities one of the first “incubated” projects within the SLI

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Features of Early LCs

A faculty coordinator oversaw development of new LCs (release time)

Time and money invested for curriculum development of promising projects (all faculty eligible)

Focus on courses students need to take for core degrees offered (e.g., Writing, Science, Soc. Sci. etc.)

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Phase III: Mainstreaming LCs Critical for success: administrative and

faculty commitment to LCs beyond those faculty who teach in LCs

Mainstreaming = LCs has its own budget within the college (not an “add-on”

Divisions encouraged to support LC classes—some “wiggle room” with enrollments, an understanding that they need “incubation time.”

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Advantages of Mainstreaming Reliability: Counselors and Advisors

begin to see LCs not as a pilot or a pet project or an experiment but as a viable ongoing option for students

Development: Once mainstreamed, the LC project itself has an opportunity to grow and become further institutionalized within the college.

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Other Developments

Move from “Boutique Model” to systematic use of LCs to address students’ needs

Progress not linear: “BioBonds” and “Women in Transition” had already targeted specific needs of specific populations

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New LCs Addressing Student Needs “Show Me the Money”—Writing for

Scholarships (WR105) a new course in OUS specifically targeted to the Oregon uniform application for scholarships and Career and Life Planning

“Fast Lane to Success”—piloted in 2004, now a 3-course First Year Experience with College Success, Effective Learning and Appropriate Writing Class

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FYRED UP! Lane’s First Year Experience

Title III Grant Proposal to institutionalize the FYE, including “Fast Lanes to Success” so that 25% of all incoming, degree-seeking students will take the LC by 2012.

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Synergy of FYE with LC Development Early, “boutique-model” LCs at Lane were

critical to developing current college-wide effort to improve retention and success through FYE and Fast Lane to Success.

Concurrent Student Services efforts to increase retention and success offered an opportunity for beginning to better integrate Instruction with Student Services

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Success and Goal Attainment (SAGA) Committee Findings

Two of the Six Best Practices for Student Retention Involve Learning Communities:

First Year Experiences Learning Communities Academic Advising Supplemental Instruction Early Warning/Intervention Systems Campus Climate/Supportive Learning

Environment

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Learning Community Arrangments

Best Practice: tightly aligned curriculum with pure cohorts and faculty at least some of the time present in each other’s classes or engaged in cross-disciplinary learning activities (e.g., Service Learning, Reading Together—more later on these)

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Other Arrangements

One “common” class with three “feeder” classes with same material

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Other Arrangements

Three separate classes with mixed cohorts taking two or more but some taking only one class.

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Other Arrangements

Two “feeder” classes with a pure cohort and a third separate class. (This is the current plan for a Math addition to Fast Lane.)

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e.g., Math 10 or + Math 65 or + Math 111

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Assessments

Formative Important: Where are the key areas that students drop out, fail, etc.

Research: Reading scores and taking Writing are significant factors in predicting student success

Develop learning communities with these in mind—largest population to serve creates a pool of students to support enrollments

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Previous LC Assessments

Anecdotal questions about the quality of student’s experience in the LC, connection in the learning, etc.

Advantage: rich data, vivid picture emerged of students’ experiences in LCs

Disadvantage: qualitative data in a “quantitative” environment

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Fast Lane to Success Assessment Inspired by the Community College Survey

of Student Engagement, asked questions on a 4-point scale about student engagement with the LC.

Compared Fast Lane engagement returns to 800 “general population” answers from students

Fast Lane students fared significantly better on many measures of engagement (a key predictor of success)

Caveat: Small sample: 62 students

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Current Assessment Project

Combine the richness of the anecdotal data about LCs as a whole with the statistical power of quantitative data to create a new assessment instrument for LCs that might be generalized to other interdisciplinary projects.

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“School Doesn’t Get Any Better than This!” –Lane Learning Community Student

Questions? Anne McGrail Coordinator, Learning Communities Lane Community College 541-463-3317 mcgraila@lanecc.edu