Curriculum Resources
Learning Communities
AAC&U Publications
Learning Communities:
A Sustainable Innovation? (Peer Review, Summer/Fall
2001)
AAC&U's topical quarterly explores the challenges faced by this
successful innovation and presents current best practices.
Service Learning and Learning Communities: Tools for Integration and Assessment,
by Karen Kashmanian Oates and Lynn Hertrick Leavitt
This book offers ideas and practices based on the authors' multi-year
experience of integrating service-learning into learning communities.
Includes a rationale for these forms of learning, resources and
practical information to begin and sustain programs, guidelines
for different stages of development, and recommendations about
assessing student achievement in these programs.
Web Resources
Learning Communities
Commons
For the past 15 years, the Washington Center for Improving the
Quality of Undergraduate Education, a grass-roots network of colleges
in the State of Washington based at the Evergreen State College,
has supported the development of curricular learning community
approaches. in 1996, the Center began to serve as a national resource
for curricular learning community work. The Learning Community
Commons, the Center's national Web site, contains a searchable
learning communities directory, news postings, an online learning
communities journal, and other resources.
New Century College,
George Mason University
At George Mason University’s New Century College, students
in Integrative Studies join a year-long learning community which
shares a common curriculum and a faculty team dedicated to working
and learning with first-year students. New Century College's first-year
curriculum is an alternative route to the fulfillment of many
General Education requirements. This web site features course
descriptions, online syllabi, and information on general education
equivalencies.
Johnson
County Community College
Learning communities at JCCC involve at least two faculty members
who teach different courses to a group of students commonly enrolled
in all of the courses. This web site provides information for
faculty, including tips for teaching a successful learning community;
information for students; and descriptions of current learning
communities courses.
The Wagner Plan for
the Practical Liberal Arts
Under The Wagner Plan, students complete a liberal arts core
program and a major. As part of these requirements, students complete
three learning communities - one in the first year, one during
the intermediate years, and one in the senior year in the major.
First-Year
Learning Communities at St. John Fisher College
At St. John Fisher College, first-year learning communities are
made up of two-course clusters. All clusters include a college
writing course, or the equivalent. This PDF document features
course descriptions of St. John Fisher’s learning communities.
Metropolitan
Community College Learning Communities
The Learning Communities web site of The Metropolitan Community
College in Kansas City, Missouri, features Frequently Asked Questions,
faculty resources, and examples of program structures.
Learning Community Courses
at Delta College
Delta College’s Web site offers resources for planning
a learning communities course, including descriptions of past
and present learning communities, as well as links to online resources
at other institutions.
Learning Communities at Temple
University
The Temple University Web site offers a description of Temple's
Learning Communities Program, a list of current learning communities
according to academic field, and resources for faculty.
University of South Florida
Learning Communities
The University of South Florida has experimented with learning
communities since 1995. USF's "flexible model," sponsored by a
three-year grant from FIPSE, involves five faculty from science,
social science, history, humanities, and fine arts working with
fifty students for two years to satisfy students' general education
core-curriculum requirements. From a pedagogical perspective,
this model emphasizes interdisciplinarity, collaborative learning
and teaching, writing across the curriculum, instructional technology,
and service learning. Within each learning community, fifty students
are enrolled together in 24-36 semester hours of courses that
fulfill some or all of the general education requirements during
their first two years at USF. The courses are interdisciplinary,
thematic, and team-taught with attention to the dimensions in
USF's Liberal Arts Curriculum — values and ethics, race and ethnicity,
gender, and international and environmental perspectives.
California Learning Community
College Network
This developing network of regional centers at California Community
Colleges strives to provide useful support and tools to faculty
and administrators who are developing, improving, or expanding
learning communities —especially at California Community Colleges.
AAC&U offers these resources only as possible models of interest and has not submitted each of them to any substantial peer or quality review. If you have questions about any particular resource, please contact the institution sponsoring it directly.
|
