Building the Learning Community

1
Building the Learning Community

• The Power of Online Learning
• November 17, 2005

Lawrence C. Ragan Steven Tello
2
Program Agenda

• Introductions
• Key Concepts
• Balancing Expectations
• Learning Communities
• Community of Practice
• Community Context
• Community Building Strategies

3
Introductions

• Session presenters and participants
• Who, where
• Show of hands--experience levels??

4
Program Description

• Provide participants with the opportunity to
  share ideas and experiences on how to build
  learning communities within the teaching and
  learning process. Discussion will focus on how
  individual experiences can contribute to
  development of principles and standards of
  practice

5
Formal
Informal
Degree of Structure
6
Learning Communities What are they?

• Groups of people engaged in intellectual
  interaction for the purpose of learning Cross,
  1998
• A relatively small group that may include
  students, teachers, administrators and others who
  have a clear sense of membership, common goals
  and opportunity for extensive face-to-face
  interaction. Baker, 1999
• a kind of co-registration or block scheduling
  that enables students to take courses together.
  Tinto, 1998
• A group of people organized around common goals
  and purpose and committed to learning with and
  from each other.
• Shared Knowledge Shared Knowing

7
Student Learning Communities

• SLC examined in depth on FTF Campus environment
• Formed primarily around course sequences or
  programs of study
• Benefits include
• Increased depth of learning
• Improved persistence/retention
• Promote collaborative learning techniques
• Extend learning beyond classroom
• Expand student support circle

8
Student Learning Communities

• Paired/Clustered Courses
• 2 - 4 individual courses, clustered around a
  theme
• Typically includes writing course and seminar
• Often oriented toward freshman
• Large Course Cohorts (Freshman Interest Groups)
• Large lecture paired with smaller
  recitation/discussion
• Often include writing course FIG seminar
• Team-Taught Programs
• Interdisciplinary teams with curricular focus
• Semester to Year duration
• Residence-Based Program
• Organize student cohorts, grouped around
  curriculum purpose
• Activities sometimes courses within residence
  halls.

9
SLC Examples - Syracuse U.
http//lc.syr.edu
10
Syracuse U. - Management Learning Community

• Freshman program for Management majors
• Three courses
• Intro. to Management
• Intro. to Writing
• Learning Community Seminar
• Common floor in residence hall
• Team projects activities
• Academic
• Team building

11
UMA-Commonwealth College
http//www.comcol.umass.edu/
12
UMA-Commonwealth College

• UMass Amherst Honors College
• Focus on
• Academic Achievement
• Service Learning
• Freshman Social Network
• Honors floor in several residence halls, grouped
  by major interests
• Open to range of majors

13
Learning Community Pedagogy

• Laufgraben Tompkins, 2004 Finkel,2000

14
Impact for Non-student Groups

• while we are willing to recognize the importance
  of shared learning among our students, we
  sometimes fail to recognize the need to become
  shared learners as well. Tinto
• Learning communities can serve as a Change Force
  on campuses, challenging established academic and
  administrative policies and procedures.
• Is this beginning to sound familiar?

15
Faculty Learning Communities

• A faculty learning community (FLC) is a
  cross-disciplinary faculty and staff group of
  size 6-15 (8 to 12 is the recommended size)
  engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong
  program with a curriculum about enhancing
  teaching and learning and with frequent seminars
  and activities that provide learning,
  development, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship
  of teaching and learning, and community building.
  Milton D. Cox

http//www.units.muohio.edu/flc/
16
Types of FLC (Cox)

• Context or topic-based
• Address a special campus teaching and learning
  need, issue, or opportunity
• Designed to address special academic interests or
  common interests.
• Teaching Portfolio Development, Integrating
  Technology into the Case Method, Integrating Arts
  the Curriculum
• Cohort-based
• Address the teaching, learning, and developmental
  needs of an important cohort of faculty or staff
  .
• Designed to address a broad range of issues
  affecting their situation.
• Graduate Faculty Circle or Senior Faculty Fellows

17
Miami University of Ohio
http//www.units.muohio.edu/celt/flcs/index.php
18
Miami University of Ohio

• 96 Faculty Learning Communities since 1979
• Hesburgh Award for faculty development
• Competitive participation process, often includes
  stipend
• Guides policy and practice

19
Western Carolina University
http//www.wcu.edu/sotl/faclearncom.html
20
Characteristics of Learning Communities (Cox)

• Safety and Trust
• Openness
• Respect members feel valued respected
• Responsiveness engendered/moderated by
  facilitator
• Collaboration- in both creation consultation
• Relevance relationship to participants academic
  life
• Challenge high expectations for quality of
  outcomes
• Enjoyment - activities must include social
  opportunities
• Esprit de Corps - Sharing individual and
  community outcomes with colleagues
• Empowerment - A sense that activity is focused
  around a crucial element and a desired outcome

21
Activity Learning Community Contexts

• In groups, please identify a learning community
  familiar to you and your collaborators. Select
  one among the group and then identify
• Type of Learning Community
• Context (institution, program, purpose)
• Characteristics
• Can you identify other types of LCs?

22
Table Discussion

• Examples of Learning Communities
• Table 1--faculty LCs--discussion of challenges
  (time, motivation, accessibility, ease of use,
  priority management, recognition, credit)
• Table 2--Virtual Faculty LC--
• Table 3--concerned about the assessment of the
  process rather than the outcomes

23
Community of Practice (CoP)

• Communities of practice develop around things
  that matter to people.
• E. Wenger

24
Background

• CoPs have been around as a field of study for a
  long time
• Corporate/business has recognized and valued CoPS
  as a nature of managing within an increasingly
  complex and information driven environment
• IBM Global Services experience
• Knowledge Networks and Communities of Practice
• Learning as a Social System
• Collective learning and collective memory
• Communispace.com, Participate.com, Tomoyne.com,
  SharePoint
• Overlap with field of education (Passmore
  example self-organizing groups)

25
Community of Practice

• Communities of practice (CoP) are groups of
  people who share a concern or a passion for
  something they do and learn how to do it better
  as they interact regularly.
• Etienne (ATN) Wenger and others

26
Three Essential Elements

• The domain
• (A CoP) has an identity defined by a shared
  domain of interest. Membership therefore implies
  a commitment to the domain, and therefore a
  shared competence that distinguishes members from
  other people.

27
Three Essential Elements

• The practice
• Members of a CoP develop a shared repertoire of
  resources experiences, stories, tools, ways of
  addressing recurring problemsin short a shared
  practice. This takes time and sustained
  interaction.

28
Three Essential Elements

• The community (purposeful relationships)
• Members engage in joint activities and
  discussions, help each other, and share
  information. They build relationships that enable
  them to learn from each other.

29
Types of CoP Activities

• Problem solving
• "Can we work on this design and brainstorm some
  ideas Im stuck."
• Requests for information
• "Where can I find the code to connect to the
  server?"
• Seeking experience
• "Has anyone dealt with a customer in this
  situation?"
• Reusing assets
• "I have a proposal for a local area network I
  wrote for a client last year. I can send it to
  you and you can easily tweak it for this new
  client."

30
Types of CoP Activities

• Coordination and synergy
• "Can we combine our purchases of solvent to
  achieve bulk discounts?"
• Discussing developments
• "What do you think of the new CAD system? Does it
  really help?"
• Documentation projects
• "We have faced this problem five times now. Let
  us write it down once and for all."
• Visits
• "Can we come and see your after-school program?
  We need to establish one in our city."
• Mapping knowledge and identifying gaps
• "Who knows what, and what are we missing? What
  other groups should we connect with?"

31
Activity CoP Contexts

• Group Think Identify examples of community of
  practice.
• Type of Community of Practice
• Digital Artists - Forum driven, learning tools,
  experienceUser groups, SIGs
• Professional Associations
• http//www.Learningtimes.org
• OpenSource Community
• Study Group - dynamic, user-driven
• Context (institution, program, purpose)
• Blogs used as technology tool to facilitate CoP
• Characteristics

32
EVOLUTION OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Users groups
Self-help Teams
SIGs
Program Office
Experience in Domain Shared Knowledge Shared
Knowing Time Critical Mass Emerging User-need
Freshman Club
Department Discussion group
Virtual Study Groups
College Talk Space
Systems-generated
User-generated
DEGREE OF STRUCTURE
33
Forces along the Continuum

• Experience in Domain
• Response to change
• Shared Knowledge
• Shared Knowing
• Time
• Critical Mass
• Emerging User-needs

34
Community Building Strategies

• Within groups identify either activity sheet for
  Learning Community or Community of Practice or
  both
• EXAMPLES ANGEL groups, CyberCelebrities
• 30 Minutes group discussion
• Report out--
• (send via email group work)

35
Strategies Feedback

• Lcr1_at_psu.edu

36

• Learning Community faculty that teach online
• Focus on learning and to improve teaching and
  learning online.
• Distributive model for sharing BExperiences
• Give a month for the outcome
• Training
• Defining the outcomes and
• LCR1_at_PSU.EDU

37
Summary Future Directions
38
EVOLUTION OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Learning Community
Community of Practice
DEGREE OF STRUCTURE
39
Early vs. Late Adopters

• Study of Online vs. non-online teachers
• Michele Jacobson and Alanna Edwards University of
  Calgary
• Orientation toward technology adoption and change
  may also impact generation of and participation
  in CoPs.
• In comparisons of early adaptors and late
  adaptors to online teaching
• Early adaptors may be more prone to developing
  CoPs where late adaptors may respond more to
  established
• Question Does this phenomenon exist with online
  learners as well?

40
LC/CoP Institutional Context

• Impact of size of audience (number of members
  within programs vs. institutions)
• Degree of member coherence (cohort vs.
  independent)
• Member proximity (local vs. distributed)
• Institutional investment (support/value)