Browsing by Subject "Learning communities"
Item A case study of the experiences of field-dependent students in a community college learning community and the implications for curriculum(2005-05) Carroll, Jonathan David, 1977-; Moore, WilliamConsider the reality that the traditional college curriculum works against community college students -- think of the implications. It is no secret that community college students are the most disadvantaged in higher education, and their chances of succeeding in college are slim. Scholars have pondered this situation for years. Alas, consider if the problem is the structure of the curriculum itself. Specifically, research indicates that community college students tend to be field dependent and the traditional curriculum works against this type of student because it does not provide the type of community support these students require. One way the needs of these students could be met is through learning communities, which are conscious curricular structures that link two or more courses. This curricular tactic offers a way to fulfill the cognitive needs of community college students and enables them to succeed. To determine whether learning communities are an appropriate curricular tactic, the methodology of Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) was used to understand the experiences of field-dependent students. Through focus groups and individual interviews, this method helped to crystallize these common experiences and provide a voice for them. The results substantiated that learning communities provide the peer support, faculty interaction, academic involvement and collaborative learning environment field-dependent students need to succeed. Curricular tactics like learning communities can be utilized to meet the needs of community college students. Rather than employing the traditional curriculum, which works against community college students, curriculum needs to be tailored into applied models like learning communities, which work for them.Item Emergent social network communities : hashtags, knowledge building, and communities of practice(2013-05) Ford, Kasey Crystal; Resta, Paul E.The hashtag #phdchat is used by doctoral students all over the world to engage with their peers, share information, and commiserate over their experiences in academia. Anyone can join the conversation simply by typing the tag and publishing a tweet, but many regularly contribute to what has become a vibrant emergent social network community. Using an analysis of the discourse that was labeled with the hashtag over about a one-month period, this paper draws conclusions about who belongs to this community and what the network achieves for the users and as an entity of its own. The researcher makes conclusions about this network by drawing on the attributes of communities of practice and knowledge building communities in order to ground it as its own permutation of a learning community.Item How engagement in curricular learning communities influences the baccalaureate degree attainment of career and technical students(2016-05) Carr, Denise; Kameen, Marilyn C.; Holme, Jennifer J; Borrego, Maura; Lambert, Hillary; Lewis, TedLearning communities at colleges and universities have gained popularity in recent years as a method to increase student persistence and completion. While there has been extensive quantitative research on the effectiveness of learning communities, the focus of this research has been primarily on the academic outcomes of four-year students. While research has begun to address the effectiveness of learning communities on two-year student persistence and completion, few researchers have addressed how engaging in learning communities influences the baccalaureate degree attainment of community college students, specifically, those majoring in career and technical fields. Thus, this study begins to address the need for research on institutional practices that may increase the four-year degree attainment of community college students. Three primary research questions guided this study: (1) How did engagement in a curricular learning community influence the baccalaureate degree attainment of community college career and technical graduates? (2) What specific aspects of a curricular learning community influenced graduates to complete a baccalaureate degree? (3) How did the identified aspects influence graduates’ decisions to pursue a baccalaureate degree? This study utilized a qualitative methodology with a case study design. Purposive sampling techniques were utilized to identify (1) the community college under study, and (2) the 15 career and technical graduates who participated in a curricular learning community and persisted to complete a baccalaureate degree. Participants indicated that engaging in a curricular learning community allowed them to experience high levels of student engagement, academic and social integration, and the ability to gain academic momentum, which influenced their decision to pursue a four-year degree.Item The role of collaborative reflection in a faculty community(2013-05) Cestone, Christina Marie; Svinicki, Marilla D., 1946-A faculty community is a type of learning community where faculty learning and development is the focus. Previous research suggests that formally structured faculty communities promoted faculty engagement, improved teaching, thwarted career burnout, increased retention of experienced faculty, and fostered organizational change. Researchers have not examined faculty communities embedded in the workplace and the longitudinal effects these communities have on mid-career and senior faculty learning. In this study, I examined how an experienced interprofessional faculty community of medical and biomedical professionals managed the implementation of a novel graduate curriculum in translational sciences. Translational sciences education aims to enhance the collaborations between scientists and clinicians for the advancement of patient treatment and care. I focused on how faculty advanced their individual and collective understanding of the curriculum implementation using collaborative reflection during weekly community interactions. The study began at the start of the curriculum implementation and lasted fifteen months. It was a qualitative, ethnographic case study including three sources of data: naturalistic observation of teaching and faculty meetings, faculty interviews, and community artifacts. Two theoretical frameworks undergirded the design of the study: community of practice and distributed cognition. The results of the study suggest that collaborative reflection in the faculty community promoted faculty learning over time in several areas: teaching and instruction, assessment and evaluation, individual knowledge, student learning, and organizational and leadership skills. Collaborative reflection occurred in response to multiple episodes that occurred during curriculum implementation, but was focused primarily on facets of instruction, which was the dominant work of the community. Collaborative reflection enabled decision-making on instructional content and process, pedagogical content and process, and curricular content. A cyclical process of instructional development emerged in the community including: session planning, implementation, collective teaching observation, and collective instructional evaluation. Attributes of the community that emerged to support collaborative reflection included: shared goals, domain knowledge, and mutual trust. The community provided a shared social context for systematic collaborative reflection and scaffolding in instructional development. The study findings represent a specific set of experiences that may inform a model of instructional development for use with interprofessional faculty communities in academic health centers.