Building and Sustaining Learning Communities
Building and Sustaining Learning Communities

Author: Sandra N. Hurd

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Published: 2004-03-15

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13:

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Learning communities are small groups of students who come together with faculty and student affairs professionals to engage in common learning experiences. In Building and Sustaining Learning Communities, the authors, along with many of their colleagues, describe the rationale for learning communities, particularly in a large university; the process for setting them up; and reflections on these unique environments. After reading this book, administrators and faculty members will know precisely why they are worth considering and how to successfully create them. Part I of the book demonstrates the theoretical benefits of learning communities and then discusses various issues involved in the planning and implementation of the communities, including: Building learning community relationships within the university and among participants Strategies for collaboration Developing a learning community curriculum Course structure within learning communities Assessing learning communities Institutional challenges Part II details the experiences of faculty and students involved in Syracuse University's learning communities, including arts, citizenship, education, interprofessional, leadership, management, multicultural, online learning, and wellness. This book is a fascinating and practical guide for all readers interested in building and sustaining learning communities.

Living-Learning Communities in Practice
Living-Learning Communities in Practice

Author: Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-05-08

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1040022200

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This book offers a roadmap for developing, growing, and sustaining living-learning communities (LLCs) that promote student success and enhance the undergraduate experience. Drawing on the Best Practices Model presented in Living-Learning Communities That Work, as well as updated research and rich, real-life examples from LLC administrators, the authors offer a revised and improved model for effective LLC practice. Nuanced typologies guide stakeholders in developing and growing their own programs, from the foundational, to the intermediate, and to the advanced level. This text features an extended section on the assessment of LLCs, complete with a logic model for integrating program assessment with student learning outcomes, and concludes with lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and a look into the future of LLCs in higher education. At a time when colleges and universities struggle to create community for students, this book will be a valuable resource to practitioners, researchers, and institutional leaders to more effectively allocate resources to create and sustain LLCs and to realize the potential of these communities to improve undergraduate education. For more information about ACUHO-I membership, events, and resources, please visit acuho-i.org.

High-impact Educational Practices
High-impact Educational Practices

Author: George D. Kuh

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13:

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This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.

Research Anthology on Facilitating New Educational Practices Through Communities of Learning
Research Anthology on Facilitating New Educational Practices Through Communities of Learning

Author: Management Association, Information Resources

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2020-10-30

Total Pages: 843

ISBN-13: 1799872955

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With the future of education being disrupted and the onset of day-to-day uncertainties and challenges that have to be solved quickly, teachers are now turning to professional development communities/support communities where they can share and learn about effective practices to use in the classroom. While transitioning to blended or online learning and keeping up with the technological advances in education, these communities provide an essential backbone for teachers to rely on for support and updated knowledge on what educational practices are being utilized, how they are working, and what solutions have been found for the ever-changing climate of education. Research on the benefits and use of these communities, as well as on the latest educational practices, is essential in teacher development and student learning in the current culture of a rapidly changing educational environment. The Research Anthology on Facilitating New Educational Practices Through Communities of Learning contains hand-selected, previously published research that provides information on the communities of learning that teachers are currently involved in to seek the latest educational practices. The chapters cover the context of these communities, the benefits, and an overview of how this support is a necessary tool in today’s practices of teaching and learning. While highlighting topics such as learning communities, teacher development, mentoring, and virtual communities, this book is essential for inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in how communities of practice tie into professional development, teacher learning, and the online shift in teaching.

Cultivating Communities of Practice
Cultivating Communities of Practice

Author: Etienne Wenger

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1578513308

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Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy. Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization. In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable. Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them. Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them. Etienne Wenger is a renowned expert and consultant on knowledge management and communities of practice in San Juan, California. Richard McDermott is a leading expert of organization and community development in Boulder, Colorado. William M. Snyder is a founding partner of Social Capital Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Threshold Concepts in Practice
Threshold Concepts in Practice

Author: Ray Land

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-07-09

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 9463005129

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"Threshold Concepts in Practice brings together fifty researchers from sixteen countries and a wide variety of disciplines to analyse their teaching practice, and the learning experiences of their students, through the lens of the Threshold Concepts Framework. In any discipline, there are certain concepts – the ‘jewels in the curriculum’ – whose acquisition is akin to passing through a portal. Learners enter new conceptual (and often affective) territory. Previously inaccessible ways of thinking or practising come into view, without which they cannot progress, and which offer a transformed internal view of subject landscape, or even world view. These conceptual gateways are integrative, exposing the previously hidden interrelatedness of ideas, and are irreversible. However they frequently present troublesome knowledge and are often points at which students become stuck. Difficulty in understanding may leave the learner in a ‘liminal’ state of transition, a ‘betwixt and between’ space of knowing and not knowing, where understanding can approximate to a form of mimicry. Learners navigating such spaces report a sense of uncertainty, ambiguity, paradox, anxiety, even chaos. The liminal space may equally be one of awe and wonderment. Thresholds research identifies these spaces as key transformational points, crucial to the learner’s development but where they can oscillate and remain for considerable periods. These spaces require not only conceptual but ontological and discursive shifts. This volume, the fourth in a tetralogy on Threshold Concepts, discusses student experiences, and the curriculum interventions of their teachers, in a range of disciplines and professional practices including medicine, law, engineering, architecture and military education. Cover image: Detail from ‘Eve offering the apple to Adam in the Garden of Eden and the serpent’ c.1520–25. Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553). Bridgeman Images. All rights reserved.

Creating Learning Communities
Creating Learning Communities

Author: Nancy S. Shapiro

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Published: 1999-09-24

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13:

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"Creating Learning Communities is a guide to the essentials of this rewarding new program area, including how to design, fund, staff, manage, and integrate learning communities into different campuses. Drawing from their own experience, as well as from experiences of campuses around the country, Nancy S. Shapiro and Jodi H. Levine provide both a sound theoretical rationale and nuts-and-bolts advice on the logistical, administrative, financial, and turf-related issues of creating an effective learning community. And perhaps most important, they show how to ensure that such communities embody and fulfill the objectives for which they were established."--BOOK JACKET.

Learning Communities In Practice
Learning Communities In Practice

Author: Anastasia Samaras

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-10-26

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1402087888

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Most would agree that a learning community of practice cultivates social and intellectual development in educational settings but what are the other benefits and what does a learning community actually look like in practice? This book explores such questions as: “Are learning communities essential in education?” “How are they designed and developed?” “What difference do they make in learning?” The book contains contributions of educators who share their research and practice in designing and implementing learning communities in school, university, and professional network settings. It presents their experiences, and the “how to” of these educators who are passionate about building and sustaining learning communities to make a real difference for students, teachers, faculty, and communities. Combining scholarly and practitioner research, the book offers practical information to teachers, school and university administrators, teacher educators, and community educators.

Communities of Practice
Communities of Practice

Author: Etienne Wenger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1999-09-28

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1107268370

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This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.

Designing for Learning
Designing for Learning

Author: C. Carney Strange

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-07-27

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1118823524

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Understand the design factors of campus environmental theory that impact student success and create a campus of consequence Designing for Learning is a comprehensive introduction to campus environmental theory and practice, summarizing the influence of collegiate environments on learning and providing practical strategies for facilitating student success through intentional design. This second edition offers new coverage of universal design, learning communities, multicultural environments, online environments, social networking, and safety, and challenges educators to evaluate the potential for change on their own campuses. You'll learn which factors make a living-learning community effective, and how to implement these factors in the renovation of campus facilities. An updated selection of vignettes, case scenarios, and institutional examples help you apply theory to practice, and end-of-chapter reflection questions allow you to test your understanding and probe deeper into the material and how it applies to your environment. Campus design is no longer just about grassy quads and ivy-covered walls—the past decade has seen a surge in new designs that facilitate learning and nurture student development. This book introduces you to the many design factors that impact student success, and helps you develop a solid strategy for implementing the changes that can make the biggest difference to your campus. Learn how environments shape and influence student behavior Evaluate your campus and consider the potential for change Make your spaces more welcoming, inclusive, and functional Organize the design process from research to policy implementation Colleges and universities are institutions of purpose and place, and the physical design of the facilities must be undertaken with attention to the ways in which the space's dimensions and features impact the behavior and outlook of everyone from students to faculty to staff. Designing for Learning gives you a greater understanding of modern campus design, and the practical application that brings theory to life.