Offering an interdisciplinary qualitative approach, this book examines and evaluates the role and benefits of a Learning Community (LC), a high-impact practice for student retention in higher education. A powerful demonstration of the effects of connection and comradery on learning, this account explores how the LC helps the decision-making of those in higher education administration regarding high impact student interventions.
While the phrase “learning communities” has various definitions, at the heart of all programs is the goal of enhancing the student learning experience in the community of others. This volume provides valuable information about learning communities--from start to finish--including: • historical and theoretical foundations that guide these programs, • structures of learning communities that provide varied opportunities for student participation, with a focus on specific student populations who may benefit from learning community experiences, and • elements of staffing and assessment, as well as an annotated bibliography of recent learning community literature. The authors consider critical elements of learning community programs and offer recommendations and options for faculty and staff who work with, or hope to work with, this particular curricular and cocurricular learning structure. This the 149th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly series. An indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals, New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.
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.
This book offers a comprehensive rethinking of the theory and practice of service-learning in higher education. Democratic and community engagement are vital aspects of linking colleges and communities, and this book critically engages the best practices and powerful alternative models in the academy. Drawing on key theoretical insights and empirical studies, Butin details the limits and possibilities of the future of community engagement in developing and sustaining the engaged campus.
As an added value, the book describes and provides contact information for national organizations that support service-learning and resources that are useful in helping students make postcollege service and career choices. Service-Learning in Higher Education is an invaluable resource for all campus professionals - including faculty members, student affairs practitioners, and senior academic leaders who are interested in advancing the goals of student learning and development while simultaneously making a unique contribution to the community.
Advocates have positioned service-learning as a real-world, real-time opportunity for students to encounter academic knowledge in a meaningful and relevant manner. Service-learning in higher education settings offers a powerful alternative to traditional models of teaching and learning. Students are encouraged to develop links to local institutions, volunteer their time, and create a special bond between the university and the community in which they live. Service-learning has become a very popular alternative to standard courses in higher education and is gaining significant popularity. This book takes a serious look at the unintended consequences and alternative conceptualizations of this mode of learning and explores what it could offer us in the future.
Sustaining and Improving Learning Communities is the long awaited follow-up to the groundbreaking book Creating Learning Communities. The authors continue their exploration of the concept of learning communities as an innovation in undergraduate curricular instruction that allow students to actively participate in their own education, and deepen and diversify their college experience. Jodi Levine Laufgraben and Nancy S. Shapiro address a wide range of topics such as campus culture for sustaining learning communities, learning communities and the curriculum, pedagogies, and faculty development.
Offering an interdisciplinary qualitative approach, this book examines and evaluates the role and benefits of a Learning Community (LC), a high-impact practice for student retention in higher education. Grounded in in-depth case studies and first-person student experiences, the authors studied four student cohorts (sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students) who participated in a full immersion LC experience at an urban public four-year college in New York. Focusing on the maturity students develop as they progress toward their degrees, the authors evaluate the impact of the learning community on the students’ experiences, perceptions, successes and obstacles. A powerful demonstration of the effects of connection and comradery on learning, this account explores how the LC helps the decision-making of those in higher education administration regarding high impact student interventions.
Young people are told that college is a place where they will “find themselves” by engaging with diversity and making friendships that will last a lifetime. This vision of an inclusive, diverse social experience is a fundamental part of the image colleges sell potential students. But what really happens when students arrive on campus and enter this new social world? The Cost of Inclusion delves into this rich moment to explore the ways students seek out a sense of belonging and the sacrifices they make to fit in. Blake R. Silver spent a year immersed in student life at a large public university. He trained with the Cardio Club, hung out with the Learning Community, and hosted service events with the Volunteer Collective. Through these day-to-day interactions, he witnessed how students sought belonging and built their social worlds on campus. Over time, Silver realized that these students only achieved inclusion at significant cost. To fit in among new peers, they clung to or were pushed into raced and gendered cultural assumptions about behavior, becoming “the cool guy,” “the nice girl,” “the funny one,” “the leader,” “the intellectual,” or “the mom of the group.” Instead of developing dynamic identities, they crafted and adhered to a cookie-cutter self, one that was rigid and two-dimensional. Silver found that these students were ill-prepared for the challenges of a diverse college campus, and that they had little guidance from their university on how to navigate the trials of social engagement or the pressures to conform. While colleges are focused on increasing the diversity of their enrolled student body, Silver’s findings show that they need to take a hard look at how they are failing to support inclusion once students arrive on campus.
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.
