Learning Communities

Comment

Comment by Jane Fried on December 12, 2009 at 2:50pm

Is anyone managing residential learning communities that integrate coursework and supplementary experiential learning?

Comment by Susan E. Sterrett on December 8, 2009 at 10:43am

Hi Alison. It is great to meet you. What is your daughter's major? Please tell her to say hi. I am on the second floor of Cooldege Hall. There are not any learning communities at Chatham now. I am trying to get them started. I have started one at http://chathamlcwomenshealth.ning.com/. It is still in development. My goal is to use them to form interprofessional communities focused on clinical areas. I am still using every opportunity to explain my ideas to the faculty and administrators.

Please tell me a little about you. I would be happy for any advice.

Comment by Alison Jameson on December 8, 2009 at 10:31am

Hi, Susan! Your mention of Chatham jumped out at me because my daughter is a sophomore there, and loves it. She has not been in any learning communities yet - are there many at Chatham?
I want to compliment the Chatham faculty, by the way, on their focus on women's lifelong health habits. My daughter has benefited tremendously from this emphasis already.
Does Chatham use ning exclusively as their LMS?

Comment by Susan E. Sterrett on December 6, 2009 at 9:46pm

Hi. I teach at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. I teach in nursing and my research interest is in the development of interprofessional learning experiences. I have created a learning community on ning focused on issues of women's health.

Comment by Ann Turoczy on December 1, 2009 at 11:45am

Greetings Alison and Timothy,
I am looking foward to sharing Ideas. I am most curious about Timothy's course on Community. Alison were in the team that went to Evergreen and are also working on a similar course on community.

Comment by Alison Jameson on November 30, 2009 at 9:16am

Good lord, Timothy! That certainly seems a heavy load for one person! How many faculty do you oversee? I understand why you use the adjective "burn-out."

I am very familiar with Evergreen's resources. I was part of a team that participated in their summer workshop in June of this past summer; it was very helpful. I am concerned, though, that we may be scattering our energies by going in too many directions at once. We continue to develop our Learning Communities program, while trying to start both a First Year Seminar and a Service Learning program.

Comment by Timothy Thomas Dansdill on November 25, 2009 at 12:49am

Hello Alison and others in the group--though I am unsure as to why one member is identifying as "Faculty Row Professor"

Alison asked about the mandatory First Year Seminar--"The Individual in Community" I am presently coordinating at Quinnipiac University. I am the fourth coordinator effective this academic year. The seminar was conceived in 2004, piloted in 2005, and rolled out in its first iteration in 2006.

Required of all first year students, with some 60 faculty--full and part time, drawn from all disciplines--the course is a cross-disciplinary, inquiry-based, close reading of the philosophical, sociological, etc. etc of the perennial, dialectical tensions inherent in and across Individualist and Communitarian perspectives.

I am responsible for over 70 seminar sections (1600 plus first year students) as far as student orientation in the summer, staffing, faculty training, coordinating relevant events at the University and student-generated levels--on and on. This is an an ambitious, protean, provocative, politically charged, burn-out production.

I receive one course reduction on my teaching load and a stipend.

I am not complaining--but I am challenged. I joined this group to determine the experience of others in the educationsphere with these kinds of initiatives. I am quite familiar with Community-Based Learning, and First Year Experience Models etc., but this seminar blends both these and attempts to extend the best dead-ends of the old Western Civ courses I took when I was an undergrad.

Anyhow, I am testing the professional waters here.

Evergreen College has fine resources on Learning Communities": from as early as the late 1980's (it's all been thought/done before, I know).

This link--http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/lcFaq.htm#4
has been useful as checklist of what I am inheriting as a program, and what I am keen to add, mix, mess with. Anyone interested in the details of the program as to curriculum, pedagogy that I have inititated need only inquire.

Comment by Alison Jameson on November 24, 2009 at 4:22pm

Oh, how interesting! Is your seminar currently in session, or are you preparing it for the spring? We are hoping to offer a First Year Seminar next fall along those same lines (i.e. Individual and Community).

Comment by Timothy Thomas Dansdill on November 24, 2009 at 4:14pm

I will get a better picture. I am currently coordinating a First Year Seminar at my University, titled: "The Individual in Community"--and have much to share about my challenges, ideas, and what you all are doing--and meaning--by "Learning Communities"