Learning Communities at Lane Community College

1. Learning Communities at Lane Community College From “Boutique Model” to FYRED UP! First Year Experiences

2. Overview • Phases and History of LCs at Lane • LC Course Arrangement Options • Incentives for Faculty to Teach LCs • Assessments for LCs • Applying the Advice from the Experts at Evergreen to Lane’s LC Program

3. Phase I: “Catalyst” ca. 1994 • Dynamic, engaged faculty interested in developing their teaching • Response to pedagogical research about “Learning Colleges” • Put courses together whose subject matter lent itself to team teaching • Cohorts took all-day back-to-back classes in new classrooms.

4. Advantages of Fast Forward Approach • Strong student and faculty bonding (social and academic factors of retention/success) • Lively engagement reinvigorated faculty pedagogy and engagement • Some students still talk about the learning that occurred in these classes…..

5. Disadvantages of Fast Forward • Faculty “ownership” of the LC • Dependent upon ongoing faculty engagement (burnout) • Enrollment challenges brought about by structure (classes offered targeted a smaller population of Lane’s students)

6. Phase II: First “Redesign” of Instruction at Lane • Strategic Learning Initiative founded to support cross-disciplinary learning involved in holistic “learning college” projects • Learning Communities one of the first “incubated” projects within the SLI

7. Features of Early LCs • A faculty coordinator oversaw development of new LCs (release time) • Time and money invested for curriculum development of promising projects (all faculty eligible) • Focus on courses students need to take for core degrees offered (e.g., Writing, Science, Soc. Sci. etc.)

8. Phase III: Mainstreaming LCs • Critical for success: administrative and faculty commitment to LCs beyond those faculty who teach in LCs • Mainstreaming = LCs has its own budget within the college (not an “add-on” • Divisions encouraged to support LC classes—some “wiggle room” with enrollments, an understanding that they need “incubation time.”

9. Advantages of Mainstreaming • Reliability: Counselors and Advisors begin to see LCs not as a pilot or a pet project or an experiment but as a viable ongoing option for students • Development: Once mainstreamed, the LC project itself has an opportunity to grow and become further institutionalized within the college.

10. Other Developments • Move from “Boutique Model” to systematic use of LCs to address students’ needs • Progress not linear: “BioBonds” and “Women in Transition” had already targeted specific needs of specific populations

11. New LCs Addressing Student Needs • “Show Me the Money”—Writing for Scholarships (WR105) a new course in OUS specifically targeted to the Oregon uniform application for scholarships and Career and Life Planning • “Fast Lane to Success”—piloted in 2004, now a 3-course First Year Experience with College Success, Effective Learning and Appropriate Writing Class

12. FYRED UP! Lane’s First Year Experience • Title III Grant Proposal to institutionalize the FYE, including “Fast Lanes to Success” so that 25% of all incoming, degree-seeking students will take the LC by 2012.

13. Synergy of FYE with LC Development • Early, “boutique-model” LCs at Lane were critical to developing current college-wide effort to improve retention and success through FYE and Fast Lane to Success. • Concurrent Student Services efforts to increase retention and success offered an opportunity for beginning to better integrate Instruction with Student Services

14. Success and Goal Attainment (SAGA) Committee Findings • Two of the Six Best Practices for Student Retention Involve Learning Communities: • First Year Experiences • Learning Communities • Academic Advising • Supplemental Instruction • Early Warning/Intervention Systems • Campus Climate/Supportive Learning Environment

15. Learning Community Arrangments • Best Practice: tightly aligned curriculum with pure cohorts and faculty at least some of the time present in each other’s classes or engaged in cross-disciplinary learning activities (e.g., Service Learning, Reading Together—more later on these)

16. Other Arrangements • One “common” class with three “feeder” classes with same material

17. Other Arrangements • Three separate classes with mixed cohorts taking two or more but some taking only one class.

18. Other Arrangements • Two “feeder” classes with a pure cohort and a third separate class. (This is the current plan for a Math addition to Fast Lane.) + e.g., Math 10 or + Math 65 or + Math 111

19. Assessments • Formative Important: Where are the key areas that students drop out, fail, etc. • Research: Reading scores and taking Writing are significant factors in predicting student success • Develop learning communities with these in mind—largest population to serve creates a pool of students to support enrollments

20. Previous LC Assessments • Anecdotal questions about the quality of student’s experience in the LC, connection in the learning, etc. • Advantage: rich data, vivid picture emerged of students’ experiences in LCs • Disadvantage: qualitative data in a “quantitative” environment

21. Fast Lane to Success Assessment • Inspired by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, asked questions on a 4-point scale about student engagement with the LC. • Compared Fast Lane engagement returns to 800 “general population” answers from students • Fast Lane students fared significantly better on many measures of engagement (a key predictor of success) • Caveat: Small sample: 62 students

22. Current Assessment Project • Combine the richness of the anecdotal data about LCs as a whole with the statistical power of quantitative data to create a new assessment instrument for LCs that might be generalized to other interdisciplinary projects.

23. “School Doesn’t Get Any Better than This!” –Lane Learning Community Student • Questions? • Anne McGrail • Coordinator, Learning Communities • Lane Community College • 541-463-3317 • mcgraila@lanecc.edu