Journal of Learning Communities Research

1(1) April 2006 | 1(2) August 2006 | 1(3) December 2006
2(1) April 2007 | 2(2) August 2007 | 2(3) December 2007
3(1) April 2008 | 3(2) August 2008 | 3(3) Dec. 2008/Jan. 2009
4(1) April 2009 | 4(2) August 2009 | 4(3) December 2009

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 1, No. 1, April 2006

Understanding the Processes and Outcomes Associated with Incorporating Diversity into Learning Community Courses: A Case Study
By Michelle Hansen, Donna Boland, and Joyce Mac Kinnon

Institutions are focusing on identifying effective strategies to introduce the concept of diversity to a student body that itself is becoming increasingly diverse. By examining student’s perceptions of their experiences, faculty may be able to enhance the understanding of the complex dynamics that prompt student’s thinking about the meaning of “diversity” and how this concept shapes their relationships with others and the institution.  This qualitative study sought to identify and reflect on various strategies employed in first-year learning communities at a large, urban, public university.  Based upon an investigation of faculty, students, and course syllabi, we examine how faculty members defined, implemented, and assessed diversity in their courses.  Additionally, this study explores student’s reactions within the cognitive and affective learning domains.

Micro-strategies: Small Steps Towards Improved Retention
By Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu and Lee Burdette Williams

Learning communities provide an excellent venue for the practice of “micro-strategies” for improving retention.  These are strategies that can be practiced by faculty and staff who prefer to focus on the pedagogical value of the learning community structure but are nonetheless aware of most institutions’ desire to improve retention of all students.  Taken singly, micro-strategies may not seem to add significantly to retention, but when built into the structures of multiple learning communities, can help an institution attain a valuable uptick in its overall retention rate.  They can also improve the day-to-day teaching and learning experience of the learning community itself by enhancing instructors’ focus on behaviors that contribute to a student’s sense of connection within the community.

Academy for Teacher Excellence: Advancing the Dialogue in University and Community College Partnerships
By Belinda Bustos Fores, Lorena Claeys, and Dehlia Wallis

This paper advances the dialogue of university and community partnerships by challenging existing collaborative ventures.  The authors concede that while traditional collaborative partnerships have led to greater access to the teaching profession, especially for minority teacher candidates, shortcomings are evident.  Despite these efforts, minority teacher candidates are few in number, critical teaching shortage areas continue to exist, and teacher candidates lack preparedness for diverse classrooms.  They further suggest that these efforts fail to recognize other pertinent issues such as college student retention and teacher development.  Thus, they offer the Academy for Teacher Excellence as a systemic plan to assure these issues are addressed.  Specifically, they describe the role of Teacher Academy Learning Community as an organizational and support structure.

Maximizing Student Success in Learning Communities: Using Common Cognitive Structures as the Basis for Linking Learning Community Courses
By Ruth A. Goldfine

This article examines whether the deliberate linking of courses that share common cognitive structures, regardless of the disciplines that house the courses, can lead to enhanced student learning in each of the linked courses.  The author first investigates the tenets of learning theories to demonstrate the potential of common cognitive structures among such course pairings of lead to improved student success and then performs a detailed analysis to two ostensibly disparate courses (in the disciplines of computer science and English) to demonstrate the multitude of commonalities these courses actually share.  The findings suggest that the careful and deliberate pairing of linked courses in learning communities could enhance student learning in each of those courses.

BOOK REVIEW
Generation Me
Reviewed by Jennifer A. Scott

NOTES OF NOTE
Southern Regional Consortium on Learning Communities

11th Annual National Learning Communities Conference

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2006

Experiences and Motivational Factors that Influenced Active Faculty Participation in a Learning Community for First-Year Students
By [to be added]

The experiences and motivational factors that influence active faulty participation in learning community programs were explored.  This qualitative study identified factors that could be altered to increase favorability toward faculty participation in a first-year learning community.  Faculty discussed their learning interactions with students, learning team colleagues, and other individuals outside their departments as well as the incentives and hindrances to involvement in the program.

Students Make Personal Connections Through Learning Community Experiences
By [to be added]

Student participants in the Technology Learning Community (TLC) make personal connections to the academic department and discipline of industrial technology through planned collaborative learning experiences.  This qualitative study gives a detailed description of the components of the TLC and examines artifacts (summative semester evaluations and weekly reflections) and in-depth interviews that support the notion of personal connections developed by the program’s non-traditional population of new and transfer students.

BOOK REVIEW
[to be added]
Reviewed by [to be added]

Experiences and Motivational Factors that Influenced Active Faculty Participation in a Learning Community for First-Year Students
By Roger D. Wessel and Michelle Reneé Sciarini

The experiences and motivational factors that influence active faculty participation in learning community programs were explored. This qualitative study identified factors that could be altered to increase favorability toward faculty participation in a first-year learning community. Faculty discussed their learning interactions with students, learning team colleagues, and other individuals outside their departments as well as the incentives and hindrances to involvement in the program.

Students Make Personal Connections Through Learning Community Experiences
By LeQuetia N. Ancar, Steven A. Freeman, and Dennis W. Field

Student participants in the Technology Learning Community (TLC) make personal connections to the academic department and discipline of industrial technology through planned collaborative learning experiences.  This qualitative study gives a detailed description of the components of the TLC and examines artifacts (summative semester evaluations and weekly reflections) and in-depth interviews that support the notion of personal connections developed by the program’s non-traditional population of new and transfer students. 

Becoming Responsible Learners: Community Matters
By [to be added]

[Abstract to be added]

BOOK REVIEWS
Campus Progress: Supporting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
By Barbara L. Cambridge, ed.
Reviewed by Jayme Millsap Stone

Blueprint for Learning: Constructing College Courses to Facilitate, Assess, and Document Learning
By Laurie Richlin
Reviewed by Anita Neuberger Blowers

Engaging Faculty in a Freshman Academy Learning Community
By Phyllis Worthy Dawkins, Johnson C. Smith University; Brenda Froneberger, Marilyn Sutton-Haywood, and Philip Jeter

Faculty development programs are an essential component to a learning communities program, as this case study from Johnson C. Smith University illustrates. The study provides the historical context for the development of learning communities, reviews the development of the Freshman Academy, details the faculty development model, and describes the assessment of the faculty engagement activities. The authors posit that aspects of the JCSU faculty development model are transferable to other institutions looking to enhance their programs for learning communities faculty.

Well, it's messy sometimes … Barriers to Building a Learning Community and Dynamic Assessment as a System Intervention
By Rosemary C. Reilly and Madeleine Mcbrearty

This article describes the perceived barriers to building learning communities and the impact of self-assessment on two cases. One, a graduate cohort used traditional summative methods, employing Senge’s (1990) characteristics as the self-assessment dimensions.The second, a following cohort, was introduced to dynamic self-assessment early in the program, using the same criteria. Barriers to building communities were elaborated, including individual, structural, and systemic processes. Differences were noted concerning community formation and how participants lived the community experience. The cohort using dynamic self-assessment displayed more systems thinking, an elaborated shared vision and conceptualization of team learning; a deeper questioning of mental models; and more personal mastery attributed to being a member of a learning community.

Case Managers and the Freshman Academy Learning Community: The Results of Involving a Variety of Campus Personnel in First-Year Student Mentoring
By Gail Summerskill and Cathy Jones

The purpose of this case study is to show how the Case Manager Program in a Freshman Academy Learning Community was designed, implemented and assessed. Case Managers are neither faculty nor student affairs professionals, yet they are an integral part of the Freshman Academy initiative. A discussion of mentoring as a student engagement strategy to promote successful student persistence and retention is included as are implications for mentoring practice and research in the first year of college. The case study was conducted at a historically black university in North Carolina.

BOOK REVIEW
Generation Me
Reviewed by Keisha L. Hoerrner

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 2, No. 2, August 2007

Learning Communities as Learning Systems
By Jane Fried, Ph.D.

In this invited essay, Jane Fried was asked to expand upon her recent publication in About Campus that explored “Higher Education’s New Playbook: Learning Reconsidered” by emphasizing its relationship with learning communities. She discusses LearningReconsidered as an effort to create learning community awareness throughout campus and extend intentional learning to all parts of campus life. She argues that the contribution Learning Reconsidered (1 and 2) makes to the learning community movement is
twofold: 1) its focus on holistic, transformative learning and 2) its suggestion of the mapping approach to the learning process.

Faculty Development Benefits of Teaching in a First-Year Learning CommunityBy Cheryl Albers

Assumptions from psychology, anthropology, and sociology regarding knowledge, teaching, and the process of changing practice, are used to analyze narrative and survey data collected from teachers in first-year learning communities. Th e interactions
required to sustain collaboration over a semester were found to contribute to faculty development in these ways. First, faculty learning about teaching is strongly motivated by being imbedded in practice. Second, structuring learning communities to foster ongoing collaboration encourages using colleagues as resources in an iterative cycle of discovering, enacting, and evaluating new practices. Third, the communities of practice that result from these collaborations have complex influences on the social structures that compose the institution.

Link Aloud: Making Interdisciplinary Learning Visible and Audible
By Jack J. Mino

This is a report on stage two of my 2005 Carnegie scholar project on interdisciplinary teaching and learning in learning communities (LCs). Stage two, the heart of the project, involved a qualitative study of LC student writing using Link Aloud to make
interdisciplinary learning both visible and audible. Th us far, 12 different linking mechanisms have been identified with most students using more than one in their writing. In the third stage of the project, I will scale up the Link Aloud research methodology
using “Pedagogy of Guided Reflection” in an attempt to capture classroom conversations of connection and thus provide a multidimensional view of interdisciplinary learning in LCs.

“That Test Was Hard!” Student Preparation for the First Exam in Learning Communities and “Stand Alone” Classes
By Joseph F. Jozwiak, Jr. and Mark G. Hartlaub
p. 1-15

Learning Communities (LCs) have been shown to be effective for a variety of positive student outcomes (Shapiro & Levine, 1999a). We examined the first exam preparation strategies used by our LC students. We compared students in LCs of three linked classes, four linked classes, and “Stand Alone” sections of the same large lecture class. Student performance (i.e., exam performance) in the different LC models was very similar, although the exam preparation strategies varied. We argue that the LC models assist students in developing effective exam preparation strategies. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Networking Learning Communities in Engineering: Development of Common Outcome Objectives for First-Year Students
By Kelly C. Strong, Kevin Saunders, Kimberly Everett, Doug Beck, Steve Mickelson, and Katherine Lyons
p. 17-42

This manuscript describes the formation and operation of networked learning communities within a college of engineering at a large, Midwestern university. Individual coordinators from the thirteen individual learning communities in the college met over the course of a year with the objective of improving student learning. Key success factors for the networked learning communities were found to be similar to factors identified in earlier studies of community networks. One of the first formal activities of the networked engineering learning communities was the development of common learning outcomes for all students participating in engineering learning communities. The process for developing common outcomes and the assessment of those outcomes is described.

BOOK REVIEW
Developing Outcomes-Based Assessment for Learner-Centered Education
Reviewed by Lynn Boettler
p. 43-45

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2008

How Do Learning Communities Affect First-Year Latino Students?
By Juan Carlos Huerta and Jennifer J. Bray
p. 1-18

Learning communities are recognized as effective for promoting student learning and success. However, the literature has not examined how learning communities affect first-year Latino students. This research examines how learning communities with pedagogies of active learning, collaborative learning, and integration of course material affect student learning, achievement, and persistence of first-year Latino university students. Using survey data combined with student background characteristics and multivariate analyses, the findings reveal that there are learning community practices that seem particularly beneficial for Latino students. The results also provide a technique for estimating the impact of learning communities for Latino students.

Public Speaking Anxiety in First-Year Students: Do Learning Communities Make a Difference?
By Emily Holler and Katherine Kinnick
p. 19-41

This study examines the impact of learning communities on students’ levels of speaking anxiety. A nationally normed inventory of speaking anxiety was used to compare anxiety levels of students enrolled in public speaking taught in a learning community with those of students enrolled in traditional, stand-alone sections. Learning community students perceived the learning community as the preferable environment for taking public speaking. However, findings reveal that while students in learning communities did form friendships with their classmates more than students in stand-alone sections, the learning community experience did not reduce these students’ speaking anxiety or create perceptions of audience supportiveness to a greater degree than that of students in the stand-alone sections. Class friendships, we suggest, may create more pressure to avoid an embarrassing performance.

BOOK REVIEWS
Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom
By Marilla D. Svinicki
Reviewed by Daniel Niederjohn
p. 43-45

My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student
By Rebekah Nathan (pseud. for Cathy Small)
Reviewed by Joel Nossoff
p. 47-50

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 3, No. 2, August 2008

When the Students We Have Are Not the Students We Want:
The Transformative Power of Learning Communities
By Nancy Shapiro, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs University System of Maryland
p. 1-14

Keynote address given at the 12th Annual National Learning Communities Conference, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, November 8, 2007

Involving Industry in a Communication-Intensive Learning Community:
The Benefits and Challenges for Students
By Julie Watts
p. 15-34

This study analyzes the ways a communication-intensive learning community comprised of a linked pair of upper-level courses challenged agronomy students to practice working and communicating professionally. A semester-long consulting project was co-assigned and co-assessed by the agronomy and English learning community instructors: students analyzed a farmer client’s needs, collected data from the client’s farm, and recommended ways to improve its management. Instructors collaborated to provide meaningful feedback to students about their client interactions. In doing so, students realized that interpreting data is a complex activity when data are derived from an actual workplace setting. Writing recommendations takes practice and requires careful attention to the client’s needs and situation, and communicating with the client professionally means that students must think of themselves as competent and knowledgeable.

Using Program Assessment to “Prove and Improve”
a Discipline-based Learning Community
By Kim Buch and Sue Spaulding
p. 35-46

Assessment is widely acknowledged as a necessary component of an effective learning community. Campus leaders rely on assessment results to justify their investment by “proving” their impact on important outcomes and also use results to identify strengths and weaknesses so that the program can be improved. Using results to prove the impact of a program is referred to as summative assessment, and using results to improve a program is referred to as formative assessment. In this paper, we describe the longitudinal assessment of a psychology learning community that includes both summative and formative results. We discuss how the former are used to justify, sustain, and grow the program, while the latter are used for continuous improvement.

BOOK REVIEW
The First-Year Experience in American Higher Education:
An Annotated Bibliography, 4th Edition
Andrew K. Koch, Editor-in-Chief; Stephanie M. Foote, Sara E. Hinkle, Jennifer R. Keup & Matthew Pistilli, Editors
Reviewed by Reviewed by J. Wesley Riddle
p. 47-49

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 3, No. 3, December 2008/January 2009

Assessing Integrative Learning:
Insights from Washington Center’s National Project on Assessing Learning in Learning Communities
By Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, Washington Center, The Evergreen State College
p. 1-20

Findings from a national participatory research project, which examined student work in learning communities, highlight the assignment designs that help students become more able integrative learners and thinkers.

Productive Shifts:
Faculty Growth through Collaborative Assessment of Student Interdisciplinary Work
By Veronica Boix-Mansilla
p. 21-26

Faculty inquiry focused on student work can lead to conceptual changes in how we think about assessment, disciplinary expertise, and interdisciplinary learning—revealing the promise of learning communities for students and faculty alike.

Juggling and the Art of the Integrative Assignment
By Lynn Dunlap and Larry Sult
p. 27-45

This paper describes how explicit assignment criteria for interdisciplinary integration and ample practice helped students improve their mastery and integration of individual disciplines.

Assessing Student Work to Support Curriculum Development:
An Engineering Case Study
Kevin Saunders, Thomas Brumm, Corly Brooke, Steve Mickelson, and Steve Freeman
p. 47-62

Today’s engineering graduates need specialized knowledge and abilities associated with interdisciplinary education. This article discusses how a departmental curriculum committee in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering used a collaborative assessment protocol to both examine the development of engineering students’ integrative thinking and to guide a continuous curricular improvement process.

Beyond “Parallel Play”:
Creating a Realistic Model of Integrative Learning with Community College Freshmen
Evelyn Burg, Marisa Klages, and Patricia Sokolski
p. 67-73

Thematically-linked courses do not necessarily result in the kind of integrative learning associated with learning communities. This article explores the untapped interdisciplinarity potential in developmental learning communities when assignments are designed with intentional integrative learning in mind.

Exploring Voice as Integration:
A Direction for Assessing Student Work in Learning Communities with Composition
Keisha L. Hoerrner, Ruth Goldfine, Amy Buddie, Charlotte Collins, Emily Holler, Nancy Prochaska, and Brian Wooten
p. 89-107

Kennesaw State University’s team of interdisciplinary scholars qualitatively assessed student learning within theme-based learning communities to determine whether content from one discipline was evident in student work produced within another discipline. Faculty concluded that they were likely expecting more disciplinary integration than first-semester college students were capable of providing, and that they were likely not asking for the integration they were expecting. By examining student work as evidence, the researchers became more acutely aware of the assignment instructions, prompting them to work more closely with colleagues in their future learning communities to develop interdisciplinary assignments with explicit expectations for integration.

Templates and Rubrics:
Connecting Outcomes, Assignments, and Assessment in Interdisciplinary Learning Communities
Maureen Pettitt and David Muga
p. 109-126

At a college where integrative learning is a campus-wide student learning outcome, a template designed for learning community course development also helps students see connections between their assignments, expected learning outcomes, assessment tools, and general education outcomes.

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2009

RESEARCH
First-Year Seminar Leaders and Learning Communities
By Joseph Jozwiak and Mark G. Hartlaub
p. 1-16

Learning communities have become much more common on college campuses in the last two decades. Research on learning communities has shown that they can be very beneficial for student learning and retention. Many learning communities are tied to a first-year seminar. The instructors (or seminar leaders) in these seminars play a vital role in the learning community experience. We examined several learning communities on our campus and conducted an in-depth examination of the seminar leaders who teach in these learning communities. We found that most of our students were satisfied with the seminar leaders, and those judged as most effective were especially skilled in leading discussions and review sessions for the large lecture class to which they were linked. We offer suggestions on both the evaluation and the training of first-year seminar leaders.

Fostering Immediacy and Engagement in Embedded Learning Communities
by Jan R. Phillips and Heeman Kim
p. 17-30

This quantitative study, conducted at Kennesaw State University, implies that cooperative learning can be effectively implemented in embedded learning communities. This study consisted of survey research. Surveys were distributed in large sections of the Human Communication course (N = 514). Findings suggested that students in classes with 45 seats are more likely to participate in class discussions and activities than students in classes of 80 seats. Class size was not a significant factor regarding students’ willingness to take on leadership roles. With regard to emotional bonding, there were no significant differences between students in classes of 45 seats and 80 seats. The results regarding emotional bonding are significant because, according to this study, learning communities foster peer relationships among students, even though class size has been increased.  

BEST PRACTICE
Connections: A Link to Developmental Student Success and Retention
by Martha Crise and Ellen Newby-Hines
p. 31-35

 In the fall of 2006, the Speckman Tutoring and Learning Center at Ozarks Technical Community College created a pilot learning community for students whose placement scores reflected a need for developmental courses in both English and math. These students were invited to take four core classes together and received the added benefits of study support and mentoring. The program was called “Connections.”

Active and Collaborative Learning in the Dallas Community: Connecting History, Criminal Justice, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
by Matthew Ware Coulter and David Marble
p. 37-40

The assassination of John F. Kennedy remains a fascinating, if morbid, topic in America, even 45 years after the event. In the learning community Sensational Trials in Modern American History at Collin College, students have the opportunity to study the event, share their research with other students, and visit the site of the assassination. A tour of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, provides further context that allows students to enhance their understanding of the assassination and its impact on American history.

Grading the Group: QUANTA 2.0 and the Peer Review
by Casey Blanton, Michael Flota, and Frank Gunshanan
p. 41-45

The QUANTA program at Daytona State College was developed in 1983 as a team-taught, coordinated studies model dedicated to integrating three disciplines while engaging students in active and collaborative learning. The two-semester, three-hours-a-day, three-days-a-week schedule allowed sufficient flexibility for the 72 students and 3 teachers to achieve these structural goals. Now in our 25th year, two of the original founders have retired, and we continue our learning community with some significant changes in our disciplines and in our assessment methods.

Career Exploration: A Bridge from High School to College
by David J. Sabol and Jan DeWester
p. 47-57

In 2001, the Summer Academy Bridge Program, a two-week intensive preparatory program for entering students at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), was developed and delivered for the first time through the University College unit on campus. The program began as a pilot program whose curriculum was created by two faculty (Jan DeWester and David Sabol) after an exploratory visit to Brooklyn College to investigate their summer program. The first year of the Summer Academy at IUPUI had the potential to serve 25 conditionally admitted students, although the actual count ended up being 18 students. Over the subsequent eight years of the program, the number of student participants rose steadily to the 436 students who were served in 2008. The other important change over time has been the collaboration between University College and various academic units on campus to provide school/discipline-specific sections. In 2008, the program offered 22 different sections from 8 schools on campus, including University College, Liberal Arts, Science, Business, Nursing, Engineering, Education, and Public and Environmental Affairs.

Using Written Dialogue to Integrate Content and to Explore Ideas
by James Gould and Ted Hazelgrove
p. 59-64

In a stand-alone philosophy class, students are asked to write about whether religious belief requires proof or can be accepted without evidence on the basis of faith. The result is empty stares, blank pages, and little discussion. In a learning community that fully integrates philosophy and English composition, students watch a clip from the film Contact,and they read a transcript of the same short conversation between a religion scholar and a skeptical scientist. Then the students extend the dialogue, writing about whether belief requires proof or not. The result is engaged composition and insightful discussion. The students develop distinctions between blind faith (believing in the absence of evidence) and reasoned faith (belief that goes beyond the evidence). They discuss the difference between objective public evidence (such as the classic arguments for belief in God) and subjective personal evidence (like religious experience). They follow the implications of ideas (e.g., does all belief, including science, involve some type of faith); they create and critique opposing viewpoints. In discussions, we connect their thoughts and questions with W. K. Clifford’s evidentialism (we should never believe anything without good evidence) and William James’s fideism (faith can make sense when we cannot find answers through science and logic).

Incorporating Service Learning into Established Learning Community Courses
by Brett Holden
p. 65-74

Today, we stand at a promising time in higher education. More institutions are requiring community service for graduation, and many students are coming to college having served community partners in high school and with the expectation that this will continue as part of their collegiate experience. This provides educators with ever-increasing opportunities to introduce these students to the powerful pedagogy of service learning, where they meet course learning outcomes through a combination of service and reflection. Eyler and Giles (1999) remind us that “the essence of effective service-learning is in moving students beyond charity to active, committed citizenship” (p. 132). Ideally, they go on to become activists for positive societal change in their communities beyond graduation.

BOOK REVIEW
Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment: A Guide to Facilitating Learning in Higher Education
by Terry Doyle
Reviewed by Daniel Niederjohn
p. 75-77

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2009

RESEARCH
Using a Wellness-Based Thematic Learning Community to Engage and to Assist First-Year Students
by Deborah N. Smith
p. 1-18

This study examines the impact of using a wellness-based theme in first-year learning communities. The wellness model utilized contains six dimensions: emotional, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual. Students were asked to rate the importance of and to identify their strongest and weakest dimensions, to discuss how their strengths and weaknesses affected their ability to succeed as students, to identify in which dimensions of wellness they were seeking to improve, and to comment on positive life changes they may have made as a result of examining the theme of wellness in their learning community. Quantitative results were mixed, but qualitative results consistently yielded responses that the theme was valuable and helpful to students as they sought to transition successfully into college.

Using Faculty Learning Communities to Link FYE and High-Risk Core Courses: A Pilot Study
by Mo Cuevas, Kendra Campbell, Russell Lowery-Hart, Jessica Mallard, and Amy Andersen
p. 19-30

There is little doubt that learning communities are beneficial for first-year students (Hotchkiss, Moore, & Pitts, 2006; Yale, Brinjak, & Longwell, 2004). The focus of this study is on a particular type of learning community where a high-risk core course was paired with a college success course. A pilot study was conducted linking a first-year biology course with high dropout and failure rates to a college success course that included study skills and strategies. The college success course used the content of biology to provide hands-on study skills applications for students. Results illustrate that students in the pilot program did significantly better in the biology course as well as in their overall fall GPAs than students in the same biology course who were not in the learning community.

Readability of Descriptions of Themed Learning Communities: Connecting With Students Through Promotional Text
by David R. Thompson
p. 31-51

This is the first of a series of studies that examines one of the first connections made between faculty and incoming first-year students—the published descriptions of themed learning communities in promotional and registration materials. Three quarters of the learning community descriptions analyzed in this study fell outside the readability range of these students, according to the Flesch Reading Ease formula and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula. Most of the learning community descriptions written for students fresh out of high school were written above the expected reading level for those students. However, caution should be used against uncritical adherence to readability standards. Writing “to the test” is not recommended.

BEST PRACTICE
Ten Tips for Success Applying Service Learning to Learning Communities
by Natasha Lovelace Habers and David R. Thompson
p. 53-63

“The paradox of learning a really new competence is this: that a student cannot at first understand what he needs to learn, can learn it only by educating himself, and can educate himself only by beginning to do what he does not yet understand” (Schön, 1987, p. 93).

All students face this paradox of learning, and all instructors attempt to help students work through it. For instructors of first-year college students, in particular, adopting a teaching method that helps students work through the paradox of learning is critical to student retention and persistence in college.

Based on her experience teaching discipline-specific learning communities and general-interest learning communities, the primary author argues that service learning has proven to be a productive, energizing, and rewarding way to satisfy both the learning outcomes for the first-year seminar2 and the learning outcomes for the learning community itself.

BOOK REVIEWS
Research, Advocacy, and Political Engagement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Through Service Learning
Edited by Sally Cahill Tannenbaum
Reviewed by Karen Heilmann
p. 65-68

Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education
By Kathleen F. Gabriel
Reviewed by Sharon Hixon
p. 69-71

Journal of Learning Communities Research
Vol. 4, No. 3, December 2009

Learning communities in higher education can serve as powerful connectors among individuals, particularly when integrating minority and White, non-Hispanic students. We conducted 24 in-depth interviews, using qualitative research methodology, with the 2004 cohort of learning community students from a private, selective, Midwestern university. The students, who were seniors at the time of the interviews, reflected on their perceived outcomes of their first-year learning community experiences. We address the students’ shifts in personal biases and stereotypes, factors related to their decisions to become involved with the learning community, their self-reported levels of satisfaction, and suggestions for improving future learning communities.

BEST PRACTICE
Connecting to the World: Learning Communities Program Response to the Global Initiative at the University of Kansas
by Gail James and Jane Irungu
p. 27-32

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, colleges and universities need to create a learning environment and a curriculum that meet the demands of globalization to prepare students who are ready to learn so they can live in a global society. Preparing students for the 21st century requires competence in global issues. Stakeholders, faculty, and administrators have had to revisit missions and integrated initiatives that allow for a more directed campus initiative on students’ international experiences and determine how this can be delivered to them.

In 2001, the University of Kansas (KU) identified global initiatives as a campus priority and learning communities as a priority method of learning. In the 2001 task force report “Building a Premier Learning Community,” KU identified the need to extend the learning community beyond the classroom and campus and expand to the world around it.

In 2004, the Kansas Board of Regents instituted a mandate that learning communities become part of a set of institutional performance indicators. The goal of the mandate was to enrich the KU undergraduate learning environment and to increase student participation in learning communities and in international activities.

The current KU strategic initiative for 2008–2015also addresses the need to enhance the educational experience through teaching methods and learning strategies that improve the learning environment for all students, global awareness, and breadth of thinking.

BOOK REVIEW
Civic Service: Service-Learning with State and Local Government Partners
Edited by David Redlawsk and Tom Rice
Reviewed by Mike McConachie
p. 33-35

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