[Home]
 
[Current Issue] [About Us] [Subscribe] [Search] [Events] [Resources]
 

The Campus as Learning Community: Seven Promising Shifts and Seven Powerful Levers

Author: Thomas A. Angelo

University of Miami

Keywords: University of Miami, community, collaboration, connection, transformation, teaching culture, learner - centered, collaborative learning, higher education.

Article style and Source: This article has peviously been published in AAHE Bulletin vol. 49, no. 9, pp 3-6. ultiBASE is grateful for the author's and AAHE's permission to publish electronically.

Contents

Introduction

Over its history, American higher education has adapted and reinvented itself repeatedly in response to social, economic, and political changes. And it will again. Today much has happened at the end of the nineteenth century and again after World War II, new ways of envisioning and organizing academic life are emerging, signs of another historic renewal of academic culture. This time around, however, the changes center less on building now institutional structures, redefining the curriculum, or expanding access, and more on the very heart of higher education - on improving teaching and learning.

In what was likely the most widely read higher education article of 1995, Robert Barr and John Tagg (see selected Resources) characterize these changes as a shift from our current teaching - centered mode of undergraduate education to a now learning - centered paradigm. As Barr and Tagg see it, the primary purpose of colleges and universities in this new paradigm will be to 'produce learning', rather than to provide instruction, with traditional teaching only one of several possible moans of bringing about the learning we want.

Although the word paradigm always makes me a bit queasy (Thomas Kuhn reportedly tried to withdraw the term from use late in his life), I think Barr and Tagg are right on target. One outcome of the paradigm shift will be the transformation of our colleges and universities, from the "teaching factories" or "educational shopping malls" they too often resemble, into authentic "learning communities."

Collaboration, Connection, Community

The phrase may have a congenial ring to it, but what exactly is a "learning community"? Several definitions exist, but most center around a vision of faculty and students - and sometimes administrators, staff and the larger community - working collaboratively toward shared academic goals in environments in which competition is de-emphasized. In a learning community, faculty and students alike have both opportunity to learn from and help teach each other. Faculty become less transmitters of information and more designers of learning environments and experiences, expert guides, coaches, and practicing master learners.

While there are many variations on the theme, learning communities typically feature purposive groupings of students, shared scheduling, significant use of cooperative and/or collaborative learning approaches, and an emphasis on connecting learning across courses and disciplinary boundaries. For example, anywhere from 20 to 100 students may be enrolled as cohort in a cluster of conceptually linked courses from diverse disciplines organized around a theme, such as "Body and Mind," "The Environment and Community Health," or "Schools and Families." Faculty explicitly design and teach these linked courses to foster coherence and connections. Students typically also attend a weekly group meeting facilitated by a pear advisor. Through coursework and meetings, students learn academic content and the learning and group process skills needed for the shift from an individualistic to a cooperative academic culture.

But imagine extending this model beyond two or three courses, to transform an entire department, program, school, or campus into a learning community. Now imagine not just students but also faculty working together as members of learning communities, collaborating on and connecting their teaching, scholarship, and service in meaningful ways. For some Faculty, such campuswide learning communities would represent the fulfillment of long-hold aspirations. Many hunger for the community of scholars they expected to find in academic life. The recent explosion of newsletters, books, conferences, listservers, and websites focused on teaching and learning is an indication of the depth of that longing.

Of course, a faculty's personal and professional fulfillment isn't reason enough to invest in learning communities. We must first ask how effective such communities are at producing student learning. The result to date are promising. Research done by Vincent Tinto and others demonstrates that learning communities can produce significant gains in student involvement, learning, satisfaction, social connectedness, persistence and retention. These benefits accrue to "remedial" and "nonremedial" students in community colleges and research universities alike.

I'm convinced that developing a more cooperative academic culture is vital for our survival. Just as employers consistently tell us that our graduates need well-developed teamwork skills to thrive in the workplace, faculty need to develop similar skills in order to prepare our students well. Within the academy's walls, real and virtual, we'll need better collaboration than we can currently master to survive coming political and financial shocks. In the biggest of big pictures, if we're to cope with our planet's increasingly complex problems, we must educate highly effective teamworkers capable of making connections across all kinds of boundaries. And we must do all this much more efficiently at lower cost - or sacrifice hard-won gains in equity and access.

Fundamental Shifts

The challenge, then, is to improve both instructional productivity and learning quality to create productive learning communities. Realizing this vision will require several fundamental shifts in our standard operating procedures, moving us toward the "campuswide learning community" ideal I have described. The good news is that many promising shifts are already under way, and that powerful "levers" are available to hasten the transformation.

Space limitations preclude detailed discussion here, but let me offer a short list of seven positive shifts and seven proven levers we can employ to construct a more productive, learning-focused campus.

Shift 1. From a culture of largely unexamined assumptions to a culture of inquiry and evidence. Resources

Much of our standard practice depends on implicit and often highly questionable assumptions. For example, our system of courses and credits assumes that all students learn all subjects at the same rate.... Typical general education survey courses assume a "vaccination" model of learning, that a dose of Freshman Composition cures writing ills for the next three years.... Some diversity efforts assume that simply throwing very different students together in the same environment will lead to greater tolerance and appreciation of diversity.

Lever 1. Assessment

The assessment "movement" prods us to examine our assumptions by turning them into empirical, "assessable" questions. Could more students learn calculus well if we gave them more time?... Do students who succeed in Freshman writing courses write demonstrably better in their courses?... Does simple coexistence with diversity lead to more open attitudes? After more than a decade of effort, a wide range of assessment tools exists to help us find out what's broke, what isn't, and just how well our well intentioned innovations are working.

Shift 2. From a culture of implicitly held individual hopes, preferences, and beliefs to a culture of explicit, broadly shared goals, criteria, and standards. Recources

The notion of community implies shared goals and values that inform our decisions and actions. To get anywhere together, we first have to agree on the destination. To create meaningful learning communities, we'll need to develop shared goals for student learning outcomes, shared criteria for assessment and evaluation, and shared standards for measuring student and faculty success.

Lever 2. Goal-, criteria-, and standard setting methods.

Several methods for building broad agreement on goals, criteria, and standards have been developed in the corporate world and in K-12 education. Some of the most promising are TQM/CQI approaches such as "open-space technology" and "future search," and a method in Writing-Across-the-Curriculum known as "primary trait analysis." Whatever the methods, the aim is to create common ground by developing trust, a shared language, and shared values.

Shift 3. From a teaching culture that ignores what is known about human learning to one that applies relevant knowledge to improve practice. Resources

For far to long, most college faculty were uninformed about applicable research on learning and teaching, and far too many were dismissive of its potential value. Imagine if other applied professions, such as medicine and engineering, took the same dim view of research! Today, by contrast, many current and future faculty are interested in understanding and applying the research base.

Lever 3. The research and practice literature on teaching and learning.

After more than fifty years of research in psychology, cognitive science, and education, there are some general, well-supported principals of teaching and learning to inform our professional practice. Recent books by Wilbert McKeachie, Pascarella and Terenzini, among many others offer useful research syntheses and practical related suggestions.

Shift 4. From a narrow, exclusive definition of scholarship to a broader, inclusive vision. Resources

In his widely read 1990 book Scholarship Reconsidered, the late Ernest Boye made a persuasive argument for broadening our vision of scholarly work from the traditional scholarship discovery - research and publication - to include the scholarship of integration, application, and teaching. Several factors, including the end of the Cold War and consequent decline in research funding, have spurred interest in changing the model.

Lever 4. The faculty evaluation system

Like everyone else, faculty tend to do what they are evaluated on and rewarded for. Therefore, the faculty evaluation system used for retention, tenure, promotion, and merit decisions is a powerful lever for redirecting time and effort. Inspired by Boyer's challenge, campuses throughout the country are working to develop ways to assess and value a broader range of scholarship. AAHE's Peer Review of Teaching project and its Forum on Faculty Roles & Rewards are two efforts to move this agenda "from ideas to prototypes." Among the most promising approaches for documenting and displaying scholarship currently being field-tested and refined are teaching portfolios and course portfolios.

Shift 5. From an academic culture that ignores costs to one that attempts to realistically account for direct, deferred and opportunity costs. Resources

The "cost disease" threatens the health of higher education generally, and the very existence of many particular institutions. Yet, for the most part, we lack accurate information on the real costs and benefits of our programs and activities on which to base decisions. There's no general agreement, for example, on what the appropriate "unit" would be in a cost-per-unit accounting of learning. Without better accounting, in the broadest sense, we can't really determine our productivity, much less improve it.

Lever 5. New accounting models and methods

Innovations in accounting, such as activity-bases accounting and full costing, are beginning to be adapted and applied to academic units, informing our assessment and decision-making. Inside the academy, leaders such as Alan Guskin, Robert Zemsky and William Massy, and Stephen Ehrman are developing and disseminating new models, indicators, and measures of teaching and learning "productivity."

Shift 6. From a culture that emphasizes and privileges individual struggle for private advantage to one that encourages collaboration for the common good and individual advancement. Resources

While it's critical to change the evaluation and reward systems for individual faculty and the testing and grading systems for individual students to encourage and reinforce community, it's necessary to teach all involved how to work together effectively. Research has demonstrated that nearly all students learn more and better through well-structured, well-run group work than on their own, and that it particularly benefits the less privileged and less prepared. Consequently, I see the decision to employ - or not to employ- cooperative methods as an ethical choice, not simply and instructional one. And since research also indicates that group process is the major determinant of effectiveness, we need to train both faculty and students in group-process skills.

Lever 6. Cooperative and collaborative education methods

A rapidly growing body of research on and practical expertise in these approaches can guide and inform our efforts. The National Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment is one excellent source for recent materials. Books and articles by David and Roger Johnson, Karl Smith, and Kenneth Bruffec are also key resources.

Shift 7. From a model of higher education as primarily a quantitative, additive process to one that is fundamentally qualitative and transformative. Resources

To many higher education equals course taking and credit collecting, as if the simple experiences necessarily led to any significant learning. But just as no pile of bricks, however numerous, necessarily makes a building; no list of courses, however long, necessarily equals an education. All too often, however, students are awarded degrees primarily for persisting, and employers complain that our graduates lack basic skills and knowledge.

Lever 7. Competency based, mastery learning.

One way around debasing academic "bean counting" is to decouple course taking and grades from degree granting. It would require that we define the competencies (what learners must demonstrably know and be able to do) that most value, the core criteria for evaluating those competencies, and the standards for how well students must perform and then develop adequate means to assess them. In a productive competency-based learning community, students could potentially demonstrate their mastery of some or most aspects of the curriculum without taking courses, but they could never become "certified" simply by taking courses.

Conclusion

The natural and necessary connection between competency-based learning and assessment brings us full circle, a transit that underlines the necessary connectedness of all these shifts. Progress toward more productive, more authentic form of academic community will require movement on many fronts at once - many shifts propelled by many levers.

Selected Resources for Making the Shifts...

Shift 1. To a culture of inquiry and evidence

Banta, T.W., et. al. (1995). Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gardiner, L.F., C. Anderson, and B.L. Cambridge, eds. (in press). Learning Through Assessment: A Resource Guide for Higher Education.. Washington, DC: AAHE.
Back

Shift 2. To a culture of explicit, broadly shared goals, criteria and standards

Brigham, S.E. (November/December 1996). "Large Scale Events: New Ways of Working Across the Organization." Change 28(6):28-37.

Stark, J.S., K.M. Shaw, and M.A. Lowther (1989). Student Goals for College and Courses: A Missing Link in Assessing and Improving Academic Achievement. ASHE-ERIC- Higher Education Report, no. 6; Washington, DC: School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University.

Walvoord, B.E., and V. Anderson (November/December 1995). "An Assessment Riddle." Assessment Update 7(6): 8-9, 11.
Back

Shift 3. To a teaching culture that applies relevant knowledge to improve practice.

Gardiner, L.F. (1994), Redesigning Higher Education: Producing Dramatic Gains in Student Learning. ASHE-ERIC- Higher Education Report, no. 7; Washington, DC: School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University.

McKeachie, W.J., et. al. (1994). Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. 9th ed. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Menges, R.J., and M.D. Svinicki eds. (1991). College Teaching: From Theory to Practice. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 45. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pascarella, E.T., and P.T. Terenzini (1991). How College Affects Students: Findings and Insights From Twenty Years of Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Back

Shift 4.To a broader, more inclusive vision of scholarship

Cross, K.P., and M.H. Steadman (1996). Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Hutchins, P., ed. (1995). From Idea to Prototype: The Peer Review of Teaching, A Project Workbook. Washington, DC: AAHE.

Rice, R.E. "Making a Place for the New American Scholar." (1996). New Pathways Working Paper Series, Inquiry #1. Washington DC: AAHE
Back

Shift 5. To an academic culture that attempts to realistically account for costs

Ehrmann, S,C. "The Flashlight Project: Spotting an Elephant In the Dark." Available on the AAHE website: www.aahe.org/elephant.

Guskin, A.E. (July/August and September/October 1994). "Reducing Student Costs and Enhancing Student Learning, parts 1 ("Restructuring the Administration") and 2 ("Restructuring the Role of Faculty"). Change 26(4): 22-29 and 26(5): 16-25.

Plater, W.M. (May/June 1995). "Future Work: Faculty Time in the 21st Century." Change 27(3): 22-33.

Zemsky, R., and W.F. Massy (November/December 1995). "Toward an understanding of Our Current Predicaments: Expanding Parameters, Melting Cores, and Sticky Functions." Change 27(6): 40-49.
Back

Shift 6. To a culture that encourages collaboration for the common good and individual advancement

Bruffee, K.A. (1993). Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. Baltimore: John Hopkins.

Gabelnick, F., J. MacGregor, R. Matthews, and B.L. Smith, eds. (1990). Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Disciplines. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 41. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Goodsell, A.M. Maher, and V. Tinto (1992). Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education. University Park, PA: National Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment.

Johnson, D.W., R.T. Johnson, and K.A. Smith (1991). Active Learning: Cooperation in College Classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction.
Back

Shift 7. To a model of education that is qualitative and transformative

Barr, R.B., and J. Tagg (November/December 1995). "From Teaching to Learning: A Paradigm for Undergraduate Education." Change 27(6): 12-25.

Campbell, W.E., and K.A. Smith, eds. (1997). New Paradigms for College Teaching. Edina, MN Interaction.

Education Commission of the States (1995). Making Quality Count in Undergraduate Education. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.
Back

About the author

Associate Professor Thomas A. Angelo
Director
Higher Education Program
University of Miami
PO Box 248065
Coral Gables
FL 33124-2040
E-mail: tangelo@umiami.ir.miami.edu
[up]
Send feedback to manager@ultibase.rmit.edu.au
Copyright © 2001 Faculty of Education Language and Community Services
Document URL: http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec97/angelo1.htm
Last Updated: 28-October-1997 by Marita Mueller		 [RMIT University]
 
current II subscribe II about II search II events II resources