Download Developing Faculty While Developing Learning Communities

Developing Faculty While
Developing Learning
Communities
Richard C. Burke
Mari K. Normyle
Lynchburg College
Lynchburg, VA
Lynchburg College Is
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a small liberal arts
college (with some
professional majors) in
central Virginia
2,000 full-time
undergraduates
175 full-time faculty
35 majors, 43 minors
And we are
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Rich Burke
 Professor of English
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Mari Normyle
 Assistant Dean,
Academic and
Career Services
Co-directors of the Learning
Communities Program at
Lynchburg College
Learning Communities at
Lynchburg College
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Two (or three) linked courses,
sharing all students
Freshman courses
General education courses
Offered in fall
Include co-curricular
activities
And a Program
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All our learning communities—
more importantly, all faculty
teaching in them—are part of the
Learning Communities Program
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an organized, on-going, collaborative
effort
Budget
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$15,000 p.a.
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$500 professional development
stipends
co-curricular activities
workshops and meetings
conferences
Co-directors’ pay  0
Goal-directed
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Have all entering freshmen in a
learning community by fall 2007
Three-part presentation
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Launching
Sustaining
Results
1. Launching: The Origins
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Fall 2003: need to improve student
learning and engagement in order
to help improve retention
Why Learning
Communities?
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Established as being effective at
increasing student learning,
engagement, and satisfaction
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a means to help students “make sense”
of general education courses
Augment students’ sense of belonging
Experience with linked courses
Co-directors’ familiarity and interest
Consultant’s recommendation
Anticipation of faculty interest
Low(ish) cost
Challenge
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Developing faculty interest
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program simply won’t work without
serious commitment from faculty
to be effective, will require a
significant portion of the faculty (5060, ultimately)
Response: Instructional
Development Workshops
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Meet a perceived need among
faculty
Well-established interest on
campus in instructional
development
Worthwhile even for faculty without
interest in learning communities
First Workshop: August
2004
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2 days, five hours each day
35 faculty participants
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from many departments/broad range of
experiences and disciplines
Lunch included (food is a must)
Most of the presentations done by codirectors
Intentionally structured and highly
interactive
Workshop Content
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Current best practices for engaging students
Updates on student development theory
Characteristics of Millennials
Characteristics of Lynchburg College
students
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“Who are our students?”
Learning Communities:
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underlying principles
different types
benefits
Introducing Faculty to LCs
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Broad introduction to types, purposes,
and effectiveness of LCs
Copies of relevant articles and resources
Observations by participants who
taught earlier linked courses
“Designing a learning community in one
hour” activity from the Evergreen State
Univ.
Winding Up With
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Invitation to propose a learning
community
Timetable for coming weeks and
coming year
Connections among faculty members
that might not have existed before
Credibility for co-directors
Lots of enthusiasm
Comments from Faculty
Participants
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“Opportunities to share with colleagues was
helpful.”
“Enthusiasm of speakers contributed to learning.”
“I had fairly negative and low expectations . . . but
feel that I learned some important and novel (for
me) approaches to my teaching.”
“I found incorporating actual information re: how
LC students compare nationally . . . will help me
teach them better.”
“I gained some knowledge of how to improve
communication to students of exactly what I expect,
especially with regard to writing assignments.”
Subsequent Instructional
Development Workshops
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August 2005
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August 2006
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16-18 participants
70+ participants
Topics included
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best practices in teaching
articulating expectations for freshmen
low-stakes writing assignments
continuing focus on learning communities
Challenge
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Recruiting faculty to teach in the
Learning Communities Program
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participation demands time, energy,
thought, change, compromise, and
close cooperation with another
instructor
scheduling needs require early
commitment by faculty and their
departments
Response to Recruitment
Challenge
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Enthusiasm generated by
workshop helped enormously
Plenty of email contacts and
encouragement
Match-making offers
Clear, specific, and shared
two directors
procedures forHaving
proposing
a LC helps
and as
well:
accessible for
for selecting ones
tomore
be offered
questions; different
personalities . . .
Challenge
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Preparing faculty for learning
communities
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understand nature and goals of program
carefully think through how they’re going to
link their courses
get comfortable with idea of such close
collaboration
Planning is crucial to the success of an LC
Response to Preparation
Challenge
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Meet, communicate, communicate,
meet
Communicate
Did we say “communicate?”
Response to Preparation
Challenge
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Further workshops (January, May), dealing
with collaborative teaching and course
design
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team building; partnership building
Guidance and group discussions to help
faculty determine how to connect courses,
readings, writing assignments, etc.
the
second
and third
Discussion of marketing In
LCs
(web,
letters)
years, we’ve been able
Discussion of co-curricular activities and
to use participants’
their integration into courses
experiences and
insights
The Year’s Cycle of
Work
Fall Semester
LC proposals submitted
and reviewed
January
Reflection and
Adjustments
Workshop
Sp
r
m e ti o n
SumPromo ion
LC istrat
Reg
Le rin
de arni g Se
v e ng
l o p co m e
m mm ste
en
un r
t
it y
August
Instructional
Development
Workshops
May
Preparation
and Planning
Workshop
Challenge
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Creating student interest
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value of student buy-in; the learning
community was their choice
some costs to students (can’t drop
just one course)
be able to show administration that
LCs can appeal to new students
Response in Order to
Create Student Interest
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Pitch LC titles to 18-year-olds:
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“You Have The Right To Remain
Silent….” Or Do You?: Politics and
Liberty in Western Culture
An Indecent Proposal: Would You Like
Fries With That?
Blood, Sex and Power: Global Issues
and Latin America
Know the Audience and
Speak to It
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Write LC descriptions that also
appeal to the target audience:
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“Are you filled with curiosity to know
how Latin American History and
Global Politics are full of stories of
blood and gore, and explosive issues
of sexual politics and power play?”
Publicize
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LC titles and
descriptions available
online
Information in course
preference materials
Comments at Admitted
Student Open House
Letters to students
before Orientation
Information to freshman
advisors, in order to
reduce confusion and
error
Challenge
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Managing administrative logistics
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ensure same enrolment in both
courses
no surprise changes in section
staffing
get students into requested LCs
Responses to Logistical
Challenges
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Lots of little details to see to
Communicate!
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communicate with school deans—and be sure
that instructors do as well
Keep everyone working to schedule, to
minimize disruptions
Work closely with registrar
Oversee placing of freshmen in requested
LCs
Directors should simplify logistics for faculty
2. Sustaining:
How to Keep Things Going
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The greater the initial enthusiasm,
the greater the decline as reality
sets in
Requires continual work and
frequent revision
Requires recruiting additional
faculty (returns us to initial
challenge)
Challenge
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Maintaining a strong, continuing program
that meets its goals and evolves as
needed
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dealing with faculty frustrations (and failures?)
responding to the unexpected
getting things done and done on time; not
losing track of what needs to be accomplished
and when
coping with instructors’ competing priorities
Response:
Providing Support for
Faculty
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Importance of a carefully structured
and implemented program
Meetings and workshops for
continuing faculty, with attention to
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program goals and objectives (meeting
and refining)
cross-disciplinary cooperation
pedagogy
assessment
co-curricular activities
Central Questions
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What’s working in your LC?
What problems are you facing?
What can be done to deal with the
problems?
Challenge
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Continuing to generate faculty interest
in order to expand the program
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to meet goal of including every freshman
in an LC, we need to increase faculty
participation
familiarity (no longer new)
inertia
curricular obstacles
loss of some original faculty
Response:
Keeping Focus on
Recruiting
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New instructional development
programs
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specific and practical advice
administrative support
Publicizing successes
Revising as needed
Using current faculty to raise interest
3. Results: How Well Did
We Do?
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Assessment for program and
course improvement
Assessment to support budget
requests
How We Assess
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Several elements of the
assessment emerge organically,
from processes that are part of the
program’s activities
Assessment not imposed from
without
Assessment Tools
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Course evaluations
Learning Community evaluations
Instructional development workshop
evaluations
Retention data
Qualitative assessment by faculty
Faculty surveys
Faculty involvement in professional
activities
General Benefits
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Increases cross-disciplinary cooperation
among faculty
Breaks down some disciplinary
boundaries for students without a full
revision of gen ed
Helps students see connections between
two or more disciplines
Creates sense of belonging among
students
Effect on Retention
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Fall 2005 Learning Communities
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students in lower 60% of class
benefited by increased retention and
grades
students in all of our learning
communities (including Honors)
retained at 5% greater than non-LCs
their stronger retention continues into
4th semester
Freshmen Returning
from Fall Semester
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Fall 2006 Learning Communities
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Fall-Spring results
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????????????????????????????????!
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Class (553) 92.6%
LCs (171) 91.2%
Non-LCs (352)
92.7%
OY!
But this is in the context of the HIGHEST
fall-spring retention rate in over 13
years….
Impact on Students
I benefited from being in this LC: 72%
I believe being in this LC helped me learn more: 67%
I felt more strongly connected to the students in my LC:
86%
I was more comfortable working with my professors:
66%
The co-curricular activities helped me better understand
what I was learning in the classroom: 64%
As a result of being in this LC, I have a greater
understanding of the connections between the
content area of these courses: 71%
I would recommend this learning community to other
first year students: 67%
And more from
students…..
In my learning community, I was more likely to
_________than in my other courses:
 ask questions in class: 62%
 participate in class discussions: 70%
 talk about course materials outside of
class: 58%
 Seek assistance from professors: 61%
 Work collaboratively with my classmates:
64%
Faculty Reflections
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“What I’ve noticed about [the learning
community] cohort is that they are
more answerable to one another. It’s
the good peer pressure. . . . I think if
the linked courses hold high
expectations for students . . . treat
them as intellectuals who can make
difficult connections between
disciplines . . . then they become that.”
Impact on Faculty as
Teacher
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“I became a better teacher
working with Jim. He was always
challenging me to think about what
I was doing and why—how I could
do it differently. He was the older
faculty member sharing his
experience with a new one.”
Impact on Faculty as
Learner
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“I profited from the experience for at least
three reasons: a) I ventured into an
area…and an approach…that have long
been of interest to me; b) I learned a
considerable amount about economics
from my colleague…; c) I had the pleasure
of meeting regularly with Dr. Turek on
matters relating to our ‘project,’ which
yielded countless fruitful ideas and good
conversations on wide-ranging subjects.”
Programmatic Revisions
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More explicit integration of course
materials
Better balance of students by
ability
Addition of specific teaching
applications in instructional
development workshops
Additional Directions
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Sophomore-level learning
communities
Residential interest-based LCs
Course + Activity LCs
Summarizing the Key
Points
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Capture faculty interest with
instructional development programs
that address their specific teaching
concerns
Provide a structure of support that will
facilitate both the development and
implementation of learning communities
Take a long view of the process and
results
Questions?
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Contact:
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Rich Burke
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[email protected]
Mari Normyle
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[email protected]