Learning Community Initiativ - Recently Updated Pages

Impact

honeil — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:28:24 CST

How do we know WHETHER learning communities are effective?

Look at the outcomes. Did the community achieve its goals?
How wide of an impact did the community have on an institutional level?
What was the level of excitement and enthusiasm of group members throughout the year?
How willing are group members to continue the community's work?
Self assess including reactions and perceptions.
Are the initiatives replicated outside of the group? Did the knowledge spread?
Are there any visible positive outcomes in terms of student learning?
What products resulted from the community's work?
Did any of the members receive recognition or awards?

Impact Maps- Inputs (resources)/ Activities/ Outputs/ Outcomes/ Impacts
Research Studies- Did any member publish?

What 5 Key metrics must we establish to understand whether our efforts resulted in improved student learning/competence or enabled members to improve teaching skills?

Increased student success in getting and keeping career-oriented jobs and post-graduate work as well as employer perception of student.
Increased student enrollment, retention and graduation. (Progression of student in a timely manner.)
Raise critical thinking skills with portfolios.
Students' willingness to recognize the need to adopt life-long learning.
Students' ability to connect knowledge.

Continuous Reflection

honeil — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:14:50 CST

How do we find the time to document, reflect, assess, and improve ourselves, given incredibly competing demands for our time?

Release time
Know that others in the community are depending upon you to come through
Support one another
Offer a retreat; recognition that the community work is an enjoyable endeavor; maintain focus

Case Studies-

Learning From Experience: Developing Portraits of Practice Part I
A. Learning Community (LC) Title
B. Community Curator(s). Who has prepared Part I of this Portrait on behalf of your LC? What date was it completed?
C. Abstract (75 Words or less) if it has changed
D. Learning Community Members, units, roles. List your community members, their units or disciplines and roles, if they have changed. Who has been added, deleted?
Core members Unit/Discipline Contributions, Associate Members Unit/Discipline Contributions
E. Background & Context. Briefly describe your Learning Community Project and the context within which you undertake it. What do you intend to achieve? What technologies are you using and how? What desired ending(s) would you like for the story of your LC and its project? What types of institutional support do you have? What types of support would you like?
F. Description of your early work, planning and preparations. Describe the preliminary work of the learning community as you prepare for your community project and for attending your Region’s Learning Institute. What were the key components in your planning and preparation for your LC (Roles? Methods? Timelines? Coordinating schedules?)? What were key issues and concerns, and, how did you sort them out? What were the key successes and what impacts have they had? Are there any vignettes that illustrate these?
G. Community building and project development. Describe early phases of building your community and developing your collaborative project. What key challenges and problems do you face and how do you handle them? What did they – or will they - lead to? What successes have you enjoyed to date? Are there any vignettes of potential consequence or impacts that you can share? What resources are you using to support community building and how are they making a difference?
H. Planning Your Assessment Strategies. How will you evaluate your work/successes? How will you assess member learning, including technology? your community’s growth over the year? student learning or change connected with your project? Both formative (this Case Study is part of this) and summative methods should be used.

THIS IS THE END OF Learning From Experience: Developing Portraits of Practice Part I

Journaling-
Action Research-
Assessing the Learning Community-

Outreach Efforts

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:35:32 CDT

OLN Learning Community Members said that they effectively communicated the value of Learning Communities to others by:

Get on the agenda of the Board of Trustees
Hold a Success Fair in a public venue, show by demonstrating it
Provide incentives to participate
Get buy-in from opinion leaders
Go to department meetings
Create websites, blogs, wikis, etc.
Present at new faculty orientation or offer seminars
Mentoring others
Contribute to a digital repository
Use a portfolio as a showcase: get actual student work published so that others can see how the work in the LC is affecting student success

How did you Communicate Your Message?

Within Departments
Across the Campus
With Other Institutions
Across Ohio
With New Connections
With Local Media

Essential Resources that Enable LC Work

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:33:11 CDT

OLN Learning Community Members said that when they faced Resistance from others during their work, they would:

Seized the opportunity to leverage Resistance and shift it towards collaboration.
Have information and hard data to explain their work.
Decipher between the presented argument and the real argument. Determine if their is real objection.
Do outreach and give explanations of the Learning Community process.

Meeting Management-

The Meeting Planner's checklist

Meeting Summary and Action Plan Form

NOAA Coastal Services Center's module on Meeting Management
Does the meeting space inspiring? Is it wireless? Is the furniture mobile and comfortable? Anti-hierarchical lacking a focus up front?
Did you provide members with advance notice that will enable them to explore the technology or meeting materials before the meeting?
The difference between process and content

Process = The HOW

The methods and procedures
How relations are maintained
The tools being used
The rules or norms set
The group dynamics
The climate

Content = The WHAT

The subjects for discussion
The task
The problems being solved
The decisions made
The agenda items
The goals

Change Leadership

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:18:31 CDT

Committee Participation-
Public Outreach- A Learning Community is not a committee, but a community. Recruit members in a way that reflects the nature of a community. Recognize the importance of the learning. People are not recruited because they have nothing to learn. Consider diversity of membership and include students, administrators, staff and faculty.
Professional Growth-
Role/Position Changes- Fluidity of leadership is a set of changing leadership responsibilities in the LC which creates shared leadership. Consider changing roles each year or perhaps even each meeting.
Campus Involvement-

Facilitation and Leadership

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:13:16 CDT

OLN Learning Community members said that a LC leader should be:

A visionary who is practical and savvy in traveling the path to accomplishing goals.
Someone who understands the mission of the institution.
Has the ability to involve constituents and get buy-in.
Has the ability to generate new ideas from the contributions of the community.
A good communicator that can both listen and articulate.
Has the ability to understand complex discourse from varied constituencies.
Is organized.
Has the ability to identify key players.

NOAA Coastal Service Center produced this module
that helps to enhance one's ability to design, lead, or participate in a collaborative process.

The Plan

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:37:37 CDT

General

Miami University, Faculty Learning Communities: Recommendations for Initiating and Implementing an FLC at Your Campus

OLN Learning Community members said that the 5 essential conditions that enable a Learning Community to thrive are:

Resource Support
Goals and an action plan/ A common vision
Promoting the LC model
Teaching and Learning Centers
Commitment to improve learning

Time Management- Do you have administrative support that can aid with scheduling meetings?
Setting Goals and Making Action Plans
Using Technology- What technologies will you explore? How will they improve student success?
Rewards- Are there rewards throughout the process for achieving mile-stones or are they presented when the final outcome is achieved?
Trips/Retreats
Expectations
Communication Plan- How will this plan encourage innovation and give each voice a chance to be heard?
Utilizing Advisory Boards

Celebrate Success

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:27:41 CDT

OLN Learning Community Members said that the top 4 ways they celebrated their success were:

Small tokens of recognition
Campus events highlighting LC work
Workshops for non-LC faculty
Department Chairs invite LCs to share their work with other departments

Gather and Share-
Hold Events-
Invite the Public-
Determine Who Will Benefit from Your Knowledge-
Celebrate-

Essential Resources

honeil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:25:13 CDT

General:

Building Community:

Miami University's 10 Necessary Qualities for Building Community

Budget-
Books, Articles, and Organizations
Conferences-
Technology-
OLN Learning Community members were asked how they established a culture in which Learning Communities thrive.

Support from the top
Committed faculty that can help spread the word
Rewards
Course/load reductions signify that LCs are a priority
Focus on successful student outcomes

Promotion and Tenure Structure that Supports Collaboration and LC Work-
Campus Policies that Support LC-
IT, Library, and Student Services-

Attending to Process

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:05:57 CDT

Handling Conflict- NOAA Coastal Services Center notes that, "conflict is a natural and necessary part of social interaction, and plays an important role in the collaborative process. When managed productively, conflict can clarify differences, increase creativity, and help build strong bonds within the group. Alternatively, if not acknowledged or managed effectively, conflict can detract from the group's productivity and damage its cohesiveness. Read more about positive and negative outcomes of conflict.

Building Trust- Trust Matters a PPT by Megan Tschannen-Moran, College of William & Mary

Attend to Process- Where are you on the content-process continuum? Take this quiz to find out if you are process or content oriented in relationship to these 12 leadership actions.

Continuous Improvement- Consult the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice for resources. "Our interest and concern is with approaches to action research which integrate action and reflection, so that the knowledge gained in the inquiry is directly relevant to the issues being studied; and in which there is increased collaboration between all those involved in the inquiry project. Our work aims at helping the individual practitioner develop skills of reflective practice and to help organizational members develop communities of inquiry, as well as contribute to wider understanding of the place of inquiry in the development of professional practice."

Reflection- Assessing Learning Community Effectiveness; North Seattle Community College has used several quantitative methods to assess the impact of learning communities from an institutional perspective. Data on student retention, student performance, student development, and faculty/student ratios compare learning communities with traditional stand-along courses. Read the complete article.
Using Case Studies for Continuous Improvement and Learning. Also see the the complete table of contents on Assessment in and of Collaborative Learning developed and edited by the Washington Center's Evaluation Committee.

Using Case Studies- See the attachments at the bottom of this page for both parts of the OLN Portrait of Practice

Challenging Each Other
All Members Feel Valued
Getting to Know One Another
Time Management
Collaborative Skills
Adapting
Respectfulness

Environmental Scan

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:52:04 CDT

OLN Learning Community Members said that the 5 biggest barriers of implementation were:

Inertia- "This is the way we've done it before so why change?"
Department negativity.
Time. No reward structure. Loss of attention and participation.
Resulting from being voluntary, membership can be comprised of the usual suspects or people with the wrong expertise.
Resources.

Thinking Ahead and Preparing for Future Work:
Using SWOT Analysis, think ahead and assess what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats might be while working in your learning community. Use the chart for helpful prompts.

	Helpful to achieving the objective	Harmful to achieving the objective
Internal attributes of the individual or organization	Strengths What do you do well? What unique resources can you draw on? How can we use each strength?	Weakness What could you improve? Where do you have fewer resources than others? How can we stop each weakness?
External attributes of the environment	Opportunities What good opportunities are open to you? How can you turn your strengths into opportunities? How can we exploit each opportunity?	Threats What trends could harm you? What threats do your weaknesses expose? How can we defend against each threat?

Other Questions to Ponder:
Are there pre-existing policies in place that might affect your budget or other aspects of your work?
Are there similar initiatives on your campus that could act as a sounding board or resource?
Are their other committees with overlapping goals? How will this affect your work?
Opinion leaders, do you have their support?
Is there a history of Learning Communities on your campus or even within your department?

OLN Learning Communities said that the realities of higher education that need attended to are:

Fear of change, fear of taking risks.
A traditionally competitive reward structure.
Academia does not change quickly, so you must be able to show successes to get people to change.
Tenure.

Rationale

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:19:24 CDT

OLN Learning Community Members collaboratively said that their 5 most compelling reasons for joining a Learning Community are:

What we're doing now isn't working.
Makes sustainability more possible.
Less power structure to foster collaboration. Positive peer pressure.
Broader impact. New ideas.
Can ultimately give you benchmarks and statistics to actually see where you're going.

Why join a cohort-based faculty learning community?
Members of the communities will emerge with a tangible outcome: a paper presented at a conference, a publication, evidence of the success of a new skill measured with appropriate measures, new resources, connections with other teachers who have similar interests, friendships, and skill in the scholarship of teaching. -University of Miami (Florida)

From the Learning Communities Directory Report 52 out of 266 institutions responded to the question: Why was this learning community initiative started at your institution?

Individual OLN Learning Community Members said:

"Our entire learning community enjoyed the opportunity to work together and learn from people in fields and disciplines different from our own. We are all sad that our LC is nearing the end!"

"We learned a lot (and we continue to learn)! We plan to continue to learn more."
"This has been an incredibly valuable experience. I feel more technologically savvy as a result of our work together."
"I've developed a recognition of a greater need for reflection about teaching practices and an urge to ground decision-making about learning initiatives in research-based thinking rather than "best practices" thinking (i.e. common sense)."
"We're changing the way we address problems as faculty and librarians --working not as individuals but as teams for the benefit of our students. A refreshing change."
"We do more thinking and productive work than I have ever done before with such a group, and our products will, I believe, be stellar."

LC Defined

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:09:24 CDT

The Ohio Learning Network Definition
A group of colleagues that come together and commit to work collaboratively; provide information, ideas, feedback, reflection, and support for their colleagues; and continuously assess and reassess community goals and activities, share expertise and resources, experience personal and collective growth, and increase the capacity to use learning technologies effectively.
See also: An Introduction and History to the OLN Learning Communities Initiative

OLN Learning Communities Defined the Concept
A learning community is a voluntary (often cross-disciplinary) group of committed members who are risk-takers, contributors and who express trust in a team effort to explore learning. This joint effort is most successful when it has institutional and colleague support. Members collaborate around a common goal, solve problems and launch initiatives that often involve complex issues. They explore these topics in a non-threatening environment that lacks politics but has a commitment to students. Outcomes evolve out of an ongoing process that includes research, discussion and reflection. The outcomes may vary perhaps leading to "floating outcomes".

Communities of Practice Definition
"Communities of Practice" is a phrase coined by researchers who studied the ways in which people naturally work and play together. In essence, communities of practice are groups of people who share similar goals and interests. In pursuit of these goals and interests, they employ common practices, work with the same tools and express themselves in a common language. Through such common activity, they come to hold similar beliefs and value systems.
See also: The Community Intelligence Lab

Communities of Practice Defined by Etienee Wenger
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. A community of practice has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people. In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.
See also: A brief introduction to Communities of Practice by Etienee Wenger

Miami University Definition
A faculty learning community (FLC) is a group of trans-disciplinary faculty, graduate students and professional staff group of size 6-15 or more (8 to 12 is the recommended size) engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, transdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building.
See also: Miami University's 30 components of a FLC

Step One: Overview

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:06:13 CDT

If you are thinking about working in a Learning Community instead of flying alone, this Overview section is a perfect place to start. You will find:

What is a Learning Community?

Learning Community Models

Rationale

How to Set up your Learning Community for Success

Step Two: Preparation

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:27:06 CDT

So you're joining or facilitating a learning community? This section will help you prepare for your participation and will guide you towards having a quality experience that benefits you and your students. This section covers:

This diagram was created by Christopher M. Johnson

Outcomes

honeil — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:21:23 CDT

General Artifacts-

Artifacts, Documents and perhaps even vocabulary that can help people from different communities build a shared understanding. Boundary objects will be interpreted differently by the different communinities, and it is an acknowledgement and discussion of these differences that enables a shared understanding to be formed. (from the enTWIne project)

Artifacts are physical and non-physical products that a CoP designs uses to symbolize its learning (e.g., objects, documents, communication tools, Web sites, blogs, discussion forums, chat rooms, etc.). Artifacts are actively used in practice by the CoP members. Read more from this resource.

Learning Community Work-

Assessing Learning Community Effectiveness- North Seattle Community College has used several quantitative methods to assesses the impact of learning communities from an institutional perspective. Data on student retention, student performance, student development, and faculty/student rations compare learning communities with traditional stand-alone courses.

Attended Conferences-
Student Focus-
Books or Articles Read-
Digital Resources-
Exploration of Technology-
SoTL-
Conversations with Students-

Learning Communities Initiative Home

honeil — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:30:39 CDT

"There are no clear and final answers, there are only discussions and thoughts

and silent wonder filling each moment" ---Brian Andreas, Strange Dreams


The Potential LC Overview	Preparation & Breaking Ground	Enabling & Tending	Assessing the Growth	Cultivating Sustainability

Multimedia Resources

Resources Specific for Course ReVisioning

Step Five: Sustainability

honeil — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:30:15 CDT

After assessing your Learning Community's work, you might find that there is still work to be done. Now what? Step Five in the Tool Shed covers how you can sustain your Learning Community's work.

Revitalization

honeil — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:29:17 CDT

Same Members Different Topic-
New Members Same Topic-
Tweaking the Topic-
Same Topic with New Goals-

Building Partnerships

honeil — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:18:35 CDT

Replicating Learning Communities-
Course ReVisioning-
Degrees, Curriculum and ReDesign-
Services to Students-
Associations and Organizations-