Last week’s SoCTL featured a brief description of learning communities (LCs), and furthermore an assertion of the strides they make toward ideal workplaces for faculty and ideal learning environment for students. The success of learning communities at other institutions begs the question of how students in our system are benefiting from LCs (or would if they were available).

Teaching First-Year College Students, Bette LaSere Erickson and her colleagues point us to studies on learning communities conducted by the National Learning Communities Project. NLCP’s research connects LCs with increased student retention and enhanced academic achievement for first-year students.

So what about our 170,000 students? Would they stand to benefit from learning community models? Since many are part-time and most are in their first or second year of college, the answer is probably “yes.” Vincent Tinto, a leading researcher on student retention and persistence, has found it to be true for university and two-year college students that “the more students are involved in the social and academic life of an institution, the more likely they are to learn and persist.”

Spread the word, through campus workshops and CTL conference presentations, about formal and informal learning communities in your program or department.

-Lynda Milne and Martin Springborg

Erickson, Bette LaSere [et al]. (2006). Teaching First-Year College Students . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

Tinto, Vincent. Learning Communities and the Reconstruction of Remedial Education in Higher Education. Prepared for presentation at the “Conference on Replacing Remediation in Higher Education” at Stanford University , January 26-27, 1998