Bill Guerriero, Vice President for Academic Affairs

Program Review Team:

Mary Day, Director of Research, Planning & Development

Bill Mullaney, English Faculty – English and Humanities Division Chair

Yvonne Reineke, English Faculty – LC Committee Co-Chair

Vanessa Sandoval, Communication Faculty – LC Committee Co-Chair

SUMMARY

Mission

The CGCC Learning Communities Program is dedicated to offering student-centered and student-directed learning models that create a supportive network through the cooperative association among fellow students, instructors, administrators, advisors, and support staff, while providing learning experiences that often extend beyond the classroom walls. In learning communities, two or more classes are connected through content, ideas, and activities. Using a variety of learning methods, learning communities can be comprised of linked activities between courses, linked courses, and completely integrated single or team-taught courses.

Program goals and objectives

To promote student success

To deepen students’ understanding of course material

To help students recognize connections across fields of study

To foster active participation in one’s own learning, the class community, and the community at large

To inspire personal growth and academic progress

To help students satisfy general education and transfer requirements

To foster lifelong learning skills

To promote student retention

Relationship to overall college mission and goals

The Learning Communities Program’s mission and goals support the college’s mission and goals in the following ways:

By meeting students’ needs for general education and transfer requirements

By promoting learner-centered environments through field trips, service-learning, active and cooperative learning, small- and large-group activities, guest speakers, and non-traditional class formats, such as team teaching, linked courses, or linked activities

By providing effective instruction by staffing courses through building on cross-disciplinary faculty expertise

By helping students develop lifelong learning

Strengths

1. The Teaching and Learning Center and CGCC library have good collections of learning community resources for faculty interested in finding out more about learning community models and research.

2. We have excellent faculty who support new faculty interested in developing learning communities and a history of strong institutional support from CGCC President Maria Hesse who is also nationally known for her expertise and support of learning communities.

3. We connect effectively with other CGCC campus initiatives such as Service-Learning, Active and Cooperative Learning, Civic Engagement, Honors, and the Faculty Development Team.

4. Faculty in learning communities keep current in their fields and are at the cutting edge of teaching and learning scholarship: brain research, MARS program, service-learning, global learning, developmental pedagogy, WAC, diversity and teacher training. Learning community faculty consistently participate in faculty development events on campus and district-wide and lead in developing cross-disciplinary connections among each other and among students at CGCC.

5. We have been most recently recognized nationally in a scholarly publication, AAC&U Journal (October 2005) and in an educational video, Learning Communities: Constancy and Change (Evergreen, 2004).

6. We contribute positively to CGCC’s success in student engagement as measured by CCSSE and our classroom assessment data.

Challenges

While we are fortunate to have the dedicated support of administration, advising, and core faculty, our challenges lie in addressing the following:

1. Identifying and planning learning communities that meet students’ varied needs (time, transfer, program requirements, fall to spring LC enrollment continuity, etc.) with consideration of limited resources (time, classroom space, faculty loading and funding).

2. Determining which collaborations or modalities would be the most successful, with consideration of well-established fully-integrated learning communities linked and clustered models.

3. Identifying and building faculty involvement in other areas of the learning community program.

4. Developing a successful marketing plan.

5. Addressing pitfalls of online student registration, by promoting awareness of and access to learning communities among students who register online.

Celebration and Recognition

October 2000 - CGCC faculty presented at MCCD Dialogue Day hosted by PVCC

Creating Communities of Learners: Teaching and Learning Across Disciplines

May & August 2001 - CGCC faculty coordinated CGCC Summer Institute on Learning Communities

February 2002 - CGCC faculty presented at SW Regional Learning Communities Conference

October 2004 CGCC faculty presented at MCCCD Learning Communities Dialogue Day hosted by PVCC

August 2004 - CGCC faculty coordinated CGCC Day of Reflection on Instructional Initiatives

April 2005 - CGCC faculty coordinated and presented at CGCC Dialogue Day - How and Why to Link Up: Practical Strategies for Creating Learning Communities

June 2005 - CGCC team was selected to participate in the present Evergreen Learning Communities Summer Institute

Recommendations for Change

We want to evaluate learning community offerings that attract (serve) a large number of students by fulfilling requirements for transfer, majors and degrees or certificates. We might be able to offer learning communities serving more students if we explore new modalities, as well as new teaching strategies for these different kinds of learning communities.

1. Effectively manage LC discipline growth by offering new LC course clusters, such as clusters in business, developmental, general transfer, and nursing and continuing to offer linked and fully integrated learning communities.

2. Develop marketing/recruitment plan to promote learning communities

3. Collect student data via addition to current assessment forms: age, major, ethnicity, transfer, and gender to better assess new LC course offering needs.

4. Develop a Learning Community Committee Calendar to facilitate and manage components of learning communities (e.g. schedule-building, web site maintenance and development, marketing, assessment, advisement, recruiting, summer funding, grant development, and planning for new SIS enrollment system).

STRATEGIC PLAN FOR SUCCESS 2005-2010

1. Goal: Effectively manage LC program growth

a. Objective: Offer new LC courses clusters, such as business, nursing, developmental, general transfer and engineering to focus on students’ academic and occupational needs

i. Timeframe: Offer business, developmental, general transfer and engineering in fall 2006; offer nursing in fall 2007

ii. Responsible parties: LC Committee / Faculty

iii. Resource implications: Existing classrooms, additional instructional resources

b. Objective: Develop new LC offerings to meet student needs, such as links to math and science; and different types of offerings such as evening and hybrid courses

i. Timeframe: Fall 2006

ii. Responsible parties: LC Committee / Faculty

iii. Resource implications: Summer Project funding at 15-20 hours per faculty member. Offer periodic learning community workshops for faculty.

c. Objective: Continue to offer linked and fully integrated LC courses