“Learning community”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes, who meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher education. This may be based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design.{{r|goodyear}}

Community psychologists such as McMillan and Chavis (1986) state that there are four key factors that defined a sense of community: “(1) membership, (2) influence, (3) fulfillment of individuals needs and (4) shared events and emotional connections. So, the participants of learning community must feel some sense of loyalty and belonging to the group (membership) that drive their desire to keep working and helping others, also the things that the participants do must affect what happens in the community; that means, an active and not just a reactive performance (influence). Besides a learning community must give the chance to the participants to meet particular needs (fulfillment) by expressing personal opinions, asking for help or specific information and share stories of events with particular issue included (emotional connections) emotional experiences{{r|bonk}}.

Learning communities are now fairly common to American colleges and universities, and are also found in Europe.

History

In a summary of the history of the concept of learning communities, Wolff-Michael Roth and Lee Yew Jin suggest that until the early 1990s, and consistent with (until then) dominant Piagetian constructivist and information processing paradigms in education, the individual was seen as the "unit of instruction" and the focus of research{{r|roth_lee}}. Roth and Lee claim this as watershed period when, influenced by the work of Jean Lave{{r|lave}}, and Lave and Etienne Wenger{{r|lave_wenger}} among others, researchers and practitioners switched to the idea that knowing and knowledgeability are better thought of as cultural practices that are exhibited by practitioners belonging to various communities;{{r|brown|roth_bowen|scardamalia|mcgilly}} which, following Lave and Wenger's early work,{{r|lave_wenger}} are often termed communities of practice.{{r|bosciussi|habhab}}.

Roth and Lee claim that this led to forms of praxis (learning and teaching designs implemented in the classroom, and influenced by these ideas) in which students were encouraged to share their ways of doing mathematics, history, science, etc. with each other. In other words, that students take part in the construction of consensual domains, and "participate in the negotiation and institutionalisation of ... meaning". In effect, they are participating in learning communities. Roth and Lee go on to analyse the contradictions inherent in this as a theoretically informed practice in education.

Roth and Lee are concerned with learning community as a theoretical and analytical category; they critique the way in which some educators use the notion to design learning environments without taking into account the fundamental structures implied in the category. Their analysis does not take account of the appearance of learning communities in the United States in the early 1980s. For example, The Evergreen State College, which is widely considered a pioneer in this area,{{r|tinto}} established an intercollegiate learning community in 1984. In 1985, this same college established the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, which focuses on collaborative education approaches, including learning communities as one of its centerpieces.

Learning communities began to gain popularity at other U.S. colleges and universities during the late 80s and throughout the 90s.{{r|smith_2009}} The Washington Center's National Learning Commons Directory has over 250 learning community initiatives in colleges and universities throughout the nation.{{r|evergreen}}

Models

Learning communities can take many forms. According to Barbara Leigh Smith of The Evergreen State College,{{r|smith_1993}}

Experts frequently describe five basic nonresidential learning community models:{{r|kellog|tinto}}

Residential learning communities, or living-learning programs, range from theme-based halls on a college dormitory to degree-granting residential colleges.^[1] What these programs share is the integration of academic content with daily interactions among students, faculty, and staff living and working in these programs.{{r|browner}}

Micro-foundations are based on studies to understand how groups and teams increase their capabilities to work effectively together ^[2]. If the organization is a puzzle, then the groups are pieces of the puzzle, putting them together makes it solid.

^[3] describe organizational learning as a dynamic process, where new ideas and actions move from individuals to the organization and same time organization return feedback as a data what have been learned and experienced in past. Feed-back from the organization comes to the individual through groups and vice versa. They divided organizational learning into three levels where individual learning is based on intuiting and interpreting while group learning is based on interpreting and integrating and finally organization is about institutionalizing. When these theses are compared with other scholars’ studies there can be found many similar exposes ^[4].

^[5] also prove that groups are basic blocks which make a base for organizational learning. Although he claims that learning organizations work is based on several “lifelong programs of study and practice:”

First, it is based on the individual. In his opinion, all starts with group member and his/her capability to expose the deepest desire. By that, a person can encourage others and he/herself to move towards the goals. Second is mental models, where individuals have to constitute reflect their own thought and feelings how they see and feel world against their actions and how they effect in their actions. The third one is all about the sharing our visions. Basically, it is about how we can create a commitment in a group. Fourth is about group learning and how members can develop their intelligence and ability. The last one describes system thinking.

When studying many other scholars ^[6],^[7],^[8],^[9], there can be found a basic red line of all these theories about organizational learnings. It all starts from individual tacit knowledge, by socializing that to another person, it transforms through externalization to explicit where it can be shared with a team and by arguing, internalize and turn it to practice. This is the ever-lasting spiral which brings the organization to the learning path.

The basic of learning comes from individual and after sharing and debate it with other individuals, it became too aware. These individuals make together a group and sharing knowledge with other groups it comes to learning in organizational level.

Results

Universities are often drawn to learning communities because research has shown that they improve student retention rates. Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich of the Washington Center at The Evergreen State College note that a learning community can have a much greater impact on students:{{r|lardner}}

Studies show that enrollment in a learning community has a powerful effect on student learning and achievement.{{r|taylor|price}}

There are also criticism on learning in groups. According to Armstrong (2012), people put in groups lose their sense of individual responsibility, and typically the things learned through taking individual responsibility are the things remembered by adults.^[10]

Approaches

History

Models

Results

Approaches

See also

References

Notes