Learning communities and curricular reform: “Academic apprenticeships” for developmental students

Abstract

Developmental learning community programs that are respectful of students' circumstances, supportive of their educational aims, and thoughtful about the purpose of education can be extremely effective in helping developmental students achieve their educational goals.

Context in an Interdisciplinary Algebra Writing Assignment

“…Classes that involve a service-learning component (Hadlock, 2005) help students see math as a connected and purposeful subject as they become critical participants within their communities. Learning communities help struggling learners by giving them a supportive cohort of peers and by creating meaningful links among academic disciplines (Malnarich, 2005;Tinto, 1998). Because learning communities support students in high-risk classes, mathematics may be a priority for many restructured first-year undergraduate programs.…”

“The More Mistakes You Have the Better You Could Improve”: Two Students’ Interpretations of Pedagogy in Developmental and College English

“…Key themes of the developmental education literature suggest student success can be improved with centrally organized developmental education and mandatory enrollment (Boylan, 2002); limiting the amount of time students spend in developmental education (Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015;Bailey et al, 2010;Jaggars, Hodara, Cho, & Xu, 2015); providing wellcoordinated wrap-around academic services including academic success courses, mandatory tutoring, and advising (Bailey et al, 2015;Boylan, 2002;Perin, 2004;Perin & Charron, 2006); instituting formal learning communities (Barnes & Piland, 2013;Butler & Christofili, 2014;Malnarich, 2005;Raftery, 2005;Schnee, 2014;Smith, 2010); and providing robust professional development and support for faculty (Bailey et al, 2015;Boylan, 2002;Mellow, Woolis, KlagesBombich, & Restler, 2015).…”

Perceptions of Underprepared Community College Students regarding their Educational Achievement

“…A second pattern is linked or clustered classes where students co-register for two or more courses that are explicitly linked by content and include one or more integrated assignments. A third pattern is team-taught classes where students enroll in a program of study across disciplines that usually focuses on an integrative theme or question (Malnarich, 2005). While on some campuses, learning communities include a residential housing component, shared housing is not a part of the learning communities at ABC Community College.…”

“…In the conventional model, invisible disjunctions between students' and instructors' understandings became the students' responsibility. Educators were either entity theorists in which ability and intelligence were static and being good or not good at something was immutable and fixed, or incremental theorists in which intelligence and ability were changeable and contingent (Malnarich, 2005). As Smilkstein (2003) posited, learning was not about deficits, but was, instead, about potential.…”

“…Practice and more practice over time was a key factor to moving from not knowing how to do something to becoming reasonably competent, and then to eventually achieving mastery. Learning was not held back until each step was mastered but was both developmental and reiterative (Malnarich, 2005).…”