Learning Communities

History of Learning Communities

In their review of student learning communities, Oscar Lenning and Larry Ebbers noted that bringing individuals together for the purpose of creating more powerful environments for learning could be traced back to the first century C. E. However, Barbara Leigh Smith and colleagues have noted that the American pragmatist John Dewey provided the foundation upon which today's learning communities rest. In Experience and Education, Dewey called for progressive education. This focused on experiential (as opposed to vicarious) learning that situated knowing within the experience of the learner and was concerned with not only the transmission of culture but the development of skills needed for future knowledge production and problem solving. Importantly, Dewey noted that the process of progressive education depended on contributions from the student, his or her peers, and the educator.

In Experimental College, educator Alexander Meiklejohn described the University of Wisconsin's Experimental College, a residentially based learning community, or living-learning program, that opened in 1927. Students spent their first year in the Athens-America Curriculum, comparing and contrasting the development of each society's political and social development. In their second year, students pursued Sophomore Regional Studies, an in-depth sociological and anthropological examination of a given locale. Five years after it opened, the Experimental College closed due to funding concerns and controversy about its methods. However, several of the college's original design components remain common in today's learning communities, including (a) multi- or interdisciplinary inquiry focused on a particular theme or problem; (b) the blending of social and academic roles for students, their peers, and faculty, including enhanced opportunities for formal and informal contact through shared community space; (c) college-sponsored co-curricular activities and student organizations; and (d) faculty training in teaching methods akin to today's integrative, learning-centered pedagogies.

In the years that followed, institutions interested in developing learning communities adapted all or part of the philosophical and practical advice of Dewey and Meiklejohn to their unique needs. Several notable examples exist, including Tussman's work at the University of California-Berkeley, patterned on Wisconsin's Experimental College; Evergreen State College (Olympia, Washington), with its emphasis on inter-disciplinarity, team-teaching, and collaborative, problem-focused learning; and curricular reforms at LaGuardia Community College (New York City) and Stony Brook University. The successes and failures of these programs informed subsequent innovation, and the range of program types now classified as learning communities has grown.

Types of Learning Communities

Although no definitive typology of learning communities has been developed, most programs can be sorted into one of four categories.

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