New Learning Communities
Integrating Networks and Networked Information into Teaching and Learning
Introduction Background The Indianapolis Workshop
Findings Next Steps Further Information
"Using the Web is intrinsically engaging and inherently encourages active
learning," stated one of the participants in the Coalition for Networked
Information's New Learning Communities workshop held in Indianapolis,
November 17-19, 1995. Many of the participants in the workshop, all of whom
had created collaborative teaching and learning projects in the networked
information environment, agreed. The attendees, early adopters of
networking technologies into the teaching and learning process in higher
education, are finding that many others on their campuses are seeking their
expertise and insights in order to develop programs in additional content
areas. The key challenge for many institutions is to find a way to scale these
early initiatives and to build a campus infrastructure to support these new
modes of learning.
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Under the leadership of Philip Tompkins, Indiana University - Purdue University
of Indiana (IUPUI), and Susan Perry, Mount Holyoke College, CNI's New Learning
Communities Program seeks to promote cross-fertilization of professionals in
higher education institutions across the country who use networks such as the
Internet and networked information resources to enrich their curriculum and
broaden their students' learning experiences. The program brings together
institutional or inter-institutional teams of faculty, librarians, information
technologists, instructional technologists, and students, to share
perspectives, critique each other's programs, and develop a set of "best
practices" for the benefit of the larger educational community.
The goals of the program are:
- To provide a mechanism and a venue where experienced, collaborative teams
of individuals working on curricular programs involving the use of networks
and networked information can benefit from peer advice, moral support and
program critiques.
- To provide the means for others in the academic community, nationally and
internationally, to benefit from the expertise and experience of teams who have
implemented teaching and learning programs using networks and networked
information.
- To encourage and assist information technology professionals and librarians
to serve as partners with teaching faculty members in the design and delivery
of instruction using networking and networked information.
CNI's first New Learning Communities workshop was held in Phoenix at the
Estrella Mountain College Center of the Maricopa County Community College
District in July, 1994. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), and Educom. CNI received a grant from the Department of Education's HEA Title II-B "Library Education and Human Resource Development" program to assist with the funding of a three-phase implementation of the New
Learning Communities Program in 1995-6. The first phase of the work under this
grant was a three-day meeting at IUPUI.
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Teams were selected to participate in the Indianapolis workshop based on
their responses to a call for participation issued by CNI earlier this year.
The ten teams selected and their projects were:
- "Collaboratory," University of Hawaii at Manoa;
- "Collaborative Development of Web Pages for Students in a First
Year Colloquy Series," Gettysburg College;
- "Distance and Electronic Education Project: A Mini-Grant Program," Johns
Hopkins University;
- "LC Online," Louisiana College;
- "UWired: Teaching, Learning and Technology," University of Washington;
- "The California Young Scholar Program," California State Polytechnic,
Pomona;
- "Student Directed, Information Rich (SDIR) Learning," North Carolina State
University;
- "Fine Arts 121: A Model for Developing a Digital Undergraduate Curriculum,"
University of Southern California;
- "Integrating Networked Information into Instruction," Mesa and Estrella
Mountain Community Colleges; and,
- "The Delta Project: Integrated Database: Biological Sciences and Art,"
California State University System.
These projects speak to the wide range of subjects and types of institutions
that are integrating networking and networked information resources into the
curriculum. The content for the courses represented included the fine arts,
English, natural resources, nursing, and social sciences. Higher education
institutions of all types--from community colleges to liberal arts colleges, to large state and private universities--have innovative projects involving new learning
communities. In addition to team members from the faculty, library, computing center, and instructional development center on campus, some programs also collaborated with local museums, high schools, and university bookstores.
Team members attended presentations by selected IUPUI administrators and
faculty on such topics as the nature of faculty work (William Plater, Executive
Vice Chancellor and Dean of Faculties), collaborative learning (Sharon
Hamilton, Professor of English), teaching, learning and technology (Garland
Elmore, Associate Executive Vice Chancellor), and assessment (Trudy Banta, Vice
Chancellor, Susanmarie Harrington, Assistant Professor of English, and Joe
Lovrinic, Management Advisory Office). But, most of the work at the conference
was done in small group sessions during which teams were paired to share
information about the successes of and problems with their projects. Other
small group sessions allowed each team an opportunity to reflect on their
project and plan next steps. Participants particularly enjoyed the opportunity
to see each project in action during a demonstration session in IUPUI's Center
for Teaching and Learning.
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The participants discussed many aspects of their collaborative projects. At
least two kinds of collaboration were identified: collaborative development of
the course content and delivery mechanisms by a cross-sector team of faculty
and professionals; and, collaborative learning among students and among
students and faculty during the delivery of the course. Based on their
experiences and the frameworks provided by the speakers, the team members
described some of the most important features of their programs. They
included: students working as self-directed learners; students learning to
work collaboratively; and, verbally reticent students expressing themselves on
the network. One project team noted that the integration of visual materials,
sound, and text made possible by today's technologies can improve the ease and
quality of learning in some fields, particularly in music and art. Many of the
team members reported that faculty became excited and motivated by working with
other developers in a team environment, projects prompted collaboration among
units on campus that previously had not worked together, and interaction
between colleagues was deepened.
Some advice that team members had for others developing similar efforts was:
- to keep the central role of faculty in the process
- to encourage students to be part of the development team
- to incorporate information literacy into the curriculum
- to learn about each team member's competencies
- to have students build a network resource that has genuine use for the course as part of the
curriculum, and
- to tie the use of technology closely to the curriculum.
One team's advice to others is simply, "Start!"
Key impediments identified by the teams included:
- insufficient infrastructure (networking, personnel, equipment, facilities, etc.)
- difficulty scaling projects (reaching more courses and more students)
- the time commitment required to develop such projects
- problems with off-campus access, and
- copyright of materials that might be incorporated in the networked resources.
In the sixteen months since the first New Learning Communities workshop, a
number of differences could be observed in the projects described in the 1995
event compared to those represented at the 1994 event. Some of those
differences were that now some projects were being developed within a campus
infrastructure that supports network-based teaching and learning, there are
fewer problems with the technology, there is heavy reliance on the Web and
associated browsers (e.g. Netscape), there is more cross-sector collaboration,
and more projects include an assessment component.
Some of the issues discussed most by the participants were the scalability of
their projects (how to enable large segments of their institution to use
similar techniques without heavier investments in technology and personnel),
and how to encourage and assess "engagement" by students in this environment.
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In order to assist other institutions who wish to develop similar initiatives,
case studies of each project will be mounted on the Web for access by the
entire Internet community. Under the direction of Jana Bradley, Assistant
Professor at IUPUI, each team member completed a template providing initial
information about their project and the process that they used to develop it.
Bradley also interviewed each team at the workshop to assist her in
understanding key elements about the project. Abstracts of each project and
the meeting agenda are currently available on the CNI's Internet server.
CNI expects to produce a videotape with excerpts from the workshop. A
videotape from the 1994 New Learning Communities workshop along with a
handbook of materials to assist institutions with developing a similar program
at the local or regional level is available from the Coalition for $25.00.
In late spring 1996, CNI will hold a conference on New Learning Communities for
collaborative teams that are just starting teaching and learning projects or
who wish to gain some insight into how to begin such an effort. Participants
from teams from the two previous conferences will present their programs and
assist with small group facilitation. The date and place of this conference
have not yet been set.
On July 5, 1996, a full-day preconference on "Librarians as Leaders in New
Learning Communities" will be held at the American Library Association in New
York City. Under the auspices of the Association of College and Research
Libraries (ACRL), the program will focus on the role of the librarian on
collaborative teams.
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Information on New Learning Communities can be located on CNI's Web site at http://www.cni.org/projects/nlc/.
Additional information, particularly on ordering the videotape or registering
for a future conference, can be obtained from:
Joan K. Lippincott
Assistant Executive Director
Coalition for Networked Information
21 Dupont Circle, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-296-5098
Fax: 202-872-0884
Internet: joan@cni.org
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