Utilizing Multiple Interlocking Learning Communities to Form a Center for Teaching and Learning (original) (raw)

2008, Learning Assistance Review

The trend toward implementing models for Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for academic support in higher education is gaining momentum. Whether due to external influences, such as the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which promotes inquiry about teaching and learning, or more related to internal forces such as the pressure to improve student retention, learning assistance administrators and teaching faculty increasingly share a common mission. The CTL movement assumes that significant learning takes place in multiple environments in and out of the classroom and that learning is a social interaction dependent on multi-layered and diverse learning communities. A case study at Randolph-Macon College suggests that moving learning centers toward the CTL model can effectively address some of the biggest challenges in the current postsecondary climate, such as retention, use of limited resources, and increased access. F aculty and administrators openly acknowledge that major challenges are facing colleges and universities in the new century, including an increasingly diverse learning population, financial challenges, pressure to improve retention rates, and a renewed emphasis on defining specialized institutional missions (Hanes, 2007; Marcy & Guskin, 2003; O'Meara, Kaufman, & Kuntz, 2003). Unfortunately, pressure from unfunded mandates, emphasis on change for change's sake, and turnover in key personnel can result in collective institutional frustration, or, perhaps more critically, may distract stakeholders from making use of assets already in place to address such issues. The recognition and utilization of non-traditional learning communities on campus, in conjunction with an emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and learning, can lead to positive solutions to many of these problems.