Community colleges throughout the United States and Canada are shifting their focus from teaching to learning. This transformational process began during the 1990s when a synergistic set of actions made learning central to the organizational mission and vision of these colleges. Terry O’Banion provided a framework for realizing learning-centered institutions, and he identified both guiding principles for change and anticipated barriers. To actualize the kinds of transformations described by O’Banion, twelve colleges participated in a pilot project led by The League for Innovation in the Community College, and they publicly shared their efforts, including their successes and failures. The learning that has resulted from this project has wide applicability, not just to community colleges and their staffs, but to all sectors of higher education.
Focus on Learning
In the last decade of the 20th century, a group of educational leaders within community colleges drew upon one another’s ideas and built a new model of higher education to address a growing set of concerns about quality. Though community colleges had historically committed to being teaching and student-centered, there was a growing realization that they needed to increase their commitment to learning itself. Below are some of the significant works that led to this change in mindset.
In 1995 Robert Barr and John Tagg published an article in Change magazine entitled “A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education.” In this article they contrasted a traditional or “instruction paradigm” with a “learning paradigm.” The instruction paradigm, they said, confused the means (instruction) with the end (learning). They described areas of change that institutions would have to address in order to implement the shift to a learning paradigm. These included the mission and purpose of institutions, the criteria used for measuring success, teaching and learning structures, learning theory, measures of productivity and funding, and the way that the roles of teachers and learners change within the learning paradigm.
In 1997 Terry O’Banion published two widely read documents: a monograph entitled Creating More Learning-Centered Community Colleges and a book entitled A Learning College for the 21st Century. Dr. O’Banion, who had already been a popular speaker, was in high demand across the country.
In 1997, The League for Innovation in the Community College surveyed over 500 community college presidents who belonged to its Alliance for Community College Innovation. Their responses indicated that 97% of these college presidents believed that their institutions would move toward becoming more learning-centered in the next three to five years. They recognized that this would require a significant long-term effort and dedication to changing the traditional architecture of education.
In 1998 the League for Innovation in the Community College began publishing Learning Abstracts, a periodical dedicated to fostering continuing conversations on the revolution in learning. Available in hard copy and on the web, Learning Abstracts features a variety of topics related to learning, such as programs and services that create substantive change in individual learners; profiles of activities that engage learners as full partners in the learning process and encourage them to assume primary responsibility for their own choices; efforts to create as many options for learning as possible; techniques and programs to help learners form and participate in collaborative learning activities; roles of learning facilitators as defined by the needs of the learners; strategies to involve all college employees in supporting learning; and programs to document learning outcomes.
In January 2000, the League received funding for the Learning College Project, an initiative designed to help community colleges fulfill their commitment to learning-centered education by providing opportunities for inter-college collaboration. This initiative, known as the Vanguard Project, is described in greater detail later in this module.
To promote the transformational process of the learning college, a network of colleges continues to meet. The League features individuals and teams from this network at its annual conference, and the schools continue to host an annual learning college conference on a rotating basis.
The League continues to maintain a robust website with significant information about the Vanguard Project. Their website also provides access to researchers who have produced thirty dissertations related to the learning college movement, thus expanding the body of knowledge.
Definition of a Learning College
George Boggs (1999) identified four tenets of the learning paradigm that supports a learning college concept:
First, the mission of colleges and universities should be student learning rather than teaching or instruction.
Second, institutions should accept responsibility for student learning.
Third, supporting and promoting student learning should be everyone’s job and should guide institutional decisions.
Fourth, institutions should judge their effectiveness and be evaluated on student learning outcomes rather than on resources or processes.
Terry O’Banion identified two questions to ask when any decision is being made within a learning college. This first question is “Does this action improve or expand learning?” The second question is “How do we know this action improves and expands learning?” O’Banion also proposed a set of principles for becoming a learning college. Table 1 lists these principles along with their implications for change.
Organizational Constraints
O’Banion describes the obstacles to needed trans-formation in higher education. Citing a number of significant educators and philosophers, he says that the obstacles stem chiefly from the longstanding traditions of institutional cultures. He notes that the structure of higher education was designed at the end of the nineteenth century by an agrarian and industrial society, and that it has little relevance in the twenty-first-century global, information-rich society. He warns that education is filled with sacred cows and that changing the culture of higher education will require significant commitment and work on the part of all involved; nevertheless, such change is required for survival. O’Banion divides the changes required in organizational structures and behaviors into four categories. These are identified in Table 2.
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Time-Bound
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Place-Bound
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Bureaucracy-Bound
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Role-Bound
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Technology offers options for clearing time-bound and place-bound obstacles, though there is certainly a great deal more to be done. The more difficult challenges are raised by bureaucracy-bound issues. To clear these hurdles, organizations must carefully examine existing policies, structures, and ways of conducting work. These are often influenced by existing laws, regulations, funding mechanisms, etc. Role-bound challenges are particularly difficult for instructors to overcome, since a change in role calls into question the very identity of instructors and their way of being. The adage of teaching old dogs new tricks applies here: any changes in instructor roles must occur in ways that are both expected and supported. These changes also have significant implications for faculty hiring, orientation, performance appraisal, and reward systems.
Though O’Banion’s original writings limit role-bound challenges to faculty members, Cynthia Wilson (July 2002) expands upon this to address everyone in the college. She writes, “As leaders for learning, all employees view the whole as well as their own specific parts, noting the connected, systemic ways in which the organization-as-organism functions, falters, survives, and thrives. In leadership for learning, all members of the college define and take on new roles as they share the obligation and responsibility for ensuring that the core work of the college is done.” She articulates the changes expected not only of faculty, but of staff members, administrators, and students alike. The module 1.2.6 Role of Governing Boards identifies changes expected of trustees.
The Vanguard Project
As previously mentioned, the League for Innovation in the Community College received a major grant in January 2000 to fund the Learning College Project. Selected colleges, called Vanguard Colleges, would use intercollege collaboration to promote learning-centered education. Of the 94 colleges that applied to become Vanguard Colleges, 12 were selected to become incubators and catalysts for the learning college concept around the world. These colleges met for several days on three different occasions to network and to publicly share their work related to the five project objectives listed in Table 3.
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Organizational |
Each college will cultivate an organizational culture in which policies, programs, practices, and personnel support learning as the major priority. |
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Staff Recruitment & Development |
Each college will create or expand recruitment and hiring programs to ensure that new staff and faculty are learning-centered and that professional development programs prepare all staff and faculty to become more effective facilitators of learning. |
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Technology |
Each college will use information technology primarily to improve and expand student learning. |
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Learning |
Each college will agree on competencies for a core program of the college’s choice, on strategies to improve learning outcomes, on assessment processes to measure the acquisition of the learning outcomes, and on means for documenting achievement of outcomes. |
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Underprepared Students |
Each college will create or expand learning-centered programs and strategies to ensure the success of underprepared students. |
Kay McClenney (2002) served as the assessor/evaluator for the Vanguard Project. During the course of the three-year project, she made two site visits to each of the participating colleges. In her final report, she made the following observations about their collective journey toward becoming learning colleges.
The journey is long, the tasks are multiple, and the challenges are conceptually and politically complex.
Learner-centered and learning-centered are still often used as though they were synonymous terms.
The language of learning is increasingly reflected in key institutional documents, but this language needs action to match walk with talk. It is not yet broadly and fully understood, and it produces resistance and resentment in some quarters.
Commitment to learning is not always a visible priority.
Innovations and projects abound, but they sometimes lack unifying goals or principles and frequently spawn “reform fatigue.”
Effective ways are needed to scale up innovations that clearly support student learning.
There exists a continuing need for organizational learning to gain common understanding, define common ground, and develop new skill sets.
People are foreseeing the need to significantly change roles of faculty and staff.
The most challenging task is also the most essential task: defining, assessing, and documenting student-learning outcomes.
An integral part of the assessment challenge is the work of developing a culture of evidence.
Project participation has reinforced college efforts to put learning first in related campus initiatives (e.g., accreditation, total quality management, and assessment of institutional effectiveness).
Concluding Thoughts
During the last decade, the learning college model has been significantly advanced by many of the nation’s community and technical colleges. Much of this work was done in a very public fashion, making the findings readily accessible to other institutions that want to join in the journey. Though the title learning college continues to be applied primarily to two-year institutions, the guiding principles, the projects undertaken, and the lessons learned all have relevance for other types of higher educational settings. Many accrediting agencies across the country endorse the call for moving to more learning-centered behaviors that can be assessed and measured. The AQIP project (2006) within the Higher Learning Commission is one example. In this project institutions are called upon to engage in an ongoing learning effort to improve their institutions rather than to operate from a model that prescribes periodic measurement of performance against a designated set of standards. In their transformation to learning colleges, community colleges have enjoyed the benefit of a former mission that placed the emphasis on good teaching. In many ways it is easier to move from a mindset of good teaching to one that assures that learning is happening, than it is to move from a mindset where high quality research and public service are perhaps even more important than good teaching. The authors of the Faculty Guidebook firmly believe, however, that learning is foundational to teaching, research, and service, and they view the learning college model as having broad applicability across campuses and disciplines.
References
Academic Quality Improvement Program: A Higher Learning Commission Quality Improvement Initiative. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006, from <http://www.AQIP.org>
Barr, R. B., & Tagg, J. (1995). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, 27, (6), 13-25.
Boggs, G. R. (1999). What the learning paradigm means for faculty. Learning Abstracts, 2(4).
McClenney, K. Learning from the learning colleges: Les
sons from the journey. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006, from <www.league.org/league/projects/lcp/lessons_learned.htm>O’Banion, T. (1997). A learning college for the 21st century. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.
O’Banion, T. (1997). Creating more learning-centered community colleges. Phoenix, AZ: League for Innovation in the Community College.
O’Banion, T. & Milliron., M. D. (1998) Conversations on learning. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006, from <www.league.org/publication/abstracts/learning/lelabs9809.html>
The learning college project. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006, from <http://www.league.org/league/projects/lcp/index.htm>
Wilson, C. (2002, July) Retrieved July 2, 2006 from <www.league.org/publication/abstracts/learning/lelabs0207.html>
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Principles |
Implications for Change |
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A learning college creates substantive change in individual learners. |
The college is responsible for assessing student knowledge and skills and for providing learning opportunities that optimize opportunities for success. This principle implies that all systems are examined and, if necessary, redesigned to facilitate the ease of student access and success. |
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A learning college engages learners as full partners in the learning process, and they assume primary responsibility for their own choices. |
The notion that students are partners implies an institutional covenant with the student to assess learner needs and to offer courses and services that optimize opportunities to succeed. |
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A learning college creates and offers as many options for learning as possible. |
Options vary based upon time, place, structure, staff support, and method of delivery. Varied kinds of learning styles are considered in planning learning opportunities, and each option includes clear goals and competency expectations. |
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A learning college helps learners form and participate in collaborative learning activities. |
Lecture classes cease to be the norm. Learning communities are promoted for students and staff alike. Students and staff are expected to develop strong team membership skills. Service learning is promoted inside and outside the institution. Technology is used for forming networks, not for distancing learners from one another. |
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A learning college defines the roles of learning facilitators by the needs of the learners. |
All employees, trustees, and those students choosing to participate redefine their roles to focus on responsibilities and actions that facilitate the learning process for themselves and others. This calls for significant restructuring of the role of teachers. |
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The learning college and its learning facilitators succeed only when they can document improved and expanded learning for learners. |
The goal is to measure what students know and can do and to use this information as the primary measure of success for the learning facilitators and the college. |
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Every member of the college is a learner. |
This principle, added later in the process, identifies all parties as having learning goals and plans for guiding their own learning. A culture of learning means that everyone models learning. |