Learning Communities: new students sharing common experiences
"In their most basic form, learning communities employ a kind of co-registration or block scheduling that enables students to take courses together. The same students register for two or more courses, forming a sort of study team. In a few cases this may mean sharing the entire first-semester curriculum together so that all new students in that learning community are studying the same material. Sometimes it will link all freshmen by tying two courses together for all - most typically a course in writing with a course in selected literature, or biographies, or current social problems. In the larger universities such as the University of Oregon and the University of Washington, students in a learning community attend lectures with 200–300 other students but stay together for a smaller discussion section (Freshman Interest Group) led by a graduate student or upper division student. In a very different setting, Seattle Central Community College students in the Coordinated Studies Program take all their courses together in one block of time so that the community meets two or three times a week for four to six hours at a time."
(Vincent Tinto, 1997, p.2)
1). Vincent Tinto (1997). "Universities as Learning Organizations", About Campus 1(6) January/February 1997, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.v1:6/issuetoc]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The hidden music curriculum: Utilising blended learning to enable a participatory culture
"Music curricula have become increasingly systematised in universities where students may be segregated into class groupings which do not naturally support collaboration and project-based learning. At the same time, the Internet has enabled global social networking which has proven to be a source of engagement for young people and an effective enabler of revised professional practices and artistic collaborations. This paper examines a project which draws upon these contexts to provide a web-based discussion board for music technology students in an Australian conservatoire. It is shown that the blending of online and face-to-face activity effectively provides a 'hidden curriculum' in which students communicate, reflect and collaborate to build and sustain an authentic participatory learning culture."
(Paul Draper & Matt Hitchcock, 2008)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Danah Boyd on MyFriends, MySpace
"On June 19 [2008], danah boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.
Prior to her presentation she explained, 'Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement.'"
(Berkman Center)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
