Lenning, special assistant to the president of Bacone College and adjunct professor of higher education at Iowa State University, and Ebbers, professor of higher education and associate dean of the College of Education at Iowa State, write in educationese, the language register of educators writing on education. The volume is an Ashe-Eric report, so why begin with a concern about the style of writing used? Forewarned, forearmed seems an appropriate adage for readers of this 1999 addition to the growing numbers of texts on learning communities in higher education. Passives and pedantic phrases such as "supplemental instruction leader" or "federated learning communities" abound and prove at times distracting in what Adrianna Kezar, series editor, describes in the Foreward as a "persuasive argument for the need for learning communities" (x). Kezar also notes that Lenning and Ebbers cite, define, categorize, describe, provide a detailed map, illuminate, and enumerate; they do all of these and more. In spite of the educationese, academic readers will find a useful text that provides a great deal of information, especially for someone new to the learning community fold.
The text has five sections. The first, Learning Communities: What Are They and Why Do We Need Them?, begins with a quote from Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 (cited from a study by Johnson, Johnson, and Smith) on the benefits of two rather than one and how a three-fold cord is not easily broken. The verses that come to my mind after reading the first two sections are Genesis 2: 19-20 which describes man doing the naming, after God does the creating. In the first and second sections, the authors name, define, and enumerate a great deal. Lenning and Ebbers differentiate among learning organizations, faculty learning communities, and student learning communities. They define physical interaction, virtual interaction, correspondent interaction. They list ten recommendations from the Boyer Commission 1998 on undergraduate education and seven suggestions for learning communities (cited from Tinto)--all in the first section.
In the second section, Types of Student Learning Communities, there are four categories: curricular learning communities, classroom learning communities, residential learning communities, and student-type learning communities. Each of those categories is discussed with more categorization. For example the curricular learning communities type is further divided into three categories, one of which, cross-curricular learning communities, is then further divided into five models.
Reeling from so many lists and categories, I found section three, The Benefits of Student Learning Communities, a relief. Students and faculty both benefit from their participation in learning communities, and Lenning and Ebbers cite a number of studies which provide evidence of higher academic achievement, retention, collegial trust, broadened knowledge, connection, interaction, satisfaction.
Section four entitled Creating and Implementing Optimal College Student Learning Communities provides advice on active learning, suggestions on collaborative and cooperative learning and how these two differ. There is a case study from Iowa State University that supplies warnings of various hurdles that learning communities participants must surmount: implementation, assessment, lack of financial support, faculty incentives. The authors also address various other problems and questions about learning communities such as lack of interest, retention, changing teaching methods, choosing which models best fit a campus. They include a bulleted list of 15 issues for a team planning to develop a learning community to consider (79-80). Though some of the advice is very practical and helpful, I am not sure someone would undertake the task of implementing a learning community after reading of all that "must" be decided and accomplished.
The report ends with a section on learning communities in the future. Educationese helps give substance to what seems insubstantial.
Thus, the most important documented factor in their success is how effectively the learning communities are being implemented in terms of students' productive involvement and within-group collaboration and cooperation. Until definitive evidence exists that some types of student leaning communities are superior to others, the type of student learning community to be used, when all are well done, depends on such factors as what seems most relevant an appropriate for a particular group of students. (87-88)
A discussion of virtual learning communities cites one 1997 five-week summer course with graduate students and a study of the 11 virtual universities (none located in the United States) which served 2.8 students worldwide at a cost of $350 for 1997-98 compared to an average of $12,500 for U. S. colleges and universities (105). What seems more important is financial savings rather than academic excellence.
In fairness, the final section brings to the forefront a number of issues that all academic institutions are now facing: use of technology, importance of teaching and learning, virtual universities and virtual departments, global sharing of information, interdisciplinary studies.
The list of references at the end of the report is very thorough and helpful, and the index provides quick access to the information surveyed in the report. Still longing for a less pedantic register, I must acknowledge The Powerful Potential of Learning Communities communicates to its intended audience--academic readers--that learning communities are important, worthwhile endeavors for learning organizations now and in the future.
Gwen McNeill Ashburn,
UNC Asheville