Fall 2009 Learning Community Offerings

Talk with your Academic Advisor at New Student Orientation

 

Connecting with Faculty

The cohort effect of linking classes together works wonders in terms of helping students make friends quickly and feel comfortable on campus. The fact that your students are in the same classes together gives you a powerful opportunity to strengthen their academic experience also. Unleash the hidden potential in your learning community by collaborating with the faculty teaching your linked classes!

Fun Fast Facts about Learning Communities

Faculty members brimming with curiosity about Learning Communities, see some of the following fun fast facts:

• Wright State’s Learning Communities students earn higher grades than students who do not participate in LCs.
• Each fall, 70-80% of incoming freshmen participate in LCs at WSU.
• Since the year 2000, Wright State has been home to over 600 learning communities.
• Since 2000, over 13,000 WSU students have participated in LCs.
• The four goals of the learning communities program are to help students: adjust to college, achieve academic success, develop and grow personally, and explore career development.

References

Below is a list of WSU faculty who have been recognized for their excellent commitment to learning communities. They can attest to the positive impact LCs have had on interactions with students, student performance, and course evaluations. National research shows benefits such as increased retention and engagement for the students and an increase in academic and interpersonal collaboration for the faculty.

Jane Blakelock, Susan Carrafiello, December Green, Gaetano Guzzo, Carol Herringer, Jeannette
Horwitz, , Laura Luehrmann, Caroline Myers, Bobby Rubin, Cathy Sayer, Sharon Tjaden-Glass, Sarah
Twill, Kelli Zaytoun

Faculty are invited to contact catherine.queener@wright.edu or call 775-5759 for more information
about Learning Communities at Wright State University.

Contact with Peer Instructors

Your fall GE class, ______:__, is a part of __ learning communities. This means that some of your students are also co-enrolled into a learning communities (LC) seminar such as UVC101: First Year Seminar I. The major purpose of the seminar is to help students quickly adjust to college. The LC seminar instructor may contact you with a request, such as to sit in on your class a time or two, to
receive a copy of your syllabus or exam dates, or to invite you to visit the seminar and speak with your joint students. Of course you are under no obligation to grant any of these requests! Likewise, there is no expectation that you will change your course in any way simply because it is part of an LC. However, if you are interested in the opportunity to communicate with the LC seminar instructors linked to your course, please visit the LC Peer Instructors page for contact information for Peer Instructors. Students in LCs often do better in their linked GE courses because they form study groups to better prepare for the GE course exams. This benefits you as it can increase student motivation and time on the task of studying your course material.

Thanks in advance for whatever level of cooperation with the LC seminar instructors you are comfortable offering. Know that we work to support you by enhancing our new students’ academic success!

Director of Learning Communities, University College