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Rationale for Learning College Initiative

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Rationale for our Learning College Project
SCC Learning Outcomes
The SCC Learning Initiative


Today, transformations are going on in higher education through a powerful movement aimed at placing learning first in every college policy, program, and practice. The literature about learning orientation in higher education is extensive, and it takes many forms, including learning paradigms, learning-centered colleges, and learning colleges. According to R. B. Teaham (2000) there are only subtle differences in the concepts of a learning paradigm, a learning-centered college, or a learning college, and for the most part the terms are used interchangeably. The learning-paradigm literature stems most prominently from an article by Robert Barr and John Tagg published in Change magazine in November 1995. In "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education," the authors contrast the current instruction paradigm with the learning paradigm: “We now see that our mission is not instruction but rather that of producing learning with every student by whatever means work best” (Barr & Tagg, 1995, p. 13).

In a learning college, the college’s emphasis should be shifted from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. Barr and Tagg argue that the college

… takes responsibility for learning. The point of saying that colleges are to produce learning—not provide, not support, not encourage—is to say unmistakably that they are responsible for the degree to which students learn. The Learning Paradigm shifts what the institution takes responsibility for from quality instruction (lecturing, talking) to student learning (Barr & Tagg, 1995, p. 15).

The goal of learning colleges is to put learning first. Thus, every action and decision is made from a frame of reference that first ascertains how learning is impacted or how the decision contributes to creating a learning-centered institution. Common features derived from the literature provide a general framework for the learning college:

  • The recognized mission of the college is student learning
  • The institution accepts responsibility for student learning
  • Supporting and promoting student learning is everyone’s job
  • Planning and operational decisions are made with consideration to their potential impact on student learning
  • Transforming a college into a learning institution requires a systematic and systemic review of the organization and its people, structure, policies, and processes.

In 1998, Terry O’Banion, then President of the League for Innovation in the Community College, established 13 categories of learning-centered practices that have provided general direction for the development of learning college objectives. These categories reflect specific activities common to learning colleges and include the following:

  1. revising mission statements
  2. involving all shareholders
  3. training staff
  4. holding conversations about learning
  5. identifying and agreeing on learning outcomes
  6. assessing learning outcomes
  7. selecting faculty
  8. redefining faculty and staff roles
  9. providing more options for how courses are delivered
  10. creating opportunities for collaboration
  11. orienting students to new options and responsibilities as learners
  12. applying information technology
  13. reallocating resources.

The League for Innovation has outlined a chronology depicting early growth and interest in the learning paradigm within the past decade. This chronology includes the following:

  • 1993 report, An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education, by the Wingspread Group on Higher Education, calls for “redesign of our learning systems to align our entire education enterprise with the personal, civic, and workplace needs of the twenty-first century. ”
  • 1994, the cover of Business Week declared “The Learning Revolution ” in progress.
  • 1994, the National Policy Board on Higher Education Institutional Accreditation asserted that for accreditation to be effective in the future it would be necessary “to elevate the importance of student learning. ”
  • 1994, The American College Personnel Association issued a statement, The Student Learning Imperative, which challenged student affairs professionals to reconceptualize their role on college campuses and “make student learning the primary focus of their activities. ”
  • 1995, Time devoted its education section to “The Learning Revolution. ”
  • 1995, the Association of American Colleges and Universities distributed a paper, The Direction of Educational Change: Putting Learning at the Center, calling for liberal education to be updated to reflect the emerging emphasis on learning.
  • 1995, Change magazine published the seminal article by Barr and Tagg, who declared, “In the Learning Paradigm, the mission of the college is to produce learning.” In the Change editorial of March/April1997, devoted to the Barr and Tagg article, Ted Marchese wrote, “no single article in recent years has created so much response.”
  • 1997, the first national conference on “The New Learning Paradigm,” sponsored by eleven national organizations, was held in San Diego.
  • 1997, Anker Publishing Company released The Learning Revolution by Diana Oblinger and Sean Rush.
  • 1997, with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges issued a special report, Returning to Our Roots: The Student Experience, setting out three broad ideals:
    • Our institutions must become genuine learning centers
    • Our learning communities should be student-centered, and
    • Our learning communities should emphasize the importance of a healthy learning environment.
  • 1997, the Board of Directors of the League for Innovation created the Learning Initiative as a major new priority to assist the nation's community colleges in becoming more learning-centered institutions.
  • 1997, the American Council on Education and the American Association of Community Colleges jointly published A Learning College for the 21st Century by League president Terry O'Banion. The book is currently in its third printing and won the 1998 Philip E. Frandson Award for Literature in Higher Education.
  • 1997, in cooperation with the Association of Community College Trustees, the League for Innovation published a monograph, The Learning Revolution: A Guide for Community College Trustees, which was distributed to every community college trustee and president in the nation. Beginning in 1998, PBS and the League for Innovation created and cosponsored three national, interactive videoconferences on the Learning Revolution subscribed to by over 300 institutions of higher education.
  • 1998, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded the League for Innovation a planning grant to design a project on asynchronous learning delivery.
  • 1998, the League realigned its two annual conferences to make them more learning centered for the 4,500 participants who attend.

Surry Community College has based its Quality Enhancement Plan on the theories and practices associated with this new way of thinking about learning. As O’Banion states in A Learning College for the 21st Century (1997), “The community college needs a new model of education, a model that incorporates the best practices and philosophies of its past with the expanding base of new knowledge about learning and technology. The ‘learning college’ is a model tailor-made for the community college and one that holds great promise for helping students make passionate connections to learning” (p. 47). As Surry moves forward with the Learning Initiative, it seeks to make learning its central focus.
 
   
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