Context
As
context for the observations that follow,
some genuine affirmations are appropriate
and important. First, the campus visits
strongly affirmed that the Vanguard
Learning Colleges are leading community
colleges where innovation is the norm
and where institutional pride is evident
and justified. Given the selection process
through which they were identified,
this comes as no surprise; still, it
deserves recognition.
Second,
it can legitimately be called understatement
to assert that in these colleges, innovation
abounds. At every stop, the visiting
teams saw multiple innovations underway,
led by committed and creative people
and aimed almost exclusively at improving
student service and student success.
Among the numerous examples are outstanding
programs in student advising, developmental
education, faculty orientation and development,
learning communities, project-based
learning, applications of technology
to improve teaching and learning, electronic
portfolio development, Web-based registration
and financial aid processes, call center
customer service operations, Baldrige
quality processes, and partnerships
with businesses, community organizations,
universities and the public schools.
A heartening discovery at one college
(Sinclair Community College) was the
work of a campus group whose role includes
identifying effective innovations and
supporting the process of bringing them
to scale within the college.
This
energy for innovation provided the constant
backdrop for the campus visits, during
which the project representatives met
with the college president, the Learning
College Project liaison, the Vanguard
Learning College team (8-30 people),
the college's evaluation coordinator
for the project, and a focus group comprised
of faculty, administrators, staff and
students who were not part of the project
team. Other kinds of experiences varied
by campus. From these intensive interactions
emerged a number of significant crosscutting
themes which are briefly summarized
below.
Key
Observations: A Baker's Dozen
Observation
#1: The journey is long, the tasks
are multiple, the challenges are conceptually
and politically complex.
The
commitment to become a Learning College can best be
viewed as a long, arduous, and exciting journey to
realign institutional priorities, policies, programs,
practices, and personnel to focus on learning as the
primary business of the college. This observation
is offered not as gratuitous information or rhetorical
fluff but rather as an exclamation point. The visitors
could not escape the reminder that it is easy to talk
and write about major institutional transformation
- but very difficult to make it happen.
Observation
#2: The commitment to learning is not always a
visible priority.
Many community colleges,
and all of the Vanguard Learning Colleges (VLCs),
have a long history of commitment to learning, but
this commitment is not always explicit in policies,
programs, practices, and in the way college personnel
participate in the educational enterprise. The reasons
vary, of course, from campus to campus. In some cases,
the focus on learning may still be one of several
competing priorities; in others, it appears that the
formal language of the institution has not caught
up with its intentions and even its daily practice.
In still others, disparate projects (as noted just
below) have not yet been blessed with an explicit
unifying vision.
Observation
#3: Innovations and projects abound, but they
sometimes lack unifying goals or principles-and frequently
spawn "reform fatigue."
All
of the Vanguard Learning Colleges, not surprising
for leading institutions, are heavily engaged in a
great variety of innovations and projects, sometimes
numbering more than fifty on a single campus. In some
cases, there are no unifying principles or goals for
the vast array of institutional activities, a phenomenon
that produces a culture some staff members identify
as unfocused and frenetic. As one VLC team member
said, "This college is pathologically committed to
innovation."
Not
unrelated to this observation is a syndrome identified
by faculty and staff as "reform fatigue." Already
"dancing as fast as they can," they seek not only
organizing principles and priorities but also ways
to reconfigure workloads and - just possibly, occasionally,
maybe, perchance to let go of some things, even to
say "no."
Some
of the Vanguard Learning Colleges are attempting to
create a common set of principles, goals, and values
focused on learning to help integrate and drive their
work; and the Learning College concept is viewed by
many leaders in the VLCs as an ideal umbrella under
which to collect, unify and focus college initiatives.
Observation
#4: Greatly needed are effective ways to scale
up innovations that demonstrably support student learning.
Conversations
about the plethora of projects underway in the colleges
also yielded expressions of concern about the need
to find effective ways to "scale up" successful innovations
that were born through special projects outside the
mainstream of the institution. Too often, people at
VLCs find that effective approaches remain marginal
or even disappear from the institutional map once
the inventor burns out or the grant runs out. (By
contrast-as previously noted-at least one VLC has
established an intriguing process for bringing innovations
to scale and will share that process with the other
colleges.)
Observation
#5: The language of learning a) is increasingly
reflected in key institutional documents, b) needs
action to match walk with talk, c) is not yet broadly
and fully understood, and d) produces resistance and
resentment in some quarters.
Many
community colleges (and the Vanguard Learning Colleges
in particular) are beginning to use the language of
learning in mission statements, program descriptions,
policy statements, and titles of key staff. It is
not unusual for institutions to adopt the language
of new movements; neither is it unusual for institutions
to talk the language but not walk the talk. The Learning
College concept is in danger, as are all new ideas,
of being gently co-opted by the appearance of interest
and support without the necessary hard and long effort
to make the concept come to full fruition.
This
observation comes also with a counterpoint. That is,
on some campuses there is a notable resistance
to the language of the Learning College-among at least
a small number of faculty and staff. Explanations
of this phenomenon vary from complaints about education
"jargon" to objections that "we have always
been about learning here!" and a sense that past performance
is being unfairly criticized.
Observation
#6: There exists a continuing need for organizational
teaching and learning-to gain common understanding
and define common ground and then to develop new skill
sets.
An
insight related to the language issue was articulated
by one VLC faculty member in this way: There is still
a significant need for internal teaching and
learning, first to come to a collective and local
understanding of the meaning of Learning College
and then to develop new skill sets and attitudes.
"Don't assume too quickly," he said, "that faculty
actually know how to do things differently." That
honest reflection can clearly be applied to other
campus groups as well.
Observation
#7: "Learner-centered" and "learning-centered"
are still often used as though they were synonymous
terms.
Some
of the Vanguard Learning Colleges are still using
"learner" and "learning" as if they were synonymous
concepts. Community colleges have historically been
"learner" centered or student centered, and many of
them take great pride in this focus as one of their
core values. The Learning College also includes a
focus on the learner as a core value but places priority
on learning as the desired outcome for learners. This
modification of perspective is subtle but can also
be transformative in key areas of institutional policy
and practice.
Observation
#8: People are foreseeing the need to consider
significant changes in the roles of faculty and other
professionals.
With
some anticipation and also a measure of dread, some
interviewees noted that a serious focus on learning
will bring colleges to consider significant changes
in the roles of faculty and other professionals. The
shift from deliverer of knowledge to facilitator of
learning may be only the tip of the proverbial iceberg,
as people consider possibilities as diverse as case
manager roles, distance learning specialists, and
the potential unbundling of instruction and the assessment
of learning. Such changes, they say, should be dictated
by evidence of what works in facilitating student
learning.
Observation
#9: The most challenging task is also the
most essential task: defining, assessing and
documenting student learning outcomes.
One
of the most challenging aspects of becoming more learning
centered is figuring out how to define, teach, assess,
and document learning outcomes for students. Most
community colleges have had experience in this process
in selected occupational programs, but the VLCs are
finding it quite difficult to apply the process to
all college courses, programs, and degrees. A number
of the VLCs have defined learning outcomes for many
courses and have embedded these in the curriculum-though
general education courses and critical across-the-curriculum
skills (e.g., writing, critical thinking, problem-solving,
and the like) remain a considerable challenge. Few
of the colleges are satisfied with their processes
to assess the acquisition of skills and knowledge
identified in the outcome statements, and none of
the colleges have created satisfactory models to document
and transcript the learning outcomes. Clearly, there
is substantial and important work to be done in this
arena, even within North America's leading community
colleges.
Observation
#10: Companion to the assessment challenge is
the work of developing a culture of evidence.
Building
such a culture-including the demand for data about
student learning, the capacity to produce and analyze
that data, and the skills and commitment to use
data for continuous improvement-represents a significant
departure from community college traditions of justification
by anecdote. People in the VLCs are recognizing the
value and the power of data-driven decision making,
however, and among the colleges there are some fine
examples.
Observation
#11: Project evaluation at the campus level needs
further attention.
A
significant amount of work still needs to be done
within a number of the VLCs to establish clear and
appropriate ways to evaluate outcomes of the project
and achievement of project objectives. Community colleges
have a fine tradition of becoming so involved in the
work at hand that they overlook evaluation of its
impact. It will take active commitment (and public
accountability) to avoid that phenomenon in this project.
Observation
#12: Project participation has reinforced college
efforts to put learning first in related initiatives
(e.g., accreditation, total quality management, and
assessment of institutional effectiveness).
The
Vanguard Learning Colleges recognize the value of
being identified as a key participant in this project
and have used their participation to reinforce their
efforts to place learning first in related initiatives
such as accreditation, total quality management, and
measurements of institutional effectiveness.
Observation
#13: [reprise] The journey is long, the
tasks are multiple, the challenges are conceptually
and politically complex-and there is a significant
distance yet to travel.
The
Vanguard Learning Colleges are accustomed to being
recognized in the U. S. and Canada as outstanding
community colleges, and they have created a culture
of pride and high expectations for their work. They
like to succeed, and they like to perform at very
high levels of competency. Compared to an ideal model
of the Learning College, the VLCs are certainly "best
in class." At this point in the journey, however,
the participant colleges, each on their own path,
have a considerable distance to travel in order to
achieve the five major project objectives. The early
moral of this story can therefore be appropriately
summarized: "A Learning College has a lot to learn!"
Dilemmas
of "Leading Colleges"
When
one notes aloud that there can be special challenges
attached to recognition as a "leading college," one
is likely to hear affirmative but diverse responses
from people on the VLC campuses. For example, interviewees
pointed to:
The
Learning College Project clearly has learning as its
focus, and as Vanguard Learning Colleges make their
journeys toward becoming more learning centered, all
participants in the project-college faculty, staff,
and students as well as project staff-are deeply engaged
in learning. This page highlights some of the lessons
learned. 