Breaking New Ground: An Impact Study of Career-Focused Learning Communities at Kingsborough Community College

摘要

The low completion rates of students in community colleges have been well documented in recent years. Among students who enroll in community colleges hoping to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year institution, only about half achieve this goal within six years. Many factors contribute to the low success rates of community college students, including lack of financial support, lack of motivation, a sense of not belonging in the college environment, competing demands from family and jobs, and inadequate college-readiness skills. Community colleges are increasingly using learning communities to try to address some of those barriers and to increase the number of students who achieve their education and career goals. A learning community is made up of a cohort of students who coenroll in two, or some-times three, courses that are linked by a common theme and are taught by a team of instructors who collaborate with each other around the syllabi and assignments. One of the advantages of learning communities is that they give students a better chance of getting to know each other and learn together. Extra support in the form of tutoring or enhanced advising is often incorpo-rated directly into the classroom experience. Learning communities in community colleges typically last one semester and are offered to incoming freshmen. The theory of change underly-ing the model stipulates that if students are more engaged in what they are learning and more connected with each other and with their instructors, they are more likely to master the course material, pass their courses, and persist from semester to semester.