Classroom Learning Community and Biology

Paper Summary:

This paper begins by providing an in-depth definition of a "learning community", summarized as curricular/instructional structure that provides students with opportunities for deeper understanding and integration of the material they are learning, as well as more interaction with one another and with their teachers who are viewed as fellow participants in the learning enterprise. This paper reviews the existing literature on learning communities and applies this literature to high school biology instruction. The review is presented in two parts: An examination of the literature indicating those conditions needed to establish a classroom as a learning community; and a review of instructional strategies that have been successful in getting students to achieve in the biological sciences. The review ends with the formulation of conclusions about developing learning communities in the classroom in general and in the biology classroom in particular, and those instructional strategies that might be best used in the classroom learning community.

From the Paper:

"Kellog (1999) reports that the notion of a learning community was originally conceived by Alexander Meiklejohn who, at the University of Wisconsin, gathered both students and faculty together to study and discuss classic Greek literature during their first year of college and compare it to the contemporary American literature information which they studied in their second-year of college. Students were required to connect the ideas they learned in both literature classes. They wrote a paper during the summer between the first and second years and another paper at the end of the second year in which they compared what they had learned. This initial learning community established by Alexander Meiklejohn lasted for about six years. Today the concept of the learning community includes many different models; however, Kellog (1999) notes that, in general, regardless of the type of model used, learning communities produce several benefits to students, to staff and faculty and to the schools using the model. For students, these benefits include: increased academic achievement, improved retention, increased motivation, gains in intellectual development and greater involvement in learning itself."

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