Virginia Director of STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Dr. Megan Healy recently visited
the college to share her presentation “Cooperative Learning is a Good Fit with
Learning Communities” with the Reynolds Learning Communities faculty.
A learning community is when two
(or more) course sections in the same semester are linked together and the same
students enroll in both course sections. Professors work together to coordinate
assignments, content, and improve crossover learning between the courses.
Benefits for Reynolds students include convenient scheduling, shared
assignments and topics, support systems, the courses still meet the requirements
for students’ majors. There’s no additional cost for taking a learning
community as compared to taking the classes separately.
Dr. Healy previously taught
biology at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, and subsequently
played a leadership role in the Virginia Community College System’s
re-engineering effort to improve student success and streamline developmental
studies in community colleges throughout the Commonwealth.
The Learning Communities
mini-summer institute included a number of rich sessions designed to assist
learning communities faculty with creating activities and assignments leading
to improved student engagement, retention and success.
During the session, Reynolds
Learning Community Facilitator and English professor Karyn Pallay also led a
session on Developing Critical Thinking Skills – an essential competency in any
academic discipline and for successful living.
Miles McCrimmon, Steve Brandon,
Carolyn Quenstedt and Jena Morrison participated in a faculty panel to discuss
successful learning community strategies for both in- and out-of-class
activities.
Learning Communities faculty were
also provided with time and guidance for planning their teaching collaborations
and several facilitating exercises developed by the Washington Center for the
Improvement of Undergraduate Education at The Evergreen State College were
enfolded into this session.
To find out more about Reynolds
Learning Communities, visit Reynolds.edu/LC.
