My personal view in Learning community

Learning community is a very interesting topic to the different people such as sociologists, constructivist and psychologists. Because of their different view it gaves a broad defination of the learning community. Knowing the meaning of learning community it gaves you what is it , how it made and whom are the creature of that learning.As a student ,what are our benefits in this kind of learning ,if it has a qualification to be part of it. In wikipedia,define the learning community as a” group of people who share common values and beliefs , are actively in learning together from each other “(Paragharp 1).As we go further in these topic we will dicuss the history of the learning community, the four key factors in psychology of community, characteristics of a learning community, their activities, and the benefits of the learning community. As a authore of this paper I have a positive view in this kind of learning

Feldman(2000) state that “in twentieth century has been described as the Century of individual,a description that builds on Piaget's developmental theories where the learner is viewed as a Loner seeker of knowledge “(p 9).
On the other hand in Vygotsky's(1978)theory of social constructivism point to move away from an individualistic focus , to one that recognizes the contribution of others to every individual learning. In short , a movement from the Age of individual to the Era of Community. (Feldman, 2000,p.13).The same as the concept of learning community , a researchers and practitioners in United State, Roth and Lee (2000 ) suggest that until “the early 1990's and consistent with (until then) dominant Piagetian constructivist and information processing paradigms in education”(p2).The individual was seen as the unit of instruction.They both claim this as watershed period when, influence by the work of Jean Leave and Etienne Wenger and switched to the idea that knowing and knowledge ability are better thought of as cultural practices and they called it the Communities practice.
The two researcher and practitioners claim this led form of praxis (learning and teaching design implemented in classroom , and influenced by these idea) in which student were encourage to share their ways of doing mathematics, history, science etc. with each other.In other words, that student take part in construction of consensual domain and they participating in learning community.
Learning community:

Ymait(2000) state that “learning community address the learning needs of it's locality through partnership , its uses the strengths of social and institutional relationship to bring about cultural shifs in perceptions of value of learning”(p11).

In Psychology there are four key factor that define a sense of community, (1) membership (2)influence (3)fulfillment of individual needs and (4) share events and emotional connections. So, the participants of learning community must feel some sense of loyalty and beyond the group(membership) that drive their desire to keep working and helping others , also the things that the participant do in must affect what happened in the community , that means an achieve and not just a reactive and not just a reactive performance(influence).Beside a learning community mist given the chance to the participants to meet particular needs(fulfillment)by expressing personal opinion , asking for help or specific information and share stories of event with particular issue included(emotional connections)emotional experience (McMillan and Chavis ,1986 ,p 5)

Characteristic of Learning Community

Learning community are group of students who generally take one , two,or three courses together and may live in the same residence hall. There are seven characteristics in learning community which the learner must consider:

1) Contact with student who have similar academic goal.
2) Common courses
3) Common place of residence
4) Career exploration
5) Introduction to university resources
6) Peer monitoring and / or tutoring
7) Faculty mentoring.

What type of activities do learning community do?

• Study groups - informal of formal gathering with your classmate
• Career Exploration - Field trips , guest speaker , etc
• Hands-on-experience and service learning - applying classroom learning to real world situation
• Social Activities - attend sporting events , play , or speaker in campus
• Community service projects - get involve and help the community

The five basic learning models :

1. Linked courses :
   Student take two courses , usually one disciplinary courses such as history , or biology and one skills courses such as writing , speech, or information literacy
2. Learning clusters: Student take three or more connected courses , usually with a common interdisciplinary theme uniting them.
3. Freshman interest groups : Similar to learning cluster, but the student share the same major, and they often receive academic advising as a part of learning community.
4. Federate learning communities : Similar to a learning cluster , but with an additional seminar course taught by "Master Learner," a faculty member who enrolls in the other courses and takes them alongside the students. The Master Learner's course draws connection between the other courses.
5. Coordinated studies : This model blurs the line between individual courses. The learning community functions as a single , giant course that the student and faculty members work on full-time for an entire semester or academic year (learningcommons.evergreen.edu,paragrah 2-3)

The benefits of learning Community

Peterson(2000) point out that “Learning community enhance and develop the values of a professional and unprofessional learning”.
The climate of openness that promote sharing of knowledge , dialogue , inquiry and risk-taking , and giving constructive feedback to people at all levels.(Taylor 2002;Walkins and Marsick 1999)
Cultural Trust is establish between peers and leaders and it is the key of the success in their learning, without this trust the team member will find it difficult to experiment or attempt to put into place a new idea.

Therefore I conclude that, learning community develop the student capacity to learn and it’s eggerness.It gave a great impact to the student not just mentaly but also socialy and psychology aspect.And it has the high quality of learning because of the activities they have.

REFERENCE :

Adult Learning Australia(2000).Learning Around Town.Retrieved April 16,2003,from http://www.asn.au./Learning cities/Learnin Around town.pdf.
Aigner,S.,Flora,C.&Hernandez,J.(1999).The premise and promise of citizenship and civil society for renewing democracies and empowering sustainable communities.Edinburgh,UK:International Association of Community Development.
Bowles,M.(2002.Forming a community of practice in North/Noth East Tasmania on Responsive and flexible VET.Launcestone,Tasmania:TAFE.
Brown,J.S..,Collins,A.&Duguid,P.(1989).Situated Cognitions and The Culture of Learning.Educational Researcher,18,pp.32-42.

National Learning Communities Directory(2001).learning community in evergreen state college.Retrieved September 15,2002 from http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu

George McMillan and John Chavis(1986).The theory of community.New York,20,p.5
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_community http://www.wikipedia.com/paragraph 1