Introduction
“Two heads are better than one” is a famous line to those working together and sharing ideas for a good outcome or output on certain project or plan. It simply means that they are quite simply, collections of individuals who are bound together by natural will and a set of shared ideas and ideals. It commonly defines as a group of people who share common values and beliefs, are actively engaged in learning together from each other. The term “learning community” has been used in many ways, covering activities ranging from virtual cities, academic learning communities, communities of practice, or learning towns and cities. It is circle of people in a certain community that unites enable to create a better output in a certain goal. Problem takes place when certain community scatters their objectives as they building target plan. Hence, learning community is the answers of all the factors needed to untangle the problem. The focus of this collaborative learning is only two words: Learn and Unite. So, how they will learn and unite?
“Community” and “Learning” are familiar words which have been used in a great variety of ways, but rarely have they met in the same vicinity. For years on end, these words have acquired a meaning of their own through a multitude of experiences with reality. A learning community at the simplest suggests those active learning experiences, academic success and the retention of our students correlate to one’s sense of community of belonging. If we believe this, then the objective of a learning community it two fold: first, it allows students to build a strong network (peers and faculty/ staff) and secondly, it creates a space where students can share, analyze, examine, debate and engage in academic inquiry collectively.
Such communities have become the template for center-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher education. The best example of this is faculty and staff in every education core. These people are mainly functional of improving learning style with their subjects on its objectives. Faculty members involved in learning communities that facilitate cross-faculty collaboration are expanding their repertoire of teaching approaches, continually revising their course content, and acquiring new scholarly interests. Learning community faculty members are also building mentoring relationships with each other and are more frequently engaging with beginning students and general education offerings. This process may have come up a harmonious inter-relationship towards the community. Ideally, learning communities’ foster learning to learn as a social act. Like when the faculty members will find incorporating that sense of membership into their teaching more productive while the students involved in learning communities will bring the confidence and social energy fostered by membership in the community into the classroom. Gradually, the students take part through individual assignments, activities and grading practices. Learning communities should also involve reading and critical discourse about the issues of a diverse society, leading to actual participation in the larger community.
The idea of learning community is from the concepts of society that embodied by people’s skills and techniques and the learning they acquire from the group or what they have shared to the group. Emily F. Calhoun presents her practical definition of action research for organization improvement: “Let’s study what’s happening at our school (through the collection and utilization of data) and decide how to make it a better place”. These learning will be brought up for public consideration. However, this notion is presented on a trial basis and it has not yet acquired a definitive meaning or to use a common expression, because it has not yet received its credentials. But the idea of learning communities is applicable in every problem towards a great possible solution with in the group. What they need is the full participation of every member of the community where they can have numbers of benefits on it not only for them but also to the young learners. As I keep on surfing the net, I was stumbled this line from famous mentor that “The learning that evolved from these communities is collaborative, in which the collaborative knowledge of the community is greater than any individual knowledge” (Johnson 2001:34). It is not necessarily that every one should have the same level thinking because the whole brainstorming does not exist in high or low profile situation but instead the differences of individuality. The special strengths of individuals who had the potential to play important roles in helping the whole community as become the pillar of the success. The leadership will take place in this case and has special role to control and moderate the inputs of everybody around.
Conclusion
Learning community is indeed a chain-knowledge of different minds and abilities. Hence, it is a theory to advance the collective knowledge and skills and thereby to support the growth of individual knowledge and skills. And surely they will have a learning to learn and learning how to work with people and they will develop their sense of responsibility and self-esteem. Such factors can be acquired not in black and white method (textbook, workbook etc,). A well-refined person may not exist in everyday but this learning helps to gain respect and appreciation of differences within the community or respect and appreciation for all members of the community. And of course, I cannot forget the best notion about learning community’s initiatives that rely on one heroic individual are often vulnerable, especially when the workload and leadership are not widely shared but this will become successful when the implementation requires extensive cross-unit coordination among faculty members or any involved person of the said community. Over the years, learning communities have been the subject of intensive assessment using a variety of formative and summative approaches and both qualitative and quantitative. So, in a whole picture of this learning style, it is very useful in community not only for a small group but in a preparation to a large society where they make their target goal as they go on of their lives.
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Doing Learning Community Assessment: Five Campus Stories. National Learning Communities Project Monograph Series. Olympia, WA: The Evergreen State College, Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, in cooperation with the American Association for Higher Education 2003.
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An Essay
About
Learning Communities
Prepared by:
Mark Philip E. Baring
