Learning Communities are a high-impact practice that help students establish relationships while learning in three linked classes that are relevant to their meta-major/academic focus area: Business (BUSI); Education (EDUC); Health Professions (HEPR); Humanities and Arts (HUAR); Information Technology (ITEC); Social Sciences (SOSC); or Science, Technology and Math (STEM). We aim to scale first-year LCs so all new full-time first-year students enroll in an LC by an opt-out approach. The longer-term aim is to add to the LCs more sections of the first-year seminar (GGC 1000), redesigned to include discipline-specific content.
Learning Communities align directly with the GGC Strategic Plan (2023-2025), Goal 1: Expand Academic Access, Engagement and Success, Objective B. 7: Expand the current Learning Communities, including Living Learning Communities, with a curricular and co-curricular focus on targeted academic disciplines and relevant career fields.
Track performance across 5 key measures (KPI) and report progress following each fall semester.
Measures of success for the LCs are to be shared via Student Success Dashboards, which have been established at GGC by IRA.
Measurement Cycle is Fall-to-Fall (AY) and ongoing.
For program quality assessment, we will measure faculty engaged proactively in LCs (over 5 years).
KPIs:
> Fall-Fall retention rates of students in LCs.
> Learning Community enrollment.
> GPA first and subsequent semester of students in LCs.
> Longer-term retention/persistence and completion rates.
> Longer-term: number of sections of GGC 1000 with discipline-specific content added to LCs and success rates of students enrolled.
Baseline measure (for each KPI):
> Fall-Fall retention rates of students in LCs. = 65.2%
> Learning Community enrollment. = 560
> GPA first and subsequent semester of students in LCs. = 54.7% >= 2.50 GPA
> Longer-term retention/persistence and completion rates. = 19% 6-year graduation rate
> Longer-term: number of sections of GGC 1000 with discipline-specific content added to LCs and success rates of students enrolled. = TBD
We built the LC sections for the triads and are completing materials for early outreach to the students. Early faculty outreach was carried out March-May 2024 and will continue. We needed to adjust the LC linked sections as registration proceeded in Grizzly Orientation beginning in May 2024. We built 139 learning communities for Fall 2024. At the start of the semester 58 remained intact. Technical glitches with BANNER and staffing issues affected our ability to maintain a greater number of LCs.
Current/most recent data (for each KPI):
> Fall-Fall retention rates of students in LCs. = 73% (Fall 2022, FTFY students); 65.2% 3-year average.
> Learning Community enrollment. = 560 (FTFY students)
> GPA first and subsequent semester of students in LCs. = 54.72% >= 2.50 GPA (Fall 2022)
> Longer-term retention/persistence and completion rates. = 19% 6-year graduation (Fall 2017 FTFY)
> Longer-term: number of sections of GGC 1000 with discipline-specific content added to LCs and success rates of students enrolled. = N/A (new initiative)
- Review lessons learned in scaling learning communities in Fall 2024.
- Work with the academic Chairs and schedulers more closely to make the design successful.
- Work with the Registrar and other Enrollment Management teams closely to make the delivery successful.
- Work with campus partners to develop and implement a marketing plan to increase awareness of LCs and LLCs.
- Inform FTFT admits of LCs and encourage them to register for a LC block ahead of Grizzly Orientation.
- Review and revise tactics as this Learning Community strategic priority moves forward.
- Plan for further scaling of LCs in Fall 2025.
- Develop a strategy for proposing, implementing, and assessing themed LCs and LLCs.
Challenges: Logistical challenges (e.g., staffing, linking, hiding and opening linked sections, tagging and tracking sections) related to technology (i.e., Banner) and registration process will need to be addressed effectively.
Unexpected challenges that may emerge during Grizzly Orientation will need to be addressed.
We will continue to meet regularly with faculty (e.g., LC information sessions that we have launched).
Supports Needed: We have already heard from or met with a number of USG colleagues (e.g., Georgia State University and the NISS team; University of North Georgia; Albany State University) to discuss learning community implementation ideas, and we plan to continue this mutually fruitful path of discussion
