ERIC Number: ED533915
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Nov
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Breaking New Ground: An Impact Study of Career-Focused Learning Communities at Kingsborough Community College. NCPR Brief
Visher, Mary G.; Teres, Jedediah
National Center for Postsecondary Research
Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, is a leader in the learning community movement. The college has run learning communities for many years, and more than half of its incoming freshmen were enrolled in one as of 2010. This Brief summarizes findings from an evaluation of the same title of Kingsborough's "Career-Focused Learning Communities" program, the latest iteration in a series of learning community models designed and implemented by the college. Unlike more typical programs, it targeted continuing rather than first-semester students and it consisted of three courses--two courses required for a specific major and a third course called the "integrative seminar," designed to reinforce the learning in the other two courses as well as to expose students to information about careers in their selected major. Findings include: (1) Kingsborough's learning communities program was based on a sophisticated and ambitious model; (2) The implementation experience was characterized by several start-up problems and, as a result, the program never achieved a "steady state" during the demonstration; (3) The learning communities program did not have meaningful impacts overall on educational outcomes during the semesters in which students enrolled in the learning community (the "program semester"); (4) The learning communities program did not have meaningful impacts on students' outcomes following the program semester; and (5) Although the program did not have meaningful impacts on credit accumulation overall, it had a modest but positive impact on credits earned during the program semester for students who had recently transferred from another college and were therefore new to Kingsborough. [This paper was written with Phoebe Richman. For "Breaking New Ground: An Impact Study of Career-Focused Learning Communities at Kingsborough Community College," see ED522631.]
Descriptors: Community Colleges, Outcomes of Education, College Credits, Program Effectiveness, Communities of Practice, College Students, Program Implementation, Seminars, Demonstration Programs, Models
National Center for Postsecondary Research. Teachers College, Columbia University, Box 174, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3091; Fax: 212-678-3699; e-mail: ncpr@columbia.edu; Web site: http://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Two Year Colleges
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: National Center for Postsecondary Research (ED)
Identifiers - Location: New York
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A