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Learning Communities, Adult Learners, and Instructional Teams at IUPUI 1 Learning Communities, Adult learners, and Instructional Teams at IUPUI 1 Learning Communities, Adult Learners, and Instructional Teams at IUPUI May Jafari Introduction styles. Institutions of higher education and their aca- Adult independent learners are becoming an increasingly demic units and libraries have been asked to re-examine important and sizable segment of the college student their roles and to come up with innovative methods or population. It has been projected that within the next alternative services to accommodate the needs of adult ten years the majority of students will not be the eigh- learners as well as the needs of their traditional students. teen-to twenty-four-year-olds who come to higher edu- Through establishing learning communities, several uni- cation directly from high schools. Instead, the largest versities have begun to address and accommodate the group will be students who are older and attend school learning and teaching needs of their students. As a re- on a part-time rather than full-time basis. Recent studies sult of this new environment, libraries and other aca- show that not only is there a shrinking pool of the tradi- demic and computing units on campus have become tional younger students and a rapid expansion of the partners in the new learning environment. older population but also that part-time students are the This paper describes Learning Communities Pro- fastest growing population in higher education (Hussar, gram in development at Indiana University Purdue Uni- 1993). versity Indianapolis (IUPUI). It draws upon the experi- Access to library resources and developing skills are ence of one of the Learning Community which utilizes important elements of the academic experience for all an instructional team approach to teach various in- students. Yet, adult learners experience barriers in the formation literacy and technology skills to adult learn- use of the library and its many resources. In the mean- ers over 25 years of age. It examines the unique needs time, the advent of electronic information retrieval in and learning objectives of an adult learner. The paper university libraries has caused resources available to our investigates the issues and challenges of collaborating users to grow exponentially. Technology has sensitized with faculty , other team members and adult learners us to potential differences in skill levels and learning operating in a team environment. May Jafari is instructional librarian at IUPUI University Library. 1 April 811, 1999, Detroit, Michigan 2 May Jafari Learning/Teaching Paradigm and Academic of their respective institutions (Donnelly, 1998). The four Libraries approaches are: Increasingly, institutions of higher education are being The Required, core-curriculum, for credit model; asked to provide students with critical thinking and prob- The Required, discipline-specific, for credit-course lem solving skills. Equally important has been a para- model; digm shift within colleges and universities to move to- The Elective, for-credit course model; ward learning paradigm rather than teaching para- The Course-integrated model. digm. As a result of this new learning environment, Faculty and librarians collaboration has been a ma- some of the universities and academic units responsible jor factor in developing the above successful informa- for teaching and learning efforts on their campuses have tion literacy programs. Another recent development has been forced to come up with innovative ways to educate begun in some colleges and universities to better under- their students to prepare them to participate in the life- stand how their students learn, in what kinds of en- long learning process. This new shift on learning has vironment or setting, and what educational reform resulted in new research, new methods, and new con- are needed to enhance their learning experience. As a siderations, creating a new learning environment for fac- result of this renewed interest in students learning, ulty, librarians, and learners as well. As a result, various some universities have created innovative approaches that academic and computing service units have joined ef- attempt to create rich, challenging and nurturing aca- forts to expand and enhance the teaching and learning demic communities for their students. One such ap- mission of their institutions. proach has been the creation of Learning Communi- In most universities and colleges, academic libraries ties. Once again, academic librarians have emerged as are part of the academic units of the campus and are active partners in the educational arena through their expected to contribute to the institutions educational involvement in the learning communities program of mission. Support for the role of libraries in educational their respective institutions. reform through the integration of information literacy skills into the curriculum can be found in works such as Learning Communities the article written by Patricia B. Knapp over 40 years How do we define learning communities? One major ago which states if we wish the library to function more proponent of the learning communities movement, Bar- effectively in the college we must direct our efforts bara Leigh Smith, states that the, learning community toward the curriculum, working through faculty (Knapp, approach fundamentally restructures the curriculum, and 1958: 831). In 1989, the American Library Association the time and space of students...link together courses or Presidential Committee on Information Literacy issued coursework to provide more opportunities for active learn- its Final Report, in which they noted ultimately, infor- ing, and interaction between students and faculty (Smith, mation literate people are those who have learned how 1993). In another recent article, Philip Tompkins, Susan to learn...they are people prepared for lifelong learning Perry and Joan K. Lippincott discuss the new learning because they can always find the information needed communities movement in several universities such the for any task or decision at hand (American Library University of Washington (UW-UWired Program), and Association, 1989). the Southern California (USC, Jump Start Program). These In more recent years, other writers such as Patricia educators note that New Learning Communities Pro- S. Breivik and E. Gordon Gee (Breivik and Gee, 1989), gram was developed to support pioneers in education who Hannelore B. Rader (Rader, 1997), Brendan A. Rapple use networking and networked information to support (Rapple, 1997), and Gabriela Sonntag and Donna M. student-centered teaching and learning (Tompkins, Perry Ohr (Sonntag and Ohr, 1996) have emphasized the need and Lippincott, 1998). They also state that important for forming partnerships between the library, faculty, models existed that demonstrated the convergence of the classroom, and university administration to integrate elec- increasingly important role of collaboration and collabo- tronic information and information literacy instruction rative learning, the availability of Internet and network- into the curriculum. Kimberley M. Donnelly lists four ing and the importance of including information lit- distinct approaches that librarians have used to develop eracy in the higher education curriculum (Tompkins, and integrate information literacy into the curriculum Perry and Lippincott, 1998). ACRL Ninth National Conference Learning Communities, Adult learners, and Instructional Teams at IUPUI 3 IUPUI Learning Communities Initiative development of a successful learning experience for stu- IUPUI is a public, four-year urban university of some dents enrolled. The four phases of development within 27,000 students. About 98 percent of the students are instructional teams are: Indiana residents and 48 percent are part-time students 1. Team Formation who work and have family obligations. There are 1,400 2. Development Design full-time and approximately 800 part-time faculty em- 3. Implementation ployed at IUPUI. IUPUI was formed in 1969 when In- 4. Evaluation diana University and Purdue University merged their In each of these stages, team members have par- Indianapolis operations. IUPUI is recognized as a leader ticular roles to play. For further information about In- in urban higher education, ranked as Indianas third larg- structional Teams at IUPUI see our Web page: (http:// est and most comprehensive university. www-lib.iupui.edu/itt/itt.html). Since 1996, IUPUI has been the home institution The library assigned a team of librarians to support of one of Coalition for Networked Informations (CNI) instructional teams. The author was one of the librar- New Learning Communities (NLC) project leaders. ians assigned to work with two non-discipline specific IUPUI offers students a variety of educational and ca- courses whose linkages were based on generally con- reer opportunities. The size and complexity of IUPUI, necting students to the university and to the scholarly however, may create problems for all students, especially community. The objectives of each course were intended the adult learners, who have not been in school for a to reflect the student population they targeted. The de- number of years. Some may find it difficult to make scription printed in the Schedule of Courses reads: First connections with other students, faculty members, and Year Success Seminar: Designed to help returning stu- campus resources. The Learning Community Program dents ages 25 and over, or any student who is a parent, provides an
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