The students in the ENC 1102 component of the learning community learned and completed a step-by-step MLA style research paper on a particular aspect of Asian culture, including Feng Shui, Chinese medicine, arranged marriages, and the history of sushi. They learned to analyze and respond to published writings from diverse sources in standard essay form, properly summarizing and quoting from the original sources as they added their own observations and ideas. Topics ranged from diverse dietary habits (such as eating insects) to marriage rites and customs (arranged marriages) to racial tension and estrangement. They learned to articulate others’ points of view and disagree without judgment or hostility. Further, students extended their research to primary sources by engaging in a service learning project through which they had to identify, interview, and record the story of an immigrant not only from a culture other than their own but from a generation removed from their own. A few chose to interview Civil Rights Movement veterans or Holocaust survivors, either recording the interview verbatim or narrating the subject’s story in an oral history paper. In learning to listen to others, the students in this class modified many of their own thoughts and feelings on a variety of topics. The students who did not pass the course were students who did not become fully engaged in the community, missing many classes and assignments, as opposed to failing for lack of skill. There were no tests used as measurement. The essays and research paper were the formal tools for assessment.

Because the English portion of the learning community was not strictly limited to learning community students, eight students outside of the designed community were registered in the course. Of those non-learning community students, two failed for not completing the course. Within the learning community itself, one student received an F for discontinuing attendance, and three students received D’s for not completing all of the course assignments or for doing poorly on the research paper. Four students failed. Only one student officially withdrew. The retention rate was 66%, and the success rate of the remaining students was 60% for ENC 1102.

In the PPE 1005 portion of the Learning Community, the professor revamped the course to infuse multiculturalism into the course. The core course competencies were kept while new lectures, in-class activities and exercises, films, and simulation games such as Barnga, an African game, and the Island of the Xians, were introduced to increase and develop the students’ cultural awareness, identity, and sensitivity. Both a pre-test and a post-test were administered to the class to ascertain their knowledge of multicultural issues as well as to measure their growth. The students also took three exams, wrote a stress mastery paper and a review paper on one of the College plays, and they kept a process journal to process their experiences with various cultural experiences. Of the ten students enrolled in the PPE 1005 portion of the learning community, four students earned A’s, two earned B’s, one student earned a C, and three students earned F’s. Three students earned an F because they had poor attendance and did not complete major assignments. Seventy per cent of the ten students enrolled in the multicultural PPE 1005 class passed.

In MAT 1033, the retention of the students was 100%. Unfortunately, only two of the students passed the course with a B. The other seven students earned D’s. Three of the students were absent many days and missed the daily lecture material. Overall, the students worked hard and were actively learning in the classroom. The learning community environment made the class a joy to teach. All but one of the students participated in the Math Myths Project. The project was successful. The students worked in groups. They researched math myth, printed the articles they used as references, and created a quiz and its answer key.

1. Present at Professional Development Day

2. Create a binder as a resource to share with other professors

3. Share our experiences with our colleagues within our departments