Enrollment is limited to 40 . We can learn much about how communities form and flourish by paying attention to the burgeoning community scene on the Internet. Using any tool that allows for group communication, people are creating new, very robust communities online, and those communities are fertile learning environments. Email lists and newsgroups are the most common means, but web forums and chat rooms are picking up momentum. We explore the benefits of negotiating writing schedules for support staff, encouraging regular writing, arranging document planning and revising sessions in the preliminary stages of important projects, responding to poor writing in a facilitative as opposed to a judgmental way, and clarifing expectations for completed documents.
Documents reflect the reputation, struggles, and promise of an institution.
While faculty are well trained in the theories and practices of their disciplines, some faculty are unfamiliar with effective writing habits, readability guidelines, and marketing strategies. Some faculty erroneously assme they need large chunks of time to write in binges and that they should conduct exhaustive research and thoroughly think through a project before writing. As a result, many faculty publish fewer articles and win fewer grants than possible. In part, this expalins why only ten to fifteen percent of the professoriate regularly research or publish. This report provides an in-depth discussion of a number of approaches to student learning communities, discusses learning organizations as learning communities, introduces the reader to virtual learning communities and faculty learning communities, and gives specific suggestions for creating special, purposeful, powerful learning communities that can promote and optimize student learning.