The symposium was sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence and brought together ISU faculty and staff and leaders of learning community programs at several universities.
Faculty cooperate to integrate the content of the courses in a cluster.
Learning team members often live together in the same residence hall. To work well, learning community programs require a buy-in not only from students and faculty, but from student affairs staff, the registrar's office and, where applicable, residence staff, learning team members said. At Iowa State, learning communities have been growing since 1995, when 342 students were involved in 20 teams. Next fall, there will be at least 48 teams, involving more than 680 students, according to assistant registrar Laura Doering. She estimates that 21 of those will bring teams together in residence halls.