Some faculty see only the academic goals and benefits of learning communities and see little value in the social component of the structure, she said. Missouri organized Freshman Interest Groups in 1993. This fall, there will be 55 groups for more than 800 incoming freshmen at the university. Townsend said the learning communities help new students feel they belong to a big school, perform better academically and remain enrolled at higher rates than non-group students. Students choose to join learning communities, but some questioned whether at-risk students are signing up.
Universities handle at-risk students differently.
For example, at Wisconsin and ISU, at-risk students are not tracked or singled out for their own learning community. Townsend said Missouri wants to do a better job of retaining minority students from the Kansas City area. When at-risk students from this population elect to be in a group, they are placed in groups that receive more guidance and peer and faculty mentoring, she said. The ISU Registrar's Office has developed a Request and Proposal form and fact sheet called Learning Teams 101 for faculty members who would like to know more about organizing learning teams.