Prairie State College

Submitted by eschwarz on Sat, 03/13/2010 - 07:42

Personal Contact: eschwarz

Institutional Strengths

Prairie State offers a number of college-level learning communities every semester. Generally, these classes fill well, thanks to college-wide support for our LC program, particularly from counselors and advisors who help students understand the benefits and opportunities that LCs provide. Additionally, Prairie State continues to use the LC approach for selected pre-college classes combining English and reading. Our longest-running, and arguably most successful LCs are in the Honors Program (combining English and Humanities courses). Other successful LCs combine English and Sociology, Communication and Psychology, English and Physical Science, Communication and Biology, Music and Philosophy, Instructional Technology and Communication, to name a few.

Institutional Weaknesses

Prairie State's learning community program was supported by a Title III grant until 2009. The College remains committed to offering LCs, but is still finding its way without the assistance of the grant, which provided substantial resources for faculty development and experimentation. We are currently focused on tracking the outcomes of our learning communities (issues of student success and persistence). Challenges also exist in expanding our LC program to other courses and faculty that have not yet been involved.