Учебные сообщества: сотрудничество для достижения академических целей.

Group of people cooperating to achieve academic goals
A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes and meet semi regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort based, interdisciplinary approach to higher education. This may be based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design. Community psychologists such as McMillan and Chavis (1986) state that four key factors defined a sense of community: "(1) membership, (2) influence, (3) fulfilment of individuals needs and (4) shared events and emotional connections. So, the participants of learning community must feel some sense of loyalty and belonging to the group (membership) that drive their desire to keep working and helping others, also the things that the participants do must affect what happens in the community; that means, an active and not just a reactive performance (influence). Besides, a learning community must give a chance to the participants to meet particular needs (fulfilment) by expressing personal opinions, asking for help or specific information, and share stories of events with particular issue included (emotional connections) emotional experiences". Learning communities are now fairly common to American colleges and universities, and are also found in Europe.

In a summary of the history of the concept of learning communities, Wolff Michael Roth and Lee Yew Jin suggest that until the early 1990s, and consistent with (until then) dominant Piagetian constructivist and information processing paradigms in education, the individual was seen as the "unit of instruction" and the focus of research. Roth and Lee claim this as a watershed period when influenced by the work of Jean Lave, and Lave and Etienne Wenger among others, researchers and practitioners switched to the idea that was knowing and knowledgeability are better thought of as cultural practices that are exhibited by practitioners belonging to various communities; which, following Lave and Wenger's early work, are often termed communities of practice. Roth and Lee claim that this led to forms of praxis (learning and teaching designs implemented in the classroom, and influenced by these ideas) in which students were encouraged to share their ways of doing mathematics, history, science, etc. with each other. In other words, students take part in the construction of consensual domains and "participate in the negotiation and institutionalisation of meaning". In effect, they are participating in learning communities. Roth and Lee go on to analyse the contradictions inherent in this as a theoretically informed practice in education. Roth and Lee are concerned with the learning community as a theoretical and analytical category; they critique how some educators use the notion to design learning environments without considering the fundamental structures implied in the category. Their analysis does not consider the appearance of learning communities in the United States in the early 1980s. For example, the Evergreen State College, which is widely considered a pioneer in this area, established an intercollegiate learning community in 1984. In 1985, this same college established the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, which focuses on collaborative education approaches, including learning communities as one of its centrepieces. Learning communities began to gain popularity at other U. S. colleges and universities during the late 80s and throughout the 90s. The Washington Center's National Learning Commons Directory has over 250 learning community initiatives in colleges and universities throughout the nation.

Residential learning communities, or living learning communities (LLCs), are a type of academic intentional community which range from theme based halls within a college dormitory to degree granting residential colleges. What residential and nonresidential learning communities share is an intentional integration of academic content with daily interactions among students, faculty, and staff living and working in these programs. Students who participate in LLCs tend to have higher GPAs, increased retention rates, and greater academic engagement compared to their peers living in traditional, non themed residence halls.

Universities are often drawn to learning communities because research has shown that participation can improve student retention rate. Lisa Spanierman, Jason Soble, Jennifer Mayfield, Helen Neville, Mark Aber, Lydia Khuri & Belinda De La Rosa note in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice that learning communities can have a much greater impact on students which including predicting greater academic interactions, and the development of a greater sense of community and belonging.

Comparing students that live on campus in learning communities, and those that live off campus shows that students that participate in learning communities are more likely to persist to graduation. This is supported in supplementary scholarly literature through the work of Vince Tinto as he states "For example, social and academic systems that positively reinforce each other will increase student commitment such as when students are part of a peer group that also serves as a study group.

Learning Communities have been shown to contribute to a students sense of community and belonging. The importance of the development of a sense of belonging is outlined by Abraham Maslow as it is deemed a universal human need, and an essential element to health.

Research conducted by John Purdie, and Vicki Rosser concluded that students who participated in learning communities earned higher grades, even when controlling for entering characteristics, and environmental characteristics. Universities are able to contribute to the increased academic performance of students what participate in a learning community because of its ability to predict greater peer academic experiences and an enriched learning environment. In a study conducted by Karen Inkelas of Northern Arizona University students that participate in academic based learning communities self reported an increase in meeting learning outcomes.