Learning to Belong: The Best and Hardest Work of Learning Communities

Abstract

Learning communities are structures that offer us opportunities for deep, intentional, and sometimes problematic collaboration across campus. They also have a way of mediating that mismatch between what students are capable of and what our institutions expect of them. If we believe that learning takes place best in the context of community, then learning communities may offer a home community from which students may venture forth onto our campuses, prepared to be active members of the larger community of scholars and educators.