Learning Communities in Classrooms: A Reconceptual i zati on of Educati onal Practi ce Katerine Bielaczyc Boston College OISE, University of Toronto Allan Collins Northwestern University Boston College From C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.): Instructional desi gn t heor i es an d model s, V ol . I I . M ahw ah N J: Law rence Er lbaum A ssoci ates.Bielaczyc and Collins p. 2 Introduction In recent years in A meri ca there has devel oped a “ learning-communities” approach to education. In a learning community the goal is to advance the collective knowledge and in that way to support the growth of individual knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a cul ture must have: (1) div ersity of experti se among its members, who are valued for their contributions and given support to devel op, (2) a shared objecti ve of continuall y advanci ng the coll ecti ve know ledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned. If a learning community is presented with a problem, then the learning community can bring its collective knowledge to bear on the problem. It is not necessary that each member assimilate everything that the community knows, but each should know who within the community has relevant expertise to address any problem. This is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual know ledge and per for mance, and the expectation that students w il l acqui re the same body of know l edge at the same time. Why Learning Communities? A s the w orld becomes more complex, students find themselves unprepared for the challenges, both personal and social. The new demands that society is placing on young peopl e are reflected in a w ide variety of reports on education, such as the U. S. Department of Labor’s SCA N S report (1991) and a recent book by M urnane and Levy (1996), w hich address the question of what skills and knowledge will be needed for work in the twenty-first century. To summari ze their findings, students need to be able to direct their own learning, work with and listen to others, and develop ways of dealing with complex issues and problems that r equi re di fferent kinds of expertise. These, for the most part. are not skills that are currently taught in schools. So w hy should w e redesign education around l earning communities? There are at least three arguments as to why it would be good to do so: Soci al -constructivist argument. The "social -constructivist" view of education, characteristic of Dewey and Vygotsky, holds that the theory of individual learning, which pervades schools, is flawed. The constructivist view is that people learn best, not by assimilating w hat they are told, but rather by a know ledge-construction process. In order for individuals to learn how to construct knowledge, it is necessary that the process be modeled and supported in the surrounding community. This is what occurs in a learning community.Bielaczyc and Collins p. 3 Learning-to-learn argument. Frank Smith (1988) argues that children w ill learn to read and w rite if the people they admir e read and w rite. That i s, they w i ll w ant to join the "literacy club" and will work hard to become members. Brown, Ellery, and Campione (1998) argue that there has been a change in the demand on schools, tow ard a goal of producing expert learners or "intelligent novices." This change has been brought on by (1) increasing knowledge, such that no one can absorb in school everything they will need to know in life, and by (2) the changing demands of work, where technology can carry out low-level tasks, requiring workers who can think abstractly and learn new skills. So given that we want people who know how to learn, it follows from Smith's argument that children will learn to be learners by joining a "learning club." Multi-cultural argument. The w orl d is becoming more closely i ntegrated through the adv ent of new communication technologies, and societi es ar e becoming increasingly div erse through mixi ng of people from differ ent cul tures. This requi res people to interact and w ork w ith people from different backgrounds. To prepare people to live and work amid such cultural diversity, schooling needs to construct a learning environment that fosters students’ abilities to work and learn with other people. Each person’s contri butions must be r espected, and the community must synthesize diverse views. This is the type of learning environment that a learning-communities approach promotes. In summary, the learning-communi ties approach addr esses the needs for students to deal with complex issues, figure things out for themselves, communicate and work with peopl e from div erse backgrounds and v iew s, and share w hat they learn with others. Therefore educational researchers in A mer ica have begun to experiment w i th di fferent models of learning communities to determine which ways of organizing learning communities are most effective (Brow n & Campione, 1994; Collins & Bielaczy c, 1997; Lampert, Rittenhouse, & Crumbaugh, 1996; Rogoff, 1994; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Wineburg & Grossman, in press). A Framework for Viewing Learning Communities The learning-communities approach rai ses a number of i ssues about the design of learning environments. We treat each issue as a dimension, along which we will contrast a learning-communities approach with the approach of teachers who emphasize the individual mind and how it develops. Classrooms have changed over the years to inv olve more social interaction, but classrooms organized as learning communities still differ from most classrooms along these dimensions. These eight dimensions provide a framew ork w e w ill use to examine three examples of classroom-based learning communiti es descri bed in the next section. Goal s of t he communi t y: In a learning-communities approach the goal is to foster a culture of learning, where both individuals and the community as a whole are learning how to learn. Further, members of the community share their individual effortsBielaczyc and Collins p. 4 towards a deeper understanding of the subject matter under study. Students learn to synthesize multiple perspecti ves, to sol ve