Student Development

Learning Communities at the Australian National University

Dr Dierdre Pearce, Dean of Residents, Bruce Hall, Australian National University[i]

It has been well established that a student’s involvement with peers, faculty and other staff in the university community is vital to their academic success. Such outcomes have prompted a growing number of universities in the US to develop learning communities designed to promote active student involvement with learning.[ii] Since 2005 the ANU has been developing a learning community model in which both residential and non-residential students engage in learning experiences which complement their other academic studies, integrate academic life with other aspects of life and provide opportunities for students to apply their knowledge to ‘real-world’ projects.

There are many definitions of a learning community (LC); at the ANU an LC is a group of people who share a common interest (or theme), who meet regularly and collaborate to learn more about that interest. The activities of an ANU LC are purposeful, interdisciplinary, collaborative and support the academic and professional development[iii] of students. The idea of a residential community being an intentional learning community was first introduced at Bruce Hall prior to 2005. In 2005 the LC was reviewed, as the result of which its purpose and activities were re-focused.  During this time, an ANU working group was established to examine the potential of developing LCs across campus. From this group, Bruce Hall collaborated with ANU Green to develop a Sustainability LC, open to non-residential as well as residential students. The success of this collaboration and other LC themes at Bruce Hall led to the funding of an ANU learning community project late in 2007.[iv] The aim of this project is to establish LC across campus, each of which is a partnership of at least one ANU Academic College and one residential college.

There are currently over a dozen themes, including Arts, Africa, Aid & Development, Asia-Pacific, Contemporary Europe, History, Languages & Culture, Music, Rhetoric, SIDECARS[v], Summer Research Scholars and Sustainability.[vi] They provide a schedule of events on campus for groups of 15 to 500 people. The project engages non-residential students through collaboration with teaching staff, the ANU Students’ Association and relevant student clubs. Residential students also benefit by having access to a greater range of LC themes and activities than would be possible to support in a single college. The LC fund allows residential colleges to make available the activities of the LC themes they host to non-residential students at no cost.

LC programmes are predominantly project based, are largely student driven and typically require a semester or more of effort. Activities occur at a range of sites across campus, not just in residential colleges, helping to blur the boundary between residential life and academic life. Activities generally occur before 7 pm to encourage participation by students and staff who don’t live on campus. Few involve work which may be submitted for academic credit and all intend to provide a complementary learning experience rather than replicate the lecture and tutorial system of the academic programmes. There is interest in recognizing learning and development in LC activities as part of a graduate attributes statement.

For residential colleges, the LC project is generating increasing recognition on campus of the teaching & learning expertise of residential staff and has built stronger relationships between themselves and the university. There is also greater recognition of the nature and the benefits of the learning experiences which residential colleges provide to students. Finally, there is potential to use LC themes to develop closer relationships with alumni and the wider community by allowing greater access to some LC activities during the year.

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