Integrating Library Instruction Into Learning Communities: A L.E.A.P Toward Innovation

Abstract

Learning communities can be used to enhance a student's understanding of a subject discipline, the writing process, and to improve research skills. One such model integrated three courses into a single syllabus called the Political Inquiry and Writing Pride offered to incoming freshmen as part of the Learning Edge Academic Program (LEAP). The LEAP program encourages active and collaborative learning, and the opportunity to integrate library skills into each Pride's curriculum. The pilot program revealed that the concept of a community may be the appropriate model for enhancing the learning and teaching process because it takes the courses, the faculty, and the librarians out of isolation and places them in purposeful juxtaposition to each other. However, if such learning communities are to grow and thrive universities and libraries must improve the teaching skills of both librarians and faculty by developing a greater part of their resources to such efforts. Nevertheless, the possibility for improving information literacy through such a learning community is great.