Learning communites are communities that intend to restructure a student's

time, credit, and learning experiences to build community among students,

between students and teachers, and among faculty members and disciplines.
Many schools across the nation use a variety of approaches to build these
learning communities. According to the Washington Center, there are three
general types of learning communites, which are :

•Student Cohorts/Integrative Seminar

-Learning communities that are structured as programs in which

a small cohort of students enroll in larger classes tha
faculty do not coordinate. Things such as intellectual
connections and community building often take place in an
additional to integrative seminare

•Linked Courses/ Course Clusters

-Learnining commuinities that may involve two or more classes

linked thematically or by content which a cohort of
students takes together. The faculty plans the program
collaboratively

•Coordinated Study

-Learning communities that may involve coursework that faculty

team teach. The course work is embedded in an
integrated program of study

The University of Memphis has a learning community program called "Fresh

Conneciton" , which is considered to be a Coordinated Study learning
community. It allows up to 25 students to take courses together in their first
semester. In this program, it includes two learning communities that
engineering students can enroll in: Honors STEM and Entry to Engineering.
The Entry to Engineering learning community includes the following classes:

-Introduction to the University

-English Compositon

and Honor STEM learning community includes the following classes:

-Honors Calculus I

-Honors Math Seminar

-General Chemistry I

-General Chemistry I Lab

The problems that with these learning communities are: Are the learning
community programs for engineering students at The University of Memphis
in need of improvement. If so, why and what ways.

If The University of Memphis had better learning community programs for

engineering students, the drop out rate of engineering students could be
reduced. Ways these communites can be improved are:

-more related classes included in the program curriculm

-increase in the limit of students that join

Although the program has a "Continuing Connection", which extends Fresh

Connections, it does not extends the program for engineering students