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1995
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Team players

Oh sure, she'd grown up in a fairly large town and gone to a big high school. Her graduation class had more than 300 students. But still, Iowa State was college and it was a really big place.

But at freshman orientation, Daly was introduced to an academic opportunity that came with an almost immediate support network and helped make Iowa State feel like maybe it wasn't so big after all. It was an opportunity the biology major jumped at.

Daly, like more and more new Iowa State students, joined a learning team.

"I was kind of nervous coming to a large university, but because of the learning team program I was in, I was able to meet 30 students right away. It was a great way to meet people who also were studying biology," Daly said.

Connecting with peers

earning teams are a university-wide initiative launched in 1995 to provide interested new students with an opportunity to connect with peers who have similar academic goals. In addition to the university's formal learning team program, some colleges offer their own versions of the concept. In all instances, participation in a learning team is voluntary.

"Learning teams are an idea that started 10 to 15 years ago across the country, primarily in the Pacific Northwest," said Steve Richardson, director of Iowa State's Center for Teaching Excellence. "They are part of a broader trend at Iowa State toward more participatory education. We want students to participate in their own learning rather than just watch and listen to a professor."

Students are offered the opportunity to join learning teams during freshman summer orientation. Those who accept can create a peer-support system before the academic year begins. Learning team students take courses together, work with faculty and staff mentors, create their own study groups and, in some cases, live on the same residence hall floor. Among the majors involved in the university's formal learning team program are animal ecology, animal science, biology, pre-business, pre- medicine and pre-engineering.

Advantages of learning teams include seeing familiar faces in classes, making a smooth transition from high school to college by developing a peer network early and reducing scheduling conflicts by registering for a block of classes.

Students in learning teams are scheduled into the same sections of three to five courses, primarily in English, math and sociology. Each team includes 10 to 30 students. In fall 1995, 342 students signed up for learning teams. In fall 1996, learning teams attracted 517 new students, or 14 percent of the university's 3,610 new freshmen. University officials project about 700 incoming freshmen will join learning teams in fall 1997.

Earning better grades

arly indications are that learning teams help students academically and keep more of them in school. A 1995 study of students with similar ACT scores and high school rank showed those in learning teams earned slightly better gradepoint averages, took greater class loads and were more likely to stay at Iowa State.

"The goal of learning teams is student success," Richardson said. "It goes beyond retention, which is an important goal for the university. It is about students surviving, belonging to a group of people with similar interests and academic goals and enjoying success."

"Students come to Iowa State because they want to be here, but this is a fairly good-sized institution and a lot of students are going to be in fairly large classes in the beginning," said Anne Farni, who coordinates the College of Business's popular learning team program. "Learning teams are a way to make Iowa State feel smaller and they provide immediate ways for new students to make connections with other students, as well as university faculty and staff."

A learning team provided clear benefits for Janine Paskiewicz, an out- of-state freshman in pre-business. In fact, there were enough benefits to prompt Paskiewicz to serve as a mentor for the program during her sophomore year.

"I'm from Wisconsin and didn't know anybody here. One of the biggest benefits I got from the learning team was just meeting people," she said. "I still have classes with a lot of them. It has made things a lot easier and I've developed good friendships."

Studying, living together

o best understand the science of learning teams, look to biology, home of Daly's learning team.

In 1995, the biology department created Biology Education Success Teams (BEST), a learning team concept for new biology majors that integrates academic and residential life. BEST students take classes and study together, and live on the same residence hall floor.

"There is a need for this program. Students come from protective high schools and hometowns to a large campus and a completely different approach to studying. That can be stressful academically and socially," said Adah Leshem-Ackerman, BEST coordinator. "The idea behind BEST is students providing a support system for each other."

Daly now is a sophomore and lives at the Phi Beta Pi sorority, but she is a frequent visitor to the Towers Residence Halls, home of her BEST experience.

Deb Bertrand came to Iowa State from Mankato, Minn., and signed up for BEST because of the opportunity to live with people "who were taking the same courses and going through a lot of the same problems I'd have.

"We got together the first part of the semester especially, to study for tests, and we would always go door-to-door for help if we couldn't figure it out on our own," Bertrand said of her BEST experience. "BEST helped give me a perspective on how I was doing."

Bertrand, a sophomore, still lives on her freshman year BEST floor and now is a mentor for this year's BEST class.

Connecting to Iowa State

oug Gruenewald, a self-described BEST "big fan," was complex director at the Towers when the program started.

"Getting new students to connect with the institution can be difficult. The BEST students connected very quickly to the institution, the residence hall and their floor," he said. "They studied together a lot and appeared to have a positive impact on the floor's non-BEST students' studying habits. The social bonding going on was strong."

Gruenewald, now assistant director for academic services for the department of residence, also can praise the BEST program with hard numbers.

"We had 36 BEST students at the Towers and all 36 of them returned to ISU and 86 percent of them stayed in the residence hall system. Those numbers can't get much better," he said.

There are other learning team efforts outside the university's formal program. Design students, because of the structure of their majors, essentially are in learning teams from their first day as freshmen to their last day as graduating seniors.

Helping future teachers

he College of Education's version of learning teams is an alternative teacher preparation program called Project Opportunity, which began in 1993.

Project Opportunity creates learning teams of approximately 30 elementary, secondary and early childhood education students. The students study together through their sophomore, junior and senior years, taking courses redesigned specifically for Project Opportunity and acquiring three times the amount of field experience of students in traditional programs. The most recent Project Opportunity team has a math, science and technology emphasis, and its participants will do field work in an inner city location.

The expanded field experience draws many students to the program. Each semester for three academic years, Project Opportunity students spend time working "on-site" with administrators, faculty, students and parents in central Iowa school districts.

"It's an excellent way to get more field experience, which is what interested me in the beginning," said Dan Ricketts, who is in his second year with Project Opportunity. "There are a few extra classes and a lot more work, but it's worth it. I've gotten to know my professors a lot better and developed cool relationships with other people in my classes."

Among the college's top capital campaign goals is raising funds to further develop Project Opportunity.

"We're studying expanding Project Opportunity college-wide because of the strong interest and the apparent benefits," said Kathy Connor, program coordinator. "Our research indicates that Project Opportunity students have higher levels of professional thinking and behavior and a more holistic view of the U.S. educational system-these students see themselves as leaders and as team players. They are confident."

--Steve Sullivan, News Service

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