Learning Communities: Moving beyond Classroom Walls

Abstract

The College Park Sholars Program at the University of Maryland is a learning community created on the model of a residential college, designed to attract and retain academically talented undergraduates. Faculty agreed to require an experiential learning component as part of a coherent curriculum that builds toward an academic citation over two years. Three experiential learning components they designed for students enrolled in the program were colloquia, service learning units, and Discovery Projects, all of which draw widely from the Metropolitan BaltimoreWashington community.