Staff Focus Group Questions: Learning Commons
Kim Ward Responses
2.18.2010
Moderated by Andy Duckworth
Introduction
Over the last 3-4 years, the five Learning Resource Centers have periodically discussed the concept
of the learning commons as a means to take a more collaborative and integrated approach to delivering our
services to students. We are re-starting this conversation because we believe that:
o
many students have needs that broach 2 or more of the 5 LRC areas and that we sometimes find
ourselves ill-equipped to respond and/or unable to address student needs in a holistic manner
o though we’ve tried some small collaborative efforts, we need a bigger scheme to collaborate
o we need to step back and make strategic, long term decisions
o we want to tie our work to larger campus goals esp. around learning and student support
As we get started, we believe that listening to perspectives from across campus will be very helpful, so we
need your help today. We are interviewing staff, faculty and students to better understand several things:
current perceptions of LRC services, existing problems with service delivery among the LRCs, and a vision
of what a new model might look like.
For background, you should know that though we have representatives from Student Services and
Faculty on our team, we are focusing only on changes for the LRCs which may include:
o redesign of service and/or resource delivery, both mediated & unmediated (for example,
the LRC portal pages)
o recommended staffing levels and realignments
o redesign/realignment of existing spaces and/or a proposal for new spaces to best address
needs
We certainly hope to forge new partnerships across campus, as well. We appreciate your time and your
frank comments today. Do you have any questions before we get started?
1. Which of the following Learning Resource Centers do you send students to frequently (once a
week), infrequently, or never? (raise hands)
Frequent
Infrequent
Never
MARC
x
WTC
x
Library
x
Info Commons
x
CAL Lab, Language Center
x
or Study Skills Center
2. Is there a typical time during each quarter, or during the school year, that you most frequently send
students to one or more of the Centers?
MARC – All Quarter
WTC – All Quarter
Library – All Quarter
Info Commons – All Quarter
CAL, Language Center – All Quarter
or Study Skills Center
3. What kind of feedback do you get from students? Suggested I email faculty this question.
MARC
WTC
Library
Info Commons
CAL, Language Center
or Study Skills Center
4. What do you believe are the benefits of each Center? Utilization of all centers prepares students
for college and helps them take responsibility for their learning.
MARC
WTC
Library
Info Commons
CAL, Language Center
or Study Skills Center
5. Are there Centers to which you used to refer students that you now refer to less frequently or not at
all? Why? No
MARC
WTC
Library
Info Commons
CAL, Language Center
or Study Skills Center
6. MECA/CASA also offers tutoring support. On what occasions, if any, do you send students there
rather than to the WTC or MARC? Not very often.
7. To what extent do you think that students are aware of LRC services? Fairly aware as instructors
list the services in the syllabus.
8. In a case of information overload, students may have heard of our services but can’t remember the
details when they really need to use them. How can we more effectively market these services at
the point of critical need? Unified marketing approach. Consistency across centers. Maybe create
some kind of flyer that lists all the centers and their services. Include a map with symbols/colors for
each center and use same symbols/colors in centers.
9. In your experience at TCC, what are the biggest challenges faced by students that you feel TCC has
some control over? There aren’t enough resources for student support services. Departments do a
great job, but need more resources so they can do more. Student support is necessary.
Sometimes the centers are confusing to students. They don’t always know where to go for what
service or even what services are available to them.
10. TCC offers a range of learning resources and services to support the classroom experience. We
like to think of these services as providing “wrap-around learning.” If you could improve one thing
about these resources and services, what would it be? Standardization. Getting everyone on the
same page.
11. Is there anything that we’ve failed to ask that you think is important for us to hear? No.