An Interdisciplinary Learning Community of Education and Psychology Majors

Abstract

The researchers conducted a qualitative case study to describe the experiences (over the course of a semester) of an interdisciplinary team of three special education and three psychology undergraduates who participated in a relational learning community and a graduate student who designed and facilitated this learning community. An Associate Professor and special education researcher oversaw and co-facilitated the project. The design of the learning community promoted the building of rapport and trust among the group members and the progress of the group toward a common goal of incorporating principles from psychology to develop teaching strategies for students who are struggling in math and experiencing severe math anxiety. Gathering more frequent and individualized feedback would have helped the learning community facilitator make some key adjustments earlier in the project, but the incorporation of rapport building activities that supported trust and collaboration among the group was supportive of group progress toward a common goal. We learned key lessons about how to design and implement a learning community that can be applied to the field of education, interdisciplinary collaboration, and other contexts.

Keywords

• relational learning communities
• mathematics learning
• math anxiety