“Our Stories”: First-year Learning Communities Students Reflections on the Transition to College

Authors

Karen Goodlad, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
Sandra Cheng, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
Jennifer Sears, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
Mery Diaz, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
Ashwin Satyanarayana, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
Phil Freniske, HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral StudiesFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2019

Abstract

Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective narratives shows this population of students at an urban commuter college of technology face significant challenges in the transition into college. Designed to assist in this transition, the “Our Stories” digital writing project incorporates reflective writing in the long established, yet recently revitalized, learning communities program. Through analysis of the “Our Stories” project, we examine how the structure of our learning communities program, together with writing on an open digital platform, builds community and has the potential to positively influence students as they identify, and begin to make sense, of the social, emotional, and bureaucratic challenges in their transition

Comments

This article originally appeared in Learning Communities Research and Practice (LCRP), available at https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol7/iss2/5/

© 2019 Goodlad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License.