Learning Theory & the Liberal Arts

By Patricia L. Linn, J.D. Dawson Professor of Cooperative Education and Professor of Psychology

Reprinted with permission of LiberalArtsOnline - www.liberalarts.wabash.edu - and the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College

Educators at residential liberal arts colleges strive to prepare students for the future, but the communities our students will face are difficult to foresee: a job that hasn't been invented yet, a village whose sustainability or diversity cannot yet be imagined. No single learning theory can explain all aspects of a college experience, but situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger, 1991) suggests that a major impact of a residential liberal arts college experience may come from the repeated invitations across classes, work settings and campus residential life to enter new communities of practice. It may be that the key skill our students learn is how to enter a community as a newcomer. This skill allows lifelong learning, a goal common to college mission statements but one that has been elusive to define and measure.

Traditional learning theories focus on transmission of knowledge from professor to student and the subsequent transfer of that knowledge to the "real world." With that focus, options like distance learning or storefront campuses seem effective. SLT theorists disagree that learning is the transmission of knowledge; rather, they see learning as contextual, and the result of social participation.

Social participation is key in SLT because learners are viewed as newcomers entering communities of practice. Those central to a community of practice are called old-timers; they invite newcomers into legitimate, although peripheral, participation in their community. Old-timers strive to make the community transparent to newcomers, who move gradually toward center, welcoming in new newcomers as they themselves were welcomed.

Liberal arts professors, practiced old-timers in their disciplines, bring student newcomers regularly into their communities of practice via introductory classes. As liberal arts students move through their general education requirements, they are invited successively into legitimate peripheral participation as painters, biologists and historians. The newcomers come to act and talk like old-timers. Learning is reflected in activities (painting, experimenting, writing) that demonstrate understanding.

SLT also explains the power of our students’ learning outside the classroom in service learning, internships or cooperative education. When work is part of education, students have the additional opportunity to become newcomers in communities of practicing social workers, teachers, business professionals or politicians. Employers serve as old-timers who offer sequentially more central participation, ideally just outside the newcomer's comfort zone.

As citizens, we all live in communities that require democratic participation in order to be self-sustaining. How do we prepare students for citizenship? Here is the power of residentiality. In some ways, a residential liberal arts campus resembles a small city, but residential liberal arts communities offer more points of intersection and participation than do cities. College residents share classes, meals, extracurricular activities and living spaces, all of which promote intermingling and interaction. Older students serve as hall advisors and peer counselors, helping newcomers enter the community. Interaction across lines of disciplinary majors is more likely in liberal arts settings than in pre-professional programs where students only take classes with those in their program.

Some colleges go farther to involve students in democratic decision-making for their campus community. In the late 1940s Antioch College began encouraging students to staff key committees, with the goal of building critical thinking skills as they solve problems and confront differences. In these ways, a residential college can create a widening web of skilled social participants as graduates enter new living communities across the U.S. and worldwide. When students are skilled at adapting to change, they are ready for anything.

Lave, J. & Wegner, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral.

Participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.