Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 4th February at 8pm GMT with guest Prof Stephen Rutherford to discuss how can we empower students to be part of a larger university ‘Learning Community’?

Humans are social animals; we build communities. Universities are themselves built of numerous intersecting communities, each with their own core identities – students, professional services, educators, ‘teaching and research-focused’, ‘teaching and scholarship-focused’, etc (Henkel, 2000). Communities can be powerful, if they are mutually supportive, and if they are inclusive. Arguably, as educational institutions, the most important community in a university is the ‘Learning Community’. But are our university learning communities as comprehensive and functional as they could be, or is there a divide that hinders its effectiveness?

Learning communities are groups of people who share common goals and work collaboratively (Tinto, 1997). There are examples of these in both the academic plenary and the student body. Students naturally form learning communities (reviewed by West & Williams, 2017). Learning communities can provide mutual support, a feeling of belonging, and ease transitions. Networking is important for students as they develop. At the micro level, students readily form networks of support, ‘Personal Learning Networks’ (PLNs; Fair, 2019) with peers, friends and (if provided the opportunities to collaborate in the pedagogic environment) course-mates. These PLNs are self-constructed, unique to each student, and enable students to identify whom to turn to for support. PLNs overlap reciprocally with other students, and evolve and reorganise over time (Rutherford, 2019). But learning communities are broader than these PLNs. Lenning et al. (2013) identify three interconnected learning communities: The student learning community (SLC), the professional/academic learning community (PLC), and learning organisations (LO). The SLC intersects with both the PLC and LO, and contains student-student, student-faculty, and student-curriculum interactions within it. There are therefore potential links between different learning community structures. But are these links as powerful as they could be, and how do we encourage members of the SLC into the PLC?

An effective learning community is a partnership between the learners and the educators. Importantly, that partnership involves two-way interaction and interplay. This interaction can be either face-to-face, online, or a mixture of both. Lenning et al. (2013) stress that powerful learning communities can empower students to excel over and above what they could achieve in isolation. Effective learning communities foster improved outcomes for students, higher academic achievement, increased retention, improved thinking and communication, greater understanding of self and others, and increased social effectiveness. Effective learning communities can also support students who are underachieving, or who are facing mental health challenges (Lenning & Ebbers, 1999). Being part of an effective learning community can impact upon the student’s transition to, transition through, and performance at, university. The more impactful learning communities in universities are underpinned by partnership between students and staff, where students are respected as equal contributors. Healey et al. (2014) provide excellent suggestions on how to build partnerships with students that empower them as change-makers and co-creators. This shared responsibility and equal agency is fundamental to a true learning community.

However, in practice there is typically a visible, and potentially damaging, disconnect between the student and academic learning communities in the HE sector. Although they intersect, they don’t necessarily interact as a partnership. This disconnect can lead to problems in communication, mismatched expectations, and low satisfaction with the educational environment (Rutherford, 2019). Yet the whole premise of a university should be that the students are effectively less-experienced versions of the academics, and therefore on the same continuum of development. As educators we need to ensure that we encourage our learners along this continuum. Socio-cultural models of learning emphasise that learning is typically (though not always) an interaction between more and less experienced individuals – a collaborative activity, undertaken by social interactions (Bruner, 1996). In particular, ‘apprenticeship’ models of learning emphasise guided interactions between learners and more-experienced others. Rogoff’s ‘guided participation’ (Rogoff, 2003), Vygotsky’s ‘Zone of Peripheral Development’ (Vygotsky, 1978), and Lave and Wenger’s ‘Legitimate Peripheral Participation’ within a Community of Practice (CoP; Lave and Wenger, 1991) present how a naïve learner becomes more expert. The learner, who is often initially on the periphery of a CoP, is paired with a more-experienced other. The learner becomes increasingly encultured within that CoP by increasingly complex interactions with the more experienced guide. Mercer’s ‘Intermental Development Zone’ (IDZ, Mercer, 1996) emphasises that this learning is reciprocal, and can occur between two learners, as well as between a learner and an expert. These models, however, assume that the learner and the expert are part of a progressive continuum of expertise within the same community of practice. Yet in universities, students and academics often perceive themselves as separate communities. This divide is made even more stark in a highly commercialised HE sector, where students are ‘customers’, and where universities are increasingly forced by financial pressures to recruit high numbers and ‘teach efficiently’. This situation induces a ‘them and us’ mentality on both sides of the potential partnership. Academic staff are critical of students’ lack of engagement, while students are critical of faculties’ lack of individualised support. Limited contact time, workload pressures, and large class sizes worsen this divide.

So what would be the benefits of encouraging a more integrated learning community? One of the immediate benefits would be for students to see themselves as belonging to a larger whole, and (more importantly) feeling connected to the organisation. Visibly embedding both students and educators within the same learning community would help signpost disciplinary practices to the student that would make the learning experience more authentic. The student would potentially find it easier to ‘learn the rules of the game’ for their discipline, if it was clear that they were considered to be members of that discipline (albeit relatively junior ones). Learning communities also help foster and agentic identity, aligned with the discipline as well as the institution. We already see this with vocational degrees such as medicine, where the students typically have a strong identity aligned with their School and discipline. There is also potential positive impact on metrics such as the NSS. If individuals feel a sense of belonging within an organisation, with a better understanding parameters influencing how the organisation functions, they may be more tolerant of any potential rough edges or shortcomings that organisation might have.

The challenge, therefore, is how to frame university learning, and the university environment, to empower students to feel (and more importantly actually be) part of an integrated learning community. To be active agents in that community, rather than as passive recipients of a ‘product’, separate to the community of academics. Making the relationship truly collaborative and mutual would have the effect of enhancing both sides’ investment in the learning process: Increasing student satisfaction with their courses, increasing engagement, and even potentially reducing some students’ desire to cut corners by using generative AI. 

A recent discussion group of colleagues from 8 universities across Europe, led by the European University Association (Rutherford et al., 2025) tackled this question of how best to empower students, and develop partnerships with academic staff. We identified several potential ways in which students could be empowered to be part of a collective whole, and a mutualistic community with (at least some) shared goals. A key point of agreement within this discussion group was that any empowerment approach needed to be genuine and meaningful, and not just a superficial cosmetic exercise, “ticking a box” for student partnership. Empowering students in this way benefits all parties involved, but it needs active engagement and commitment on both sides to make it happen.

So, how best to go about it?

Bruner, J. (1996). The culture of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fair, N. (2019) Understanding the networked student: how personal learning networks are used for learning. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Healey, M., Flint, A. & Harrington, K. (2014) Engagement through partnership: Students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. York: HE Academy.

Henkel, M. (2000). Academic identities and policy change in Higher Education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lenning, O. T., & Ebbers, L. H. (1999). The powerful potential of learning communities: Improving education for the future. Washington D.C.: George Washington Universiity Press.

Lenning, O. T., Hill, D. M., Saunders, K. P., Stokes, A., & Solan, A. (2013). Powerful Learning Communities: A guide to developing student, faculty, and professional learning communities to improve student success and organizational effectiveness. Sterling, VA.: Stylus.

Mercer, N. (1996). Words and minds: How we use language to think together. London: Routledge.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rutherford, S. 2019. ‘Flying the nest’: An analysis of the development of self-regulated learning during the transition to Higher Education. Ed.D Thesis. University of Reading. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/124834/

Rutherford, S., Francis, N. and Peterbauer, H. (2025). Learning and teaching to empower students: Thematic peer group report. Project Report.[Online].European University Association. Available at: https://www.eua.eu/publications/reports/learning-and-teaching-to-empower-students.html.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

West, R. E., & Williams, G. S. (2017). “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”: A proposed framework for defining learning communities. Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(6), 1569-1582. doi:10.1007/s11423-017-9535-0

Speaker Bio

https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/rutherfords

https://www.eat-erasmus.org/