Page 27 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)

Learning to Learn Camps (1995)
Learning to Learn Camps are five-day intensive experiences that model how every student can
become a successful collegiate learner by learning how to learn and developing a growth mindset.
In 1989, Pacific Crest conducted dozens of demonstrations
at colleges across the country, asking teams of freshmen to
compete against teams of seniors in a learning challenge.
Time and again, the seniors performed no better than
the freshmen. “Though the seniors might have had more
facts at their disposal and knew more, they had no greater
facility in learning than did the freshmen. It was evident
that if learning were to be improved, someone needed to
teach students to how to learn” (Apple, Ellis & Hintze,
2015). Teaching students to learn became one of the top
goals for Pacific Crest.
Curricula
The first step in this process was for Pacific Crest, with the of hourly learning activities. Students were assessed by
help of many faculty in the Process Education community,
to design and publish curricula that would successfully
support learning to learn.
The initial set of materials identified included A Fresh Look point system to help make an engaging, competitive, and
at Math and Graphing Skills (Merton & Apple, 1992),
Learning Through Problem Solving (Apple, Beyerlein &
Schlesinger, 1992), Learning Assessment Journal (Carroll
& Apple, 1995), and the Life Vision Portfolio component
of Foundations of Learning (Pacific Crest, 1995a). During
1996, the curriculum was standardized with three books:
Foundations of Learning (Krumsieg & Baehr, 1996),
Learning Assessment Journal (Carroll & Beyerlein, 1996),
and Math and Graphing Skills (Merton & Apple, 1992).
With the integration of the self-grower model and the
activity “Becoming a Self-Grower” in Foundations of
Learning (3rd ed.) (Krumsieg & Baehr, 2000), the Learning
to Learn Camp curriculum not only supported the personal
growth of students (and faculty) but also became a way
to help learners develop the ability to shepherd their own
growth. Where previously they had only been learning
to learn; now they were also “learning to grow.” Support
of student self-growth was again strengthened with the
creation of the Life Vision Portfolio in 2002 (Mettauer).
The curriculum used in today’s Learning to Learn Camps is
more polished and contains more tools, but is very similar
to the curriculum of 10 years ago: the Student Success
Toolbox (Pacific Crest, 2011), which is based on the
Learning Assessment Journal but greatly expanded; Math
and Graphing Skills (4th ed.) (Lawrence, Burke, & Hintze,
2008); and the fourth edition of Foundations of Learning
(Redfield & Hurley Lawrence, 2009), the redesign of
which was informed by feedback and lessons learned from
International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1)
LD
14 years of designing, facilitating, and assessing Learning
to Learn Camps. One of the features of this text is its fully
integrated Life Vision Portfolio.
Practice
The first opportunity to use these materials in a week-long
camp came in 1994 with 20 foster children in Scranton,
Pennsylvania. The results of this experience were so
positive that camp organizers worked to find the resources
necessary to hold the first Learning to Learn Camp in the
summer of 1995. The first camp focused on developing
student learning skills by organizing the students into
learning teams led by faculty coaches through a schedule
their coaches during activities in mathematics, physics,
calculus, economics, and career planning, with the goal of
assessment being to improve student learning performance.
Because the camp was performance-based, it used a
challenging learning and problem-solving environment
(Pacific Crest, 1995b).
While there have been changes in the design and logistics
of the Learning to Learn Camps, they are surprisingly
few. The greatest changes have been the broadening of the
focus of activities, as informed by the newer curriculum.
The general logistics of the Learning to Learn Camps and
the experiences by multiple colleges are presented in the
Faculty Guidebook module, Learning-to-Learn Camps
(Armstrong, Anderson & Nancarrow, 2007); the website
www.learningtolearncamp.com offers additional information
about the structure and organization of the camps, more
about the curriculum, feedback from past participants, and
a manual for facilitators.
Integration of the Camp
Because the general focus of the Learning to Learn Camp
is on learning to learn and learning to grow, it lends it-
self particularly well to integration with larger campus- or
college-based programs seeking to better equip students
and faculty with critical learning and teaching skills. In
2000, for example, the Learning to Learn Camp became
an integral part of the Emerging Scholars Program at the
Kuskokwim Campus of the University of Alaska, Fair-
banks – College of Rural and Community Development
(Kuskokwim, 2015). The Learning to Learn Camp has
been integrated as part of a professional development pro-
gram at Madison Area Technical College (MATC) where,
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