Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs)
FLC Pilot 2008-2009
"A faculty learning community (FLC) is a cross-disciplinary faculty group engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong program about enhancing teaching and learning and activities that provide learning, development, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building. A faculty participant in a faculty learning community selects a focus course to try out innovations, assess resulting student learning(etc) and presents project results to the campus... Evidence shows that FLCs increase faculty interest in teaching and learning and provide safety and support for faculty to investigate, attempt, assess, and adopt new (to them) methods."
-Miami University FLC web site (http://www.units.muohio.edu/flc/whatis.php)
Long-term goals of FLCs:
- build University-wide community around teaching and learning
- investigate and incorporate ways that diversity can enhance teaching and learning
- nourish the scholarship of teaching and its application to student learning
- broaden the evaluation of teaching and the assessment of learning
- increase faculty collaboration across disciplines
- encourage reflection about liberal education and coherence of learning across disciplines
- increase the recognition and prestige of excellent teaching
- create an awareness of the complexity of teaching and learning
CTI is piloting 3 FLCs this year. Research has shown that FLCs are not only extremely effective mechanisms for faculty development that result in increased student learning, they also are enriching social experiences. FLCs engage complex problems, energize and empower participants, nourish scholarly teaching and create an awareness of the complexity of teaching and learning.* FLCs have been launched at over 60 institutions of higher education since their start at Miami University of Ohio and each institution adapts them to their own special needs. If you see a topic in which you have a strong interest and you can attend all scheduled meetings, join us and help us determine how to ensure the success of FLCs at SSC!
The following 3 FLCs are now underway. Watch your e-mail in the spring for announcements about next year's communities.
- The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Elizabeth Coughlan facilitating. - Teaching and Learning in a Web 2.0 Environment.
Peter Oehlkers facilitating - Designing and Teaching Hybrid Courses.
Marc Boots-Ebenfield facilitating
*Cox, M & Richlin, L. (2004) Building faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 97. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.