Changing our colleges and universities into learning institutions has become increasingly important at the same time it has become more difficult. Faculty learning communities have proven to be effective for addressing institutional challenges, from preparing the faculty of the future and reinvigorating senior faculty, to implementing new courses, curricula, and campus initiatives on diversity and technology. The results of faculty learning community programs parallel for faculty members the results of student learning communities for students, such as retention, deeper learning, respect for other cultures, and greater civic participation. The chapters in this issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning describe from a practitioner's perspective the history, development, implementation, and results of faculty learning communities across a wide range of institutions and purposes. Institutions are invited to use this volume to initiate faculty learning communities on their campuses. This is the 97th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning.

This edited book on Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) provides and explores powerful examples of FLCs as a impactful form of professional learning for faculty in higher education. The chapters describe faculty learning community initiatives across different fields of study and within dynamic and flexible teaching and learning models. Contributing authors provide a framework for faculty learning communities, show the impact of faculty learning communities on teaching practices or student learning, and describe how these communities of practice can lead to institutional change. The book’s foreword, by Milton D. Cox, investigates the changes in the FLC world over the past decade: the influence of Communities of Practices (CoP), recent recommendations about virtual FLCs and CoPs, and the positive affirmation for FLCs that implementation science has provided.

This edited book on Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) explores the ways in which FLCs have expanded across platforms, spaces, and focus while maintaining the core values and elements of original FLCs. The first section investigates ways that FLCs support faculty retention, teaching, and scholarship. The second section offers examples of FLCs focused on teaching that is responsive to student learning. The third section explores the move to online and virtual FLCs. The fourth section explores FLCs that create and foster faculty belonging, communities of care, and the integration of mindfulness. The fifth section looks at multi-year, long-term progression and impact of FLCs. The book’s foreword, by Milton D. Cox, investigates the evolution of leadership of and within faculty learning communities as they expand.

This book introduces community college faculty and faculty developers to the use of faculty learning communities (FLCs) as a means for faculty themselves to investigate and surmount student learning problems they encounter in their classrooms, and as an effective and low-cost strategy for faculty developers working with few resources to stimulate innovative teaching that leads to student persistence and improved learning outcomes.Two-year college instructors face the unique challenge of teaching a mix of learners, from the developmental to high-achievers, that requires using a variety of instructional strategies and techniques. Even the most experienced teachers can find this diversity demanding.Faculty developers at many two-year colleges still rely solely on the one-day workshop model that, while useful, rarely results in sustained student-centered changes in pedagogy or the curriculum, and may not be practicable for the growing cohort of part-time faculty members.By linking work in the classroom with scholarship and reflection, FLCs provide participants with a sense of renewed engagement and stimulate collegial exploration of ways to achieve educational excellence. FLCs are usually faculty-instigated and cross-disciplinary, and comprise groups of six to fifteen faculty that work collaboratively through regular meetings over an extended period of time to promote research and an exchange of experiences, foster community, and develop the scholarship of teaching. FLCs alleviate burnout and isolation, promote the development, testing, and peer review of new classroom strategies or technologies, and lead to the reenergizing and professionalization of teachers.This book introduces the reader to FLCs and to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, offering examples of application in two-year colleges. Individual chapters describe, among others, an FLC set up to support course redesign; an “Adjunct Connectivity FLC” to integrate part-time faculty within a department and collaborate on the curriculum; a cross-disciplinary FLC to promote student self-regulated learning, and improve academic performance and persistence; a critical thinking FLC that sought to define critical thinking in separate disciplines, examine interdisciplinary cross-over of critical thinking, and measure critical thinking more accurately; an FLC that researched the transfer of learning and developed strategies to promote students’ application of their learning across courses and beyond the classroom. Each chapter describes the formation of its FLC, the processes it engaged in, what worked and did not, and the outcomes achieved.Just as when college faculty fail to remain current in their fields, the failure to engage in continuing development of teaching skills, will equally lead teaching and learning to suffer. When two-year college administrators restrain scholarship and reflection as inappropriate for the real work of the institution they are in fact hindering the professionalization of their teaching force that is essential to institutional mission and student success.When FLCs are supported by leaders and administrators, and faculty learn that collaboration and peer review are valued and even expected as part of being a teaching professional, they become intrinsically motivated and committed to collaboratively solving problems, setting the institution on a path to becoming a learning organization that is proactive and adept at navigating change.

Faculty learning communities are a fairly new ideology that is gaining traction among educators and institutions. These communities have numerous benefits on professional development such as enhancing educator preparedness and learning. The possibilities of these communities are endless; however, further study is required to understand how these learning communities work and the best practices and challenges they face. Experiences and Research on Enhanced Professional Development Through Faculty Learning Communities shares the experiences and research related to the enhanced professional development received by university faculty and staff participating in a series of collaborative faculty learning communities. The book, using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies, considers educator experiences as participants in the faculty learning communities, what they learned, and how they applied and implemented best practices in their courses. Covering topics such as curricula, course design, and rubrics, this reference book is ideal for administrators, higher education professionals, program developers, program directors, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

The role of educational developer in the realm of service-learning and community engagement (S-LCE) is multidimensional. Given the potentially transformational nature--for both faculty and students--of the experiences and courses in whose design they may be directly or indirectly involved, as well as their responsibility to the communities served by these initiatives, they have to be particularly attentive to issues of identity, values, and roles. As both practitioners and facilitators, they are often positioned as third-space professionals.This edited volume provides educational developers and community engagement professionals an analysis of approaches to faculty development around service-learning and community engagement. Using an openly self-reflective approach, the contributors to this volume offer an array of examples and models, as well as realistic strategies, to empower readers to evolve their faculty development efforts in service-learning and community engagement on their respective campuses. It is also a call for recognition that the practice of S-LCE needs to be institutionalized and improved. The book further addresses the field’s potential contributions to scholarship, such as the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), publicly engaged scholarship, and collaborative inquiry, among others.The case studies provide an outline of program models and promising practices, including an authentic analysis of the institutional context within which they operate, the positionality of the practitioner-scholars overseeing them, the resources required, and the evidence related to both successes and challenges of these approaches.The contributed chapters are organized under four themes: the landscape of faculty development and community engagement; models of faculty development in S-LCE; challenges and opportunities in pedagogy and partnerships; and engendering change in educational development.

Learning communities have been demonstrated to dramatically improve student outcomes by engaging students in their learning.This book constitutes a comprehensive guide for readers who want a broad strategic view of learning communities, enabling them to identify which type of LC best meets the learning needs of their students, and the context and mission of their institution. It also provides the tools for planning, designing and implementing what the authors define as “powerful” LCs, and for understanding the assessment implications of their decisions.The potential power of LCs is realized through effective facilitation, appropriate team-building activities, linkages, planning, and active collaboration that promotes learning of the group and the individual group members – all of which topics are covered in this volume.This book is organized around the three themes of setting the stage, designing an LC, and building or enhancing a powerful LC, and covers three types of learning communities – student, professional (faculty, staff), and institutional LCs concerned with student learning – providing a range of tools and forms to facilitate planning. The authors also address designing and maintaining hybrid and virtual LCs. This book is intended as a practical resource for anyone at any level in higher education who wants to champion, develop or redesign student or professional LCs, or even explore broader initiatives to develop their institution into a “learning organization”. Administrators in academic and student affairs will find guidance for setting appropriate policies and allocating resources. The book may also serve as a textbook for graduate courses in institutional leadership and policy studies, curriculum and instruction, student affairs, or assessment/evaluation.

Faculty development is essential for promoting excellence in teaching and research, supporting institutional goals, and creating a culture of continuous learning that benefits both faculty members and students. However, educational institutions do not always allocate adequate resources towards supporting their faculty's professional development, especially from the institutional level. Underfunding this support can lead to the inability to attend conferences to keep up with the latest research and pedagogical practices in their fields, the inability to conduct meaningful research, and lack of access to modern technologies. This in turn can limit faculty growth and harm student learning outcomes. Ultimately, faculty who do not feel supported by their institutions can become disengaged or leave. This book attempts to address the needs of faculty from institutions where there may not be adequate resources to support robust faculty development activities. The chapters are written by faculty development experts in the US and Europe who understand the disparities between institutions and want to share programs that can be implemented for little or no cost. Each chapter provides objective, content, implementation, and evaluation details that can be used to replicate the program at other institutions. The hope is to begin to level the playing field in faculty development through sharing successful low resource programs with proven outcomes.

In this volume, the authors contend that teaching and learning must be viewed as communal work, whether conducted in one classroom, with colleagues at a programmatic level, or when tackled on a university-wide scale. When educators partner with faculty colleagues or students in teaching and learning, it becomes possible to improve the educational experiences of all students, model professional behaviors that students will soon be expected to embrace, and positively impact graduates, peers, campuses, and even communities at large. By intentionally creating collaborative structures for communal work to occur, educators can broaden access to opportunities for students, improve engagement experiences within the community, and improve faculty support and scholarship. Exploring multiple perspectives on collaborative structures in teaching and learning, this volume discusses ways to consider the collaborative structures within education that allow for shared contributions to teaching and learning. It discusses the need for practitioners to view teaching and learning as truly communal work, regardless of the type of setting. This is the 148th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education series. It offers a comprehensive range of ideas and techniques for improving college teaching based on the experience of seasoned instructors and the latest findings of educational and psychological researchers.

This volume covers the many issues and concepts of how inquiry-based learning (IBL) can be applied to faculty and institutional development. This volume serves as a conceptual and practical resource and guide for educators and offers practical examples of IBL in action and diverse strategies for how to implement IBL in different contexts.