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 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 book about communities of practice in the international, higher education sector, the authors articulate the theoretical foundations of communities of practice (CoPs), research into their application in higher education, leadership roles and how CoPs sustain and support professional learning. Research demonstrates that communities of practice build professional and personal links both within and across faculty, student services and administrative and support units. This book describes how community of practice members may be physically co-located and how social media can be used to connect members across geographically diverse locations. It positions higher education communities of practice within the broader community of practice and social learning literature, and articulates the importance of community of practice leadership roles, and the growing focus on the use of social media for community of practice implementation. The multiple perspectives provide higher education leaders, academic and professional staff with the means to establish, or reflect on existing CoPs, by sharing insights and critical reflections on their implementation strategies, practical guidelines and ideas on how community of practice’s theoretical underpinnings can be tailored to the higher education context.

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.

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.

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.

Faculty Development: Creating a Collaborative Culture in Community Colleges addresses how faculty developers work with changes and challenges in teaching within the community college context. Using a multi-case study design based on semi-structured interviews, document analysis, focus groups and surveys, the book examines faculty development within six community college contexts. Three of these case studies, conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic, attended to how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) were pillars for faculty development. The other three case studies feature the pivot that faculty developers and faculty made at their institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In these cases, it is seen how faculty development shifts from long-term, sustained initiatives such as SOTL and FLCs to just-in-time (JiT) faculty development, as well as virtual and collaborative faculty development. As teaching models continue to evolve and faculty development takes hold in community colleges, this book features the role of collaboration as an essential component of faculty development, as well as what supports exist within the community college context to provide faculty with continual professional development.

This book offers a game plan for developing faculty expertise in student success pedagogies across disciplines through hundreds of supported faculty learning communities (FLC). Using the FLC as a foundation and offering support and training for individual faculty moderators/facilitators, the program establishes systemwide conversations around selected topics and pedagogies. The topics have been selected as evidence-based practices that can be used across the disciplines to inform faculty and support student success in undergraduate coursework. These pedagogies include: transparency in learning and teaching (TiLT), inclusive pedagogy, course redesign, mindset, High Impact Practices, strategies from neuroscience, Small Teaching, and SoTL. The program is set in motion by nominations for facilitators (Chancellor’s Learning Scholars, CLS) from institutional academic leaders, an individual application, and confirmation. Training for the CLS is provided by the system’s Office of Faculty Development and supported by directors of the institutional teaching centers. The formation of each FLC, the identification of course products and changes emerging from the FLC, and the full story of each FLC is contained in the annual report. All told, the program has involved 2500 faculty and thousands of course changes. Finally, the book offers evaluation of three types—by USG office, by system’s teaching center directors, and by the analysis of the final reports submitted each year.

Explore an important, yet understudied concept: faculty scholarly learning. Taking a broad view, this volume explains how scholarly learning is defined and conceptualized by scholars. The authors synthesize the recent literature and organize the findings according to Boyers four forms of scholarship (discovery, teaching, engagement, and integration). They then offer a counternarrative to faculty scholarly learning and the ways in which it is enacted and supported. Recommendations for developing, supporting, and evaluating faculty scholarly learning are also presented. This volume answers: What does scholarly learning look like at different types of institutions? What contexts and/or supports hinder or help faculty members scholarly learning at the different institutional types? What challenges are noted in the extant literature on faculty work around further study or better understanding of faculty members scholarly learning across institutional types? This is the second issue of the 43rd volume of the Jossey-Bass series ASHE Higher Education Report. Each monograph is the definitive analysis of a tough higher education issue, based on thorough research of pertinent literature and institutional experiences. Topics are identified by a national survey. Noted practitioners and scholars are then commissioned to write the reports, with experts providing critical reviews of each manuscript before publication.