Practices And Value Of A Professional Learning Community In Higher Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann T. Hilliard
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Community Setting ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
University Leaders ◽  
The University

It is important for leadership teams and faculty members in higher education to create an atmosphere of trust as new and improved ideas are addressed in a professional learning community setting. Prior to the past ten years, many faculty members at the university have been accustomed to working somewhat independently in their own discipline. However, today, more university leaders and faculty members are reaching out to one another to discuss issues or concerns within the organization. For the purpose of this research, emphasis will be placed on definition of a professional learning community, characteristics of a professional learning community, ways to improve teaching and learning, models of collaborative learning, effectiveness of professional learning communities and evaluating a professional learning community.

scholarly journals Potential of digital teaching portfolios for establishing a professional learning community in higher education

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Lai ◽  
Cher Ping Lim ◽  
Lixun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Learning Beliefs ◽  
Collective Case Study

<p>Digital teaching portfolios (DTPs) are increasingly adopted in higher education for various purposes such as assessment, learning, and showcasing. This paper reports on a collective case study of four teaching staff who have developed DTPs with an emphasis on building a professional learning community at a higher education institution. A number of themes emerged from the cross-case data analysis: the teaching staff used DTPs for both personal and social benefits; they found it important to link their DTPs with students’ learning; they developed DTPs at different levels (individual and group level); they aligned their DTPs with their underlying teaching and learning beliefs; and they found that technical and conceptual supports, as well as opportunities to discuss and share with colleagues, were necessary for the successful implementation of DTPs. The study suggests that DTPs could significantly enhance higher education teaching and learning, and through sharing of DTPs, teaching staff could build a professional learning community that enhances their capacity for teaching and professional learning.</p>

Attending to the Teacher in the Teaching: Prioritizing Faculty Well-Being

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Brianne H. Roos ◽  
Carey C. Borkoski
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

Purpose The purpose of this review article is to examine the well-being of faculty in higher education. Success in academia depends on productivity in research, teaching, and service to the university, and the workload model that excludes attention to the welfare of faculty members themselves contributes to stress and burnout. Importantly, student success and well-being is influenced largely by their faculty members, whose ability to inspire and lead depends on their own well-being. This review article underscores the importance of attending to the well-being of the people behind the productivity in higher education. Method This study is a narrative review of the literature about faculty well-being in higher education. The history of well-being in the workplace and academia, concepts of stress and well-being in higher education faculty, and evidence-based strategies to promote and cultivate faculty well-being were explored in the literature using electronic sources. Conclusions Faculty feel overburdened and pressured to work constantly to meet the demands of academia, and they strive for work–life balance. Faculty report stress and burnout related to excessively high expectations, financial pressures to obtain research funding, limited time to manage their workload, and a belief that individual progress is never sufficient. Faculty well-being is important for the individual and in support of scholarship and student outcomes. This article concludes with strategies to improve faculty well-being that incorporate an intentional focus on faculty members themselves, prioritize a community of well-being, and implement continuous high-quality professional learning.

A Model to Build an Intercultural Professional Learning Community in a Latin American Higher Education Network

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Piergiuseppe Ellerani
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Video Research ◽  
Education Network

This chapter concerns the research project carried out in a confederation of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in seven Latin American countries. Considering the intercultural background of IHE, the universities defined a new profile of their teachers and other human resources by setting up a new model of teaching and learning based on a “learning process” and shifting the paradigm of learning to “centered teaching.” In this chapter, three characteristics of this process are presented: the first one refers to the profile built as the “product” of an Intercultural Community of Thought; the second one refers to a participatory process, called “the value cycle,” as a working model that allows one to co-construct profiles of university teachers, administrative staff, and human resources staff; the third one presents the tools and the technologies using both of them (Personal and Social Virtual Learning Environment based on Web 2.0, the Human Resource Management Tool, Video-Research, E-Portfolio). The project, carried out through action-research, defines a shared idea of the quality of teaching, a research based and supported by tools, that allows teacher self-assessment as well as the possibility to monitor the quality of universities and to develop plans for continuous improvements by building a community of learning. Qualitative and quantitative studies' data are given.

scholarly journals Kuahuokalā: Reflections on Space and Ttransformative Education Conversations

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda ◽  
Stephanie Hauki Kamai ◽  
Michael Thomas Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Way

How can a place transform a conversation? In this paper the authors discuss how meeting to develop a professional learning community in a hale, a traditional native Hawaiian building, changed the course and direction of the learning community. Too often, departments and divisions of higher education are driven by external standards imposed by state and national accrediting and licensing agencies. The conceptions of education and the way it is implemented then is more focused on meeting the standard rather than coming to a deeper understanding of what can be accomplished for our communities in the name of education and how it can be achieved. Our PLC is intended to address this shortcoming by creating space of sharing, conversation and communal action. What emerged from our work within our relationship to the hale was an expression of the values, commitments and ideals that emerged through the context of our developing relationship. With a political desire for voice, we built a community that found meaning in the process of building something greater than ourselves, yet fundamentally immersed in our everyday lives.

scholarly journals 11. Peer Review: Structured, Informal, Confidential, Helpful!

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Cassidy ◽  
Jack Lee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Faculty Member ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Peer Teaching ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Peer Reviewers ◽  
The University

This paper 1 describes an introductory workshop, Preparing to be a Peer Reviewer, presented at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to give hands-on practice to faculty members and others in order to provide formative peer review upon request. This workshop, which was designed at the request of a faculty member, is complemented by an Advanced Workshop for peer reviewers. We show the ways in which we actively involved Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) conference participants in a session to learn about the introductory workshop, and talk about peer review more generally. We briefly describe the Peer Teaching Network, created in the Faculty of Science, as an adaptation of the initial introductory workshop.

Developing a Virtual Professional Learning Community for Online Faculty

2021 ◽  
pp. 311-334
Author(s):  
Alan Belcher ◽  
Jennifer Robinson ◽  
Kelly Olson-Stewart ◽  
Allison N. Rief
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Adjunct Faculty ◽  
Online Faculty ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
The University

Remote, online, virtual, adjunct faculty face a number of issues in performing their duties. One of the most important is their feeling of disconnect, both from working remotely and from not having on-going interactions with their peers and with fulltime faculty. Three research projects were performed to identify the needs, values, and organization of virtual professional learning communities for remote, online faculty at one university. The research included one project of the value of having the opportunity for faculty, while two others targeted specific groups of faculty within the university to analyze the methods of organizing an online learning community for faculty. The results have informed professional development for adjunct faculty at the university. A review of the literature from previous research is included.

scholarly journals Active Learning and Teacher Training: Lesson Study and Professional Learning Communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoko Ishii
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Active Learning ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Prospective Teachers ◽  
Lesson Study ◽  
The University

Active learning is an innovation of teaching and learning and strongly connected to teacher education reform. A teacher’s role in a knowledge-based society is being shifted from a knowledge teller to a facilitator. It is diï¬cult to shift a teacher’s perspective from “how to teach” to “how students learn.” However, through a collaborative lesson study, teachers can discuss students’ learning in a classroom. The university can function as a facilitator to cultivate a professional learning community. This paper discusses the practice of active learning in teacher training at the University of Fukui in Japan. The faculty provides active learning for prospective teachers to engage collaboratively in scientific inquiry using physics by inquiry. Based on the viewpoint that teacher development is a continuous, lifelong process, and the teacher is a reï¬ective practitioner, teacher training should also be an active, lifelong endeavor. Moreover, the system and structure of the lesson study and collaborative reï¬ection promote a professional learning community. Both pre-service and in-service teachers develop pedagogical content knowledge through repeated practice and reï¬ection.

scholarly journals PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY (PLC) AND TEACHER MOTIVATION AT SECONDARY SCHOOL IN JELI DISTRICT

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (42) ◽  
pp. 14-29
Author(s):  
Siti Noor Ismail ◽  
Wan Rosni Wan Yakob ◽  
Noraida Mustapai ◽  
Tuan Roslina Tuan Mat
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Teacher Motivation ◽  
Research Instrument ◽  
Quality Of Teaching ◽  
High Level

The Professional Learning Community (PLC) practice is a strategy to encourage collaboration among teachers in schools to create more quality of teaching and student achievement can be improved. However, the practice of PLC is still not fully implemented because there are still school leaders who are incompetent in management and also teachers do not understand the practice of PLC in more depth. Therefore, this study aims to identify the level of PLC practice and the level of teacher motivation in five secondary schools, Jeli District. Quantitative methods are used where the questionnaire is as a research instrument. A total of 171 teachers in the schools participated by answering the questionnaires that were distributed. The research instrument to measure PLC practice was adapted from the Professional Learning Community Assessment-Revised (PLCA-R) while the Assessment of Teacher Motivation Questionnaire (ATMQ) was used to measure the level of teacher motivation. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26.0. The results of the study found that the practice of PLC and teacher motivation is implemented at a high level. The implications of this study showed that the practice of KPP is very important to be implemented in schools to increase teacher motivation which in turn can further improve the quality of teaching and learning towards student excellence.

scholarly journals What do university teachers do all day (and often into the night)?'

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Josie Arnold ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
University Research ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Teaching and the student experience are interlocked. This paper takes a personal look at the pleasures and pressures of teaching in contemporary higher education. In doing so it adds to the definition of teachers’ work in higher education, surveys some of the creative and positive sides of University teaching and shines a light upon the impact of increased commercialisation and managerial approaches upon academic work. It focuses upon the teaching and learning activities that academics undertake in the service of the university, including the research that adds to and updates their own knowledge, and hence underpins their teaching, so as to enable and enrich the learning journeys of their students. This paper has been written as a personal narrative, as what I have come to call a ‘subjective academic narrative’. The ‘subjective’ refers to acknowledgement of the inevitability of the personal being an integral part of research; the ‘academic’ refers to the analytical and the intellectual ambience in which university research takes place; and the ‘narrative’ refers to the story, that is, the way in which we re-tell all of our research. Above all, this paper contributes to a sense of understanding some of the elements of teaching that are involved in student engagement.

scholarly journals Professional Learning Community in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.30) ◽  
pp. 433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslizam Hassan ◽  
Jamilah Ahmad ◽  
Yusof Boon
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Teacher Needs

The professional learning community (PLC) is a platform for teachers to share their opinions and experiences especially with respect to the quality of teaching and learning processes (PdP). This partnership gives teachers more added value because they have the opportunity to improve their self-esteem and to keep in pace with the developments in the education world. This concept paper will discuss a number of issues related to PLCs such as PLC's background and development, PLC definitions, the development of PLC concept, PLC models and the issues and challenges that exist in implementing PLC. The analysis was done in the context of Malaysia and abroad. The paper is written based on extensive secondary data analysis. After examining all matters related to PLC, it can be concluded that PLC is a form of partnership that every school teacher needs to practice either in the context of education in Malaysia or anywhere in order to drive excellence in a school. With a lot of challenges nowadays regarding the implementation of PLC, this issue needs to be addressed so that the quality of teachers can be enhanced and will further influence the students' academic achievement.  

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