Planning, Implementing, and Assessing an OER Faculty Learning Community: A Facilitator’s Lens

A librarian-led Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on Open Educational Resources (OER) can be a practical, low risk way to sustain campus-based OER programs during and after initial start-up. Creating a space for sharing teaching successes and challenges is an important goal in the iterative journey toward open. The experiences and trust fostered in an FLC can help grow awareness of and commitment to adopting, deepening, and expanding a culture of openness. FLCs provide an opportunity to lean into open that enhances cross-campus relationships, identifies gaps, and emphasizes collegiality while moving toward enriched teaching and learning. They provide a launching point for sharing pedagogical practice, and a valuable venue for new ideas. Key strategies for planning, implementing, and assessing a multidisciplinary OER faculty learning community are highlighted. Practical advice is emphasized to support successful outcomes that can be easily replicated. Ten top takeaways are summarized from a year spent facilitating an OER FLC in a four-year, public, comprehensive college that included the shift to online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it concludes with suggested next steps for continuing the OER conversation among faculty, students, librarians, instructional designers, teaching and learning center staff, administration, and other stakeholders.

Foreword: Special Issue on Scholarly Teaching

This special issue contains peer-reviewed papers presented during an organized session on scholarly teaching at the 2021 LSA Annual Meeting. The session was organized by an NSF-sponsored Faculty Learning Community that was formed in 2019 to build capacity among a cohort of linguists to advocate for scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching learning (SoTL).

A close look at change: the role of an instructional-team community on an Instructor’s evolution during instructional reform

In transforming undergraduate STEM education, it is important to understand the personal and contextual factors that impact instructors’ reform efforts. In this study we explored an instructor’s drivers and motivators for change in perspectives and practice, with an emphasis on the impact of an internal community (her ‘instructional team’) comprised of a co-instructor, graduate teaching assistants, and several undergraduate learning assistants (LAs). Data were collected over two semesters through classroom observations, interviews, faculty learning community discussion recordings, and team email communications. We identified pedagogical discontentment as a primary initial trigger for the instructor’s engagement in instructional reform, guided by personal values and beliefs about student learning and the nature of her discipline. The instructional-team community, which was established during a period of instructional distress, provided 1) consistent support in instructional planning, implementation, assessment, and reflection processes, 2) unique access to different perspectives on the nuances of the teaching environment and student challenges, 3) increased space, time, and motivation for the instructor to more critically reflect on her teaching and engage in creative instructional design. This case illustrates the potential effects of instructional team-based communities on instructors as they work to improve their practice and reform their courses.

The Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL): a tool for understanding the learning potential and substance of interactions in faculty (online) learning community meetings

Background While many research-based instructional strategies in STEM have been developed, faculty need support in implementing and sustaining use of these strategies. A number of STEM faculty professional development programs aim to provide such pedagogical support, and it is necessary to understand the activity and learning process for faculty in these settings. In this paper, a taxonomy for describing the learning opportunities in faculty (online) learning community meetings is presented. Faculty learning communities, meeting either in-person or (increasingly) online, are a common form of professional development. They aim to develop the pedagogical and reflective skills of participants through regular meetings centered on conversations about teaching and learning. Results The tool presented in this paper, the Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL), provides a structured approach to making sense of the dynamic interactions that occur during faculty learning community meetings. The origins and development of the TxOTL are described, followed by a detailed presentation of the constructs that make up the TxOTL: communicative approach used in a conversation, the concepts developed, and the meeting segment category. The TxOTL characterizes the learning opportunities presented by a faculty learning community conversation through describing the content of the conversation as well as how participants engage in the conversation. Examples of the tool in use are provided through an application to a faculty online learning community serving instructors of a physical science curriculum. A visual representation used to compactly display the results of applying the taxonomy to a meeting is detailed as well. These examples serve to illustrate the types of claims the TxOTL facilitates. Conclusions The TxOTL allows one to examine learning opportunities available to a faculty learning community group, analyze concept development present in their conversations, track change over time in a given group, and identify patterns between meeting segment categories and communicative approaches. It is useful for researchers as well as facilitators of these STEM faculty professional development groups. The taxonomy is most applicable to faculty (online) learning communities, with limited use for workshops and K-12 professional development contexts.

Analyzing a faculty learning community strategy based on a process-genre approach supported by videos to develop the writing competence of English teaching students

ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this inquiry is to analyze the impacts of a teaching and learning strategy designed and implemented by a Chilean Faculty Learning Community (FLC) intended to develop the writing competence of student-teachers of an English Teaching Program. The FLC-led strategy was implemented through an eight-step cycle based on the process-genre approach and supported by educational videos. FLC members guided this cycle during writing sessions at the four levels of the English Linguistic Competence course at Universidad Católica de Temuco. The FLC implemented this experience to address the challenge of serving diverse students’ learning needs and meet the requirements of the national English proficiency standards required by the Chilean Ministry of Education. The FLC examined this experience focusing on students’ writing tasks results and their perceptions of the use of videos in the process, oriented by an impact and evaluation framework of teaching innovations and an action research design. The ages of trainee English teachers who participated in this innovation range between 18 and 22 years old. Students’ writing tests results were analyzed and compared to the suggested CEFR outcomes per level. Moreover, students shared their perceptions towards the use of videos through focus groups. Results show that most students improved their writing performance, especially in content and organization. Furthermore, students perceived that videos helped them contextualize their writing process and contribute as a support resource embedded in classroom activities. Overall, this experience helped the FLC members identify changes resulting from the innovations and areas of improvement.

Advancing a New General Education Curriculum Through a Faculty Community of Practice

Many institutions of higher education are reimagining their general education curriculum or adding new, innovative programs to their course offerings. Faculty driving such innovation, while experts in their disciplines, often lack experience with instructional design and the benefits it subsequently brings to these types of programs. At the same time, process-driven, traditional approaches to instructional design may not feel relevant to some faculty. In this chapter, the authors describe the Learning Design Collaborative, a new model for instructional design built on the principles of intentional learning, authentic learning, and student engagement. Placed within the context of a faculty learning community, this experience has been used with faculty developing courses for the first-year signature experience of a new general education curriculum. Implications of this initiative suggest the importance of continually evaluating instructional design models, opportunities for implementing the model in other programs, and a relationship with other emerging instructional design models.

Fostering a Sense of Community Among Black Faculty Through a Faculty Learning Community

The atmosphere at many colleges and universities in the United States presents unique challenges for Black faculty including racism. It is well established that Black faculty, especially those at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), work in potentially hostile, unfriendly, and negative environments. Other concerns for Black faculty at PWIs include lack of mentors and tenure politics. Examples of tenure politics include a lack of guidance regarding the tenure and promotion process, a sense of isolation and lack of collegiality, and the inability to speak out on unfair treatment for fear of retribution during the tenure and promotion process. Black faculty often choose self-isolation, conformity, and silence as coping strategies. However, these strategies rarely address the associated psychological and social stress. Faculty learning communities (FLCs) have been touted as a better alternative. FLCs bind faculty together thereby providing a much-needed support for Black faculty struggling to survive in a predominantly White environment. This article is premised on the experiences of six Black FLC participants at one PWI. We recommend that PWIs should actively support the attempt(s) by Black faculty to create safe spaces such as an FLC, which can foster a sense of belonging and build their confidence. An additional recommendation is that PWIs should employ the services of a chief diversity officer to help create and maintain programs that enhance Black faculty experiences and make them more successful.

Building Collaborative Teacher Education: Integrating UDL through a Faculty Learning Community

Teacher educators have focused reform efforts on preparing graduates to address increasingly diverse K-12 students. Collaboration among general and special education faculty is seen as beneficial for preparing teacher candidates who can teach diverse learners, yet it is not the norm. This practitioner research study explored a curriculum reform effort that employed a faculty learning community (FLC) to engage general and special education faculty to collaboratively integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into two teacher education programs. Faculty perceptions of the collaborative reform process and resulting curriculum enhancements are presented. Findings indicated the process was valued by our faculty, promoted a stronger culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration, and resulted in systematic curriculum improvements coordinated across content and field courses. This study offers guidance to teacher education faculty interested in collaborative curriculum reform.