A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is a multidisciplinary group of faculty, graduate students and professional staff that is engaged in a long-term collaborative learning effort. The typical FLC is comprised of 6-15 individuals. Many FLCs focus on topics related to curriculum and teaching issues (including the use of technology in teaching). The FLC meets regularly over a period of 6 months – 1 year to discuss the scholarly literature related to their topic and plan activities for disseminating their work to the larger campus community.

Please visit Milton Cox’s web site on faculty learning communities for more information about FLCs and their role in development of faculty collegiality and professional skill in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

http://www.units.muohio.edu/flc/index.php

Active Faculty Learning Communities

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Interest Group began meeting September 2007. The group meets once a month. New members are welcome to join this group. See the CUTLA calendar for the current schedule. See the SoTL web page for more information about the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Prior Faculty Learning Communities

The Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment started a Faculty Learning Community, dissertations and theses, in Spring 2007. This group completed its work with a mini-conference title "Exploring Options for the Ed.D. Dissertation."

The conference provided opportunities:

• to learn what dissertation options other Ed.D. programs across the country are using
• to hear in detail what two Ed.D. programs are doing for their dissertation requirement
• to engage in dialogue with colleagues, students and select community leaders to explore some of these options for UWF
• to determine if there are options to increase the quality of scholarship, student engagement, and community problem solving for students in our program

The morning portion of the conference included a brief look at the vision, mission, purpose, and outcomes for our Ed.D. program, followed by a description of the dissertation options being used by approximately ten Ed.D. programs that are similar to UWF’s program.  Two speakers described in detail the options available for their students.

Diana Pounder, Ph.D., University of Utah
Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy,
formerly Associate Dean, College of Education

William Rebore, Ph.D., Saint Louis University
Chair, Leadership and Higher Education,
formerly Associate Dean, College of Public Service

The afternoon session focused on small group discussions to evaluate the desirability of these and other options as additions to the traditional dissertation most commonly used at UWF.  These discussions included issues of feasibility, barriers to be overcome, and next steps. 

A follow up session was held to describe some of these options and the results of the previous session to the Research and Rigor Session held for Ed.D. students at UWF.  Dr. Rebore described the dissertation options available at Saint Louis University. 

Please contact Dr. Claudia Stanny (cstanny@uwf.edu) if you are interested in developing a Faculty Learning Community around a particular topic.

Updated 07/17/08