Faculty Learning Community

A Faculty Learning Community is a group of 8-12 faculty members engaging in an active, collaborative, long-term (usually a year) facilitated program with the goal to reflect and enhance teaching and learning. The structure of a FLC can include seminars and activities of reflection that provide learning, development, transdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), and community building.

• Build a community of faculty peers
• Foster reflective teaching
• Enhance effective pedagogical techniques
• Increase knowledge of SoTL
• Provide opportunities for professional development and personal growth
• Improve the quality of higher education

Faculty who complete the FLC will receive professional development funds in the amount of $1,500.

Inclusive Teaching in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math)

The purpose of the current FLC is to learn and reflect on best practices in inclusive teaching specific to the STEM fields. While engaging in rich dialogue with colleagues in other STEM disciplines, a community of practice aimed at understanding and implementing inclusive pedagogical practices is fostered.

• Encourage faculty and student success via inclusive practices
• Foster a community of STEM faculty
• Create tangible deliverable(s) highlighting inclusive practices for broader use

• Enroll in the Inclusive STEM Teaching Project MOOC and complete the requirements for a certificate (the Center for Faculty Excellence will pay for your certificate); MOOC will run March 23 – May 4, 2022.
• Attend FLC meetings to be held every three weeks 
• Define specific objectives aligned to the FLC goals to be accomplished by the FLC 
• Reflect on your instructional practices and integrate new knowledge into teaching
• Generate an individual or group-based deliverable that disseminates what you and your colleagues learned in the FLC that will enhance inclusive teaching practices at PNW and beyond
  • Examples of deliverables include a manuscript that is submitted to a journal, a proposal for a presentation or poster that is submitted to a major teaching and learning conference, a grant proposal that is submitted to a private or federal funding agency, new or revised curricula, a proposal to offer a professional development opportunity (submitted to the Center for Faculty Excellence or an external body), or digital resources such a resource page, Brightspace course/module, blog, podcast, etc.

Spring 2022

• Complete required activities for Inclusive Teaching in STEM MOOC by deadline
•  Attend meetings every three weeks
  • Meeting dates will be determined based on group availability
  • We anticipate offering face-to-face and virtual option for meetings

Summer 2022

• Reflect upon learning and plan for modifications to courses that integrate inclusive pedagogical strategies

Fall 2022

• Implement and document inclusive practices in your teaching
• Gather all interventions vetted by participants in FLC and collect in a manner that can be shared with the broader STEM community

Cox, M. D. (2004). Introduction to faculty learning communities. New directions for teaching and learning, 2004(97), 5-23.

Glowacki-Dudka, M., & Brown, M. P. (2007). Professional development through faculty learning communities. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 21(1‐2), 29-39.

Smith, T. R., McGowan, J., Allen, A. R., Johnson, W. D., Dickson Jr, L. A., Najee-ullah, M. A., & Peters, M. (2008). Evaluating the impact of a faculty learning community on STEM teaching and learning. The Journal of Negro Education, 203-226.