Faculty Learning Communities Program, 2009 - 2010

The Faculty Learning Community (FLC) program was initiated by the CET in the 2006 – 2007 academic year. The response of Georgia Southern faculty to this collegial, peer-based, academic year-long experience of faculty development and inquiry has been very good. We are looking for over 100 faculty to join FLCs for 2008-2009.

"Extensive documentary evidence suggests that effective learning communities have important benefits for students and faculty Faculty benefits include diminished isolation, a shared purpose and cooperation among faculty colleagues, increased curricular integration, a fresh approach to one’s discipline, and increased satisfaction with their students’ learning." _Lenning & Ebbers

What Is A Faculty Learning Community (FLC)?

Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) are usually composed of approximately 6 - 12 faculty and requires a collegial commitment to meet, work, collaborate with colleagues on the FLC, and disseminate the outcomes of the FLC’s work to Georgia Southern faculty. Each FCL is lead by a facilitator selected by the FLC from among its own members, determines its own goals and objectives, and how it will disseminate the results of its research, application, and work to campus colleagues. Membership in a FLC is for the entire academic year.

"A faculty learning community (FLC) is a cross-disciplinary faculty group engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong program about enhancing teaching and learning and activities that provide learning, development, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building. A faculty participant in a faculty learning community selects a focus course to try out innovations, assess resulting student learning(etc) and presents project results to the campus... Evidence shows that FLCs increase faculty interest in teaching and learning and provide safety and support for faculty to investigate, attempt, assess, and adopt new (to them) methods."
     _ Miami University FLC web site        (http://www.units.muohio.edu/flc/what.shtml)

Goals of FLCs at Georgia Southern

A faculty learning community is a special kind of "community of practice" (Wenger). The goals of FLCs at Georgia Southern are as follows:

  • build University-wide community through teaching and learning
  • emphasize that teaching is serious intellectual work
  • learn more about how, why, when and were students learn best
  • improve effectiveness and enjoyment of teaching and learning
  • research teaching and learning based upon theory, evidence, practice and assessment of outcomes
  • encourage scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and its application to student learning
  • re-conceive the assessment of learning
  • increase faculty collaboration across disciplines
  • create an awareness of the complexity of teaching and learning and that good teaching requires sustained effort, experimentation, application, good means of assessment, and career-long professional development in both the content of one’s discipline and in teaching that discipline

FLCs for 2009 - 2010

FLCs continuing from 2008-2009

  • Course Design
  • Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
  • Assessing Student Learning
  • Service Learning & Civic Engagement
  • Teaching Large Classes
  • Information Literacy
  • Peace Studies
  • POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Learning Inquiry)

Possible New FLCs (need at least 6 members to form)

  • Doing Research
  • Teaching Courses Online
  • Classroom Assessment Techniques
  • Academic Advising of Students
  • Classroom Management & Behavior
  • Teaching First Year Students
  • `Others... (gather enough interested people to form an FLC on a topic not listed and
    contact Alan Altany at the CET)

Operation and Outcomes

The Center for Excellence in Teaching (CET) will facilitate and coordinate the formation and the logistics of the FLCs. Each FLC is responsible for its ongoing schedule, work, and for how it will disseminate the outcomes of that work to colleagues and the campus. The facilitator of the FLC is to submit to the FLC Coordinator a one-page mid-year report (December) and a one-page final report (May) that summarizes and analyzes the work and outcomes of the FLC.

The FLC as a whole, or individual members, are also encouraged to consider disseminating their work in additional ways as, but not limited to, the following:

  • Submitting an article to CET’s ejournal on SoTL, International Journal for SoTL
  • Faculty Series presentation sponsored by CET
  • Writing a booklet published by CET
  • Creating a FLC web site for its work that is shared with the campus
  • Publishing an article or essay in a journal or magazine
  • Giving a presentation at a conference
  • Other means of dissemination (determined by the FLC)

Guidelines for Individual FLC Members

Each member of an FLC agrees to the following:

  • Select at least one course (“focus course") or area of work in which to apply what one learns in the FLC
  • Participate in FLC meetings, activities, FLC dissemination
  • Prepare a one-page final report about one’s membership in the FLC and the application and assessment of one’s FLC work (due to FLC Coordinator in May)

Joining an FLC

In order to join a FLC, a faculty member registers to be a member of a specific FLC for the academic year by submitting a registration form to Alan Altany, Center for Excellence in Teaching.

Registration form as MS Word (Fill out, email to Alan Altany or print, fill out, mail to CET Box 8143, or fax: 478-0099)

To request a paper registration form, phone 478-0049, email Alan Altany, or stop by CET, Suite 1303, in Henderson Library.

Member's semester schedules will be requested so that the initial meeting of the FLC can be planned.