Faculty Learning Communities
sharing pedagogical ideas and exploring the possibilities together.
Our faculty learning communities (FLC) provide a structure for motivated faculty members to come together to discuss teaching and learning or any topic that impacts faculty success. FLCs meet for one semester and sometimes for the full academic year.
Some of our most recent FLC groups have focused on trends in higher education, inclusive teaching practices, race and gender in the academy, and designing full online summer courses. Whatever the interest topic, the FLC facilitator and group members operate under a small-group learning process and identify goals and outcomes for the group. For example, FLCs may produce teaching guides and sample inclusive statements for syllabi or present to VCU faculty and host workshops.
Our Faculty Learning Community Guidebook outlines our approach with regard to purpose, structure, roles, and support.
Do you have a great idea for a Faculty Learning Community that you'd like to help facilitate? Let us know! Send us an email at ctle@vcu.edu.
The Organ Thieves Faculty Book Club
The following Tuesdays at 3:00pm: August 30, September 13 and 27, and October 11 (virtual OR in person)
Join us this fall for the Common Book program's inaugural faculty book club. As our first year students read this year's Common Book, The Organ Thieves, these facilitated meet ups will allow faculty (who may or may not be teaching this book in their classroom) to create community by exploring a piece of VCU's institutional history, engage in group discussions surrounding equity and social justice, and help advance teaching and learning by discussing how what we have learned can be applied in the classroom.
Facilitator: Carver Weakley
Presumed Incompetent Vol 2 (2020) Faculty Book Club
The following Wednesdays at 10:00am: September 7, October 12, November 9
Limited book copies available so please sign up early! The courageous and inspiring personal narratives and empirical studies in Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia (2020) name formidable obstacles and systemic biases that all women faculty—from diverse intersectional and transnational identities and from tenure track, terminal contract, and administrative positions—encounter in their higher education careers. They provide practical, specific, and insightful guidance to fight back, prevail, and thrive in challenging work environments. This volume comes at a crucial historical moment as the United States grapples with a resurgence of white supremacy and misogyny at the forefront of our social and political dialogues that continue to permeate the academic world.
Facilitators: Kim Case and Faye Belgrave
Full Circle: Your Action Plan to Move from Associate to Full Professor
The following Wednesdays at 1:00 pm: September 7, October 5, November 9
This faculty learning community is designed for both tenured and term faculty seeking guidance, support, and camaraderie as they navigate the path from associate to full professor. This group is designed for anyone at the associate level. All are welcome--it’s never too early or too late to start thinking about promotion. During these three meetings, you will work together with other participants to formulate your own personal action plan toward promotion.
Facilitator: Kim Case
The Multiplayer Classroom Book Club
Meeting dates and times TBD
Party invite: Ellen Carpenter (Psychology) and Thea Pepperl (Engineering) want you to join their party. The mission objective is to engage students and motivate learning using gamification principles. Critical mission tasks will include: (1) reading Lee Sheldon's The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game; (2) participating in an asynchronous discussion board with other educators over the summer, and (3) meeting during the fall semester to share implementation strategies. Optional side quest: pre-semester syllabus jam, where we'll review each others' syllabi.
Facilitators: Ellen Carpenter, Psychology and Thea Pepperl, Engineering
These FLCs have now concluded.
SOTL Journal Club
Want to know more about evidence-based teaching practice? We invite you to join this virtual learning community to explore peer-reviewed research on teaching and learning in higher education. The group will likely explore research on inclusive teaching, effective approaches to increase student engagement, and more.
Facilitator: Jennifer Joy-Gaba
Full Circle: Your Action Plan to Move from Associate to Full Professor
This faculty learning community is designed for both tenured and term faculty seeking guidance, support, and camaraderie as they navigate the path from associate to full professor. This group is designed for anyone at the associate level. All are welcome--it’s never too early or too late to start thinking about promotion. During these three meetings, you will work together with other participants to formulate your own personal action plan toward promotion.
Facilitators: Kim Case and Kitty Maynard
The Intersection of Universal Design for Learning and Anti-Racism
You are invited to join a faculty learning community this fall that will engage in an in-depth discussion on the relationship between UDL and racial equity in learning environments. Faculty who have foundational knowledge or are actively implementing UDL principles are invited to join this group and share ideas on effective practices, with the goal of developing a set of resources for faculty on this topic.
Facilitator: Lisa Webb
Increasing Student Engagement in the Age of Covid
We know that student engagement contributes to improvements in student learning, achievement, and retention. Yet, the Covid-19 pandemic has made engaging our students more challenging in numerous ways. How can we update our techniques and strategies to meet our students where they are now? This FLC will explore different types of student engagement, reasons why students might be disconnected in our classes, and strategies for making our classes more engaging. In addition to providing a space for conversation and experimentation, the members of this FLC will curate a teaching guide with tips and methods to help other colleagues with student engagement.
Facilitator: Kitty Maynard
No Fuss Book Club, Fall 2021: Small Teaching
Join us for this Fall’s No Fuss Book Club. Why “no fuss”? Because this is a book club where you aren’t allowed to stress. You are welcome and encouraged to attend even if you haven't been able to do all the reading. We’ll help fill each other in and highlight the key takeaways together.
This semester, we'll be reading James M. Lang's Small Teaching (2016) (first edition). Small Teaching is designed to give you strategies to make deliberate, structured, and incremental changes to your classes to improve student learning.
Facilitator: Kitty Maynard
Virtual Book Discussion Group: Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
We will build community as we discuss and engage hooks’ insights, strategies, and critical reflections on transformational pedagogical practice in the university classroom. When theory and practice meet, space for liberatory education is created. hooks states that "the classroom is the most radical space of possibility in the academy" (p.12). How can we position our teaching practices to promote the dismantling of existing systems of domination (racism, sexism, class exploitation, imperialism etc.)?
Facilitators: Kim Case and Rachel Gómez
Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Faculty Learning Community
The Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence invites faculty members who are interested in pedagogical practices for building an inclusive and equitable classroom to participate in the Inclusive and Equitable Teaching FLC. This faculty learning community will meet to discuss recent research in inclusive and equitable teaching to expand our current knowledge to the frontier of pedagogical research in higher education. We will brainstorm potential cross-disciplinary projects to reflect our VCU faculty commitment in teaching excellence and inclusion.
Facilitator: Ching-Yu Huang
Transformative Education Across the Disciplines
Change (or transformation) can be big or small, obvious or subtle. This faculty learning community will explore how education changes our students and us in all of these ways. If a goal of your teaching is to produce any sort of change in students' knowledge, skills or abilities, then you are a transformative educator! Open to faculty of all disciplines, we will explore major theories of transformative education and talk through practical applications we can use immediately in practice.
Facilitator: Andrew T. Arroyo
“Is This For a Grade?”: Nontraditional Grading in the College Classroom
Are you sick of arguing with a student over an 89 versus a 91? Have you ever thought about getting rid of traditional grading? If so, join our faculty learning community to explore the history of traditional grading and to learn about alternate grading practices that increase student equity and self-efficacy, faculty transparency, and collaboration amongst students and instructors. We’ll discuss several alternate grading strategies – contract grading, ungrading, and specs grading – and explore how to implement them into a variety of disciplines.
Facilitators: Thea Pepperl and Alli Tharp
Mid-Career FLC for Tenured Associate Professors
Are you a tenured Associate Professor? Do you want to go up for Full Professor some day or maybe even next year? Whether you just got promoted to Associate Professor or got promoted years ago, now is the time to plan for Full Professor! The group will focus on making your plan, preparing your materials and narratives, and navigating the promotion process from Associate Professor to Full Professor. This community will be a place to share best practices, get feedback, share insights, and take concrete steps toward promotion. Come join our squad. Co-sponsored by ADVANCE IT grant.
Facilitators: Sharon Zumbrunn and Kaprea Johnson
Mid-Career FLC for Term Associate Professors
Whether you just got promoted to Associate Professor or have been one for years, now is the time to plan for Full Professor! The idea of the next promotion may seem complicated, stressful, and daunting. This group aims to make the process a little easier. In this group, we’ll focus on how Term faculty navigate the promotion process from Associate Professor to Full Professor. This community will be a place to share best practices, get feedback, share insights, and take concrete steps toward promotion. We’ve got your back. Co-sponsored by ADVANCE IT grant.
Facilitators: Peyton Rowe and Maureen Moslow-Benway