EIU Faculty Development and Innovation Center

Faculty Learning Communities

A Faculty Learning Community[i] (FLC) is a peer-led group of faculty members (6-12 in number) who engage in active, collaborative programming, with a curriculum structured to provide encouragement, support, and reflection on teaching and learning.

FLCs that are facilitated well encourage professional development and the scholarship of teaching and learning, which leads to more-engaged participation by faculty in the broader campus community. Sharing common teaching and learning experiences also breaks down discipline-specific boundaries, and promotes interdisciplinary projects and programs, and advance of the quality of teaching. The successes from FLCs are not only measured in learning outcomes, but also in the caliber of faculty relationships and culture.[ii]

Review the qualities necessary for community in faculty learning communities.

If you are interested in an FLC, or have an idea for an FLC topic, please contact Michael Gillespie, Director of the Faculty Development and Innovation Center @ EIU.

Fall 2024 - Spring 2025

Below are descriptions of our forthcoming FLC programming for the new academic year. We are expanding our FLC offerings this year to provide a range of opportunities to meet the requests of faculty across campus. This year, FLC programs include:

• Active Learning
• Engaged Reading (Fall 2024): Creating a Campus-Wide Culture of Student Success
• Engaged Reading (Spring 2025): Try to Love the Questions
• Mindfulness
• OER: Textbook Liberation Grantees
• Research and Writing FLC
• Teacher to Teacher 

For FLC programs from previous years, please see the FDIC FLC Archive.

Active Learning FLC

What is active learning?

Active learning strategies are instructional activities involving learners in doing things and thinking about what they are doing.[iii] These require learners to engage in meaningful activities and think deeply about the concepts they are learning. When people engage in active learning, they are more likely to retain what they’ve learned.

The vision for this FLC is to model faculty peer teaching and learning. To do so, the commitment by participants would be one day per month beginning in early October 2023, then meet monthly for the remainder of the calendar year (November & December) and bi-monthly in the Spring 2024 semester. The time and day are up to the group membership, agreeable to those who decide to participate; FLC meetings will be held in the CSI active learning space.

Each participant will receive a copy of “The New College Classroom” by Davidson and Katopodis which will be read throughout the year. Director of Faculty Development and Innovation Center, Dr. Michael Gillespie, will attend the first meeting to introduce the project, orient the group, and establish the parameters, as well as facilitate the group throughout the year. Members will also get to work with FDIC Instructional Designer, Kim Ervin.

The goals of this Faculty Learning Community (FLC) are to:

• The objectives of this Faculty Learning Community (FLC) are to:

  • Identify active learning methods and learning spaces for teaching and learning at EIU.
  • Develop a set of active learning techniques to share through the FDIC.
  • Support faculty interested in active, creative, and innovative teaching and learning.
  • Integrate teaching and learning styles that promote principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  • Produce a cohort of active learning leaders to train, support, and empower other EIU faculty interested in active learning.

For full details, please read the Active Learning FLC Invitation for Participation. 

Engaged Reading: Creating a Campus-Wide Culture of Student Success (Fall 2024)

This FLC brings together faculty and staff to engage with the book "Creating a Campus-Wide Culture of Student Success" by Ronald Hallett, Adrianna Kezar, Joseph Kitchen, and Rosemary Perez.

With the campus-wide focus on student success initiatives including the DWF Collaborative Redesign Initiative, this reading group will bring together faculty, chairs, and academic support professional. Participants will explore strategies for fostering a comprehensive approach to student success across the entire campus. Through collaborative reading, discussion, and reflection, members will gain insights into best practices for creating an inclusive and supportive environment that promotes student achievement. This group will focus on translating the book's concepts into actionable plans for our institution.

Outcomes:

• Develop a shared definition of student success that incorporates insights from all represented campus roles
• Compare perspectives on student success from academic affairs, faculty, and academic support professionals
• Engage in dialogue where participants discuss their unique challenges and opportunities in supporting student success
• Identify and document potential areas for improved collaboration between academic affairs, faculty, and academic support professionals in promoting student success
• Develop a set of best practices for communication and collaboration across different campus roles in supporting student success
• Design and conduct a survey to gather perspectives on student success from a broader

Engaged Reading: Try to Love the Questions (Spring 2025)

This FLC will engage with the book "Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life" by Lara Hope Schwartz. Participants will explore innovative approaches to fostering meaningful dialogue and critical thinking in classroom discussions. Through collaborative reading and reflection, faculty members will examine the art of questioning and its role in creating a more engaging, inclusive, and intellectually stimulating learning environment. The group will focus on developing strategies to encourage students to embrace uncertainty, ask profound questions, and engage in deeper, more thoughtful discussions.

Outcomes:

• Identify and document at least 5 key strategies from the book for improving questioning techniques in classroom discussions
• Develop a personal inventory of current questioning practices and areas for improvement
• Create a collaborative database of effective questions that promote critical thinking and dialogue
• Develop a rubric for assessing the quality and depth of classroom discussions
• Produce a reflection on how their approach to fostering dialogue through questioning has evolved over the course of the FLC
• Collaborate on developing a guide for new faculty on fostering meaningful classroom discussions through effective questioning

Mindfulness

Description forthcoming

OER: Textbook Liberation Grantees

This FLC is tailored for recipients of the Textbook Liberation Grant through the State of Illinois Library, forming a cohort focused on OER implementation, feedback, and peer support. Participants will work collaboratively to implement Open Educational Resources in their courses, share experiences, provide mutual support, and offer constructive feedback. The community will serve as a platform for troubleshooting challenges, celebrating successes, and refining OER strategies.

Outcomes:

• Successfully implement OER in at least one course per participant during the academic year
• Develop and adhere to an implementation timeline for each participant's OER project
• Participate in monthly peer feedback sessions, with each member both giving and receiving feedback at least 6 times throughout the year
• Create a shared repository of lessons learned and best practices for OER implementation
• Collaboratively develop at least two case studies highlighting successful OER implementations within the cohort
• Achieve a 90% retention rate of grantees actively participating in the FLC throughout the academic year

Research and Writing Peer Working Group

Teacher-to-Teacher

This FLC fosters a community of growth, reciprocity, and feedback among faculty members. Participants will engage in a process of no-stakes peer observation and feedback, creating a safe space for continuous improvement and innovation in teaching. The focus is on collaborative learning rather than evaluation, encouraging faculty to experiment with new techniques, share insights, and refine their teaching practices. Through this supportive network, participants will observe and be observed by peers, exchanging ideas and strategies to enhance classroom experiences and student learning outcomes.

Outcomes:

• Conduct at least 3 peer observations and be observed 3 times during the academic year
• Provide and receive constructive, no-stakes feedback after each observation, with emphasis on growth and improvement rather than critique
• Implement 2-3 new teaching strategies based on peer feedback and observations
• Develop a personal teaching innovation plan with at least 3 concrete goals for the following year
• Participate in monthly reflection sessions to discuss implemented changes and their impacts
• Create a collaborative resource sharing platform where participants contribute at least one innovative teaching strategy or tool each semester

Qualities Necessary for Community in FLCs

• Safety and trust. In order for participants to connect with one another, they must have a sense of safety and trust. This is especially true when participants reveal weaknesses in their teaching or ignorance of teaching processes or literature.
• Openness. In an atmosphere of openness, participants can feel free to share their thoughts and feelings without fear of retribution.
• Respect. In order to coalesce as a learning community, members need to feel that they are valued and respected as people. It is important for the university to acknowledge their participation by financially supporting community projects and participation at FLC topic-related conferences.
• Responsiveness. Members must respond respectfully to one another, and the facilitator(s) must respond quickly to the participants. The facilitator should welcome the expression of concerns and preferences and, when appropriate, share these with individuals and the entire FLC.
• Collaboration. The importance of collaboration in consultation and group discussion on individual members’ projects and on achieving community learning outcomes hinges on group members’ ability with and respond to one another. In addition, to individual projects, joint projects and presentations should be welcomed.
• Relevance. Learning outcomes are enhanced by relating the subject matter of the FLC to the participants’ teaching, courses, scholarship, professional interests, and life experiences. All participants should be encouraged to seek out and share teaching and other real-life examples to illustrate these outcomes.
• Challenge. Expectations for the quality of FLC outcomes should be high, engendering a sense of progress, scholarship value, and accomplishment. Sessions should include, for example, some in which individuals share syllabi and report on their individual projects.
• Enjoyment. Activities must include social opportunities to lighten up and bond and should take place in invigorating environments. For example, a retreat can take place off-campus at a nearby country inn, state park, historic site, or the like.
• Esprit de corps. Sharing individual and community outcomes with colleagues in the academy should generate pride and loyalty. For example, when the community makes a campus presentation, participants strive to provide an excellent session.
• Empowerment. A sense of empowerment is both a crucial element and a desired outcome of participation in an FLC. In the construction of a transformative learning environment, the participants gain a new view of themselves and a new sense of confidence in their abilities. Faculty members leave their year of participation with better courses and a clearer understanding of themselves and their students. Key outcomes include scholarly teaching and contributions to the scholarship of teaching.

[i] “Introduction to Faculty Learning Communities.” Milton D. Cox (2004), pp. 5-23 in Building Faculty Learning Communities, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 97, M.D. Cox, and L. Richlin, eds.

[ii] “Professional Development through Faculty Learning Communities." Michelle Glowacki-Dudka and Michael P. Brown (2007), pp. 29-39 in New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, Vol. 21, No 1/2.

[iii] Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. Charles C. Bonwell and James A. Eison (1991). ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, No. 1

[iv] “Active Learning Spaces in the United States”. Stan Aalderink (2019), Educause Review. Available: https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/10/active-learning-spaces-lessons-learned-in-the-united-states