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Faculty Learning Communities

The CTLA sponsors Faculty Learning Communities each year. As originally conceived by Milton Cox (2004), Faculty Learning Communities are designed for small, interdisciplinary groups of teaching faculty to come together on a regular basis over a sustained period of time, with a focus on investigating and implementing new teaching and learning approaches. Faculty who participate in these communities often report a number of benefits, including developing lasting relationships with faculty in other departments, thinking deeply about their own pedagogical approaches, and developing new expertise.

How Do Faculty Learning Communities Work?

Each Faculty Learning Community is guided by a faculty facilitator who coordinates meetings and ensures that all members have equal opportunity to share ideas. Each community will meet every 2 to 3 weeks over the coming year and explore their topic together, guided by one or more readings. Community members will individually reflect on how they will incorporate what they’ve learned into their own teaching. At the end of the year, the group will share what they’ve learned with other faculty at Eastern.

Benefits of Participating

  • Build relationships with faculty from other disciplines who share a similar interest.
  • Explore in depth a topic of interest and make plans for addressing the topic in your future teaching.
  • Get feedback from peers on your ideas for implementing what you’re learning.
  • Access resources to explore your topic in depth (e.g., CTLA funding to purchase a book for each participant to help guide the group’s discussions).
  • Earn a $400 stipend, paid in May 2025 (not available for full-time SUOAF members).

Funding is available to support up to 10 participants per learning community.

Apply to Participate in a Faculty Learning Community

To register your interest in participating, review the descriptions below. Then fill out the Faculty Learning Community Registration Form by 5 pm on Wednesday, 9/4. Please note that membership is not guaranteed. If there are more registrants than spaces available, decisions will be made based primarily on a first-come, first-served basis, with some attention to ensuring a diversity of disciplines and backgrounds.

Meeting times listed below are for fall 2024. Spring meeting times (and frequency) will be determined by members of each learning community.

2024-2025 Faculty Learning Communities

  • Facilitated by Dr. Wayne Buck, Business Administration

    Meeting time: Every other Wednesday from 3 to 4:30 pm (meeting virtually)

    The objective of this Faculty Learning Community is to explore the possibilities and potential pitfalls of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) for our teaching practice. I suggest that we take as our guide on this journey Bowen and Watson's Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (which will be provided to all participants).

    As a self-directed community, I would like to emphasize hands-on experimentation, sharing our discoveries, and learning from each other's experiences, and then presenting our experiences and findings to the larger university community at year's end.

    This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of educational innovation at Eastern, and to actively manage the transformation in teaching and learning being driven by this new technology. I believe we have an opportunity to significantly increase student engagement and to more consistently achieve desired learning outcomes for Eastern's diverse student population.

  • Facilitated by Dr. Reginald Flood, Communication, Film & Theater

    Meeting time: Every first and third Wednesday at 9 am (in person)

    This community is co-sponsored by the Office of Equity and Diversity.

    In this Learning Community I would like to explore how placing “equity” at the center of course design and classroom practice promotes “rigor.” The pedagogy and practice of “inclusive teaching” determines whether we can meet the needs of a racially diverse, first-generation student cohort who needs both a sense of belonging and intellectual recognition to thrive in a predominantly white institution.

    Here are some of the questions we may want to start with:

    1. How do we define “rigor?” For example, some faculty feel giving students a large quantity of work to complete quickly is rigorous, while other faculty believe specific types of grade distribution from a class signals rigor.
    2. What constitutes “equity” in a university liberal arts classroom? If one of the keys to building an equity-forward curriculum is to recognize the systematic barriers that continue to oppress traditionally marginalized groups, which barriers are the most significant?
    3. What are some of the challenges to “breaching those barriers” in creating curriculum that must serve all the students in a predominantly white institution?

    Designing a curriculum that promotes equity to increase rigor has been a passion since I spent eight weeks in the University of California Equal Opportunity Program in 1974. It was a seminal experience to have graduate students of color designing and teaching the initial 100-person cohort of black, brown, and yellow students. The sense of urgency in a program that allowed entry with a structural exit (first two quarters we were formally on probation) forced the program designers to take risks, and it produced an amazing educational experience.

    I look forward to working in concert with colleagues in whatever way we as a community choose – I am hoping that means vigorous discussions about how we teach and who we teach, workshopping of courses (not just syllabus), and supportive classroom observations of other community members. And hopefully we as a community can come up with some other ideas about how we can support each other.

    All participants will be provided with the book Enhancing Inclusive Instruction: Student Perspectives and Practical Approaches for Advancing Equity in Higher Education by Tracie Addy, Derek Dube, and Khadijah Mitchell.

  • Facilitated by Dr. Racheal Pesta, Criminology

    Meeting time: Every 3 weeks on Wednesdays from 3 to 4:30pm, beginning September 11. This group will meet in-person.

    The purpose of this Faculty Learning Community is to discuss how to overcome the challenges of teaching and learning in the age of distraction, where holding students’ attention often feels elusive and fleeting. I propose we use James Lang’s Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, a book written by an educator for educators. In his book, Lang cites emerging research on attention and learning to help us develop strategies to battle the challenges presented by technology that both provide a world of information, and the potential for endless distractions, to students’ fingertips.

    While my time as an educator is relatively short (10 years), even I have grown weary and frustrated with the present challenges of teaching: short attention spans, constant phone use, general apathy, etc. I feel that I must constantly entertain so that I (and the course material) are more interesting than the latest TikTok video! This community provides the opportunity for all of us to learn from each other’s experiences, discuss the challenges we face, and develop practical strategies to implement in our classrooms. We can then share our experiences and findings with the larger Eastern community at the end of the year.

Deliverables from Spring 2024 Faculty Learning Communities

  • The Teaching Critical Thinking Faculty Learning Community met over spring 2024 to discuss how faculty can design courses that support students in developing critical thinking skills. Members included Nancy Castro (Computer Science), Megan Heenehan (Mathematical Sciences), Michael Kerr (Physical Sciences), Howard Luxenberg (English), Chelagat Misiko (Accounting and BIS), John Montemerlo (Economics and Finance), Christina Nadeau (Nursing), and Jane Pasini (Biology).

    The group developed the Critical Thinking Toolkit, which listed top tools for promoting critical thinking and identified several resources faculty might use when planning a course (Eastern login required to access).

  • The Teaching Ethical Reasoning Faculty Learning Community met over spring 2024 to discuss how faculty can design courses that support students in developing ethical reasoning skills. Members included Caitlin Carenen (History), Christine Garcia (English), Nicole Krassas (Political Science), Christopher Krebs (Psychological Science), Kristen Morgan (Theatre), Kinson Perry (Business Administration), and Mathew Rukgaber (Philosophy).

    The group developed guidelines for faculty planning to teach ethical reasoning skills at the 100, 200, and 400 levels. The document includes concepts and skills to be taught at each level, as well as suggested readings. The group also developed a list of keywords and definitions. Materials developed by this group are available on the ELAC Sharepoint site (Eastern login required).

  • This Faculty Learning Community met over spring 2024. The goals of the group were to:

    • Learn further issue of DEISJ and their relevance in academic settings
    • Understand better the views of Eastern students on this issue
    • Discuss options for Eastern to expand DEISJ in our programs/curriculum
    • Share information among members about good practices and experiences on DEISJ
    • Share results with the larger academic community at Eastern
    • Provide recommendations to incorporate DEISJ elements in the new ELAC

    Members included Peter Bachiochi (Psychological Science), Cara Bergstrom-Lynch (Sociology), Brian Day (Communication, Film, & Theatre), Jennifer Leszczyński (Psychological Science), Martín Mendoza-Botelho (Political Science), Ricardo Pérez (Anthropology), and Jaya Vijayasekar (World Languages and Education).

    The group identified videos and readings, organized a focus group of students from different backgrounds and analyzed the results, and identified lessons learned. The group also developed suggestions for faculty wishing to be more inclusive in their teaching practices, recommendations for university practices, and next steps to support faculty and faculty development. Materials from this learning community are available on the ELAC Sharepoint site (Eastern login required).