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Faculty learning communities:improving teaching in higher educationHsuying C. Ward a & Paula M. Selvester ba Department of English Pedagogy , Universidad Católica delNorte , Antofagasta , Chileb Department of Education , California State University , Chico ,California , USAPublished online: 12 May 2011.
To cite this article: Hsuying C. Ward & Paula M. Selvester (2012) Faculty learningcommunities: improving teaching in higher education, Educational Studies, 38:1, 111-121, DOI:10.1080/03055698.2011.567029
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2011.567029
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Educational Studies
ISSN 0305-5698 print/ISSN 1465-3400 online© 201 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandfonline.com
Faculty learning communities: improving teaching in higher education
Hsuying C. Warda* and Paula M. Selvesterb
aDepartment of English Pedagogy, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile; bDepartment of Education, California State University, Chico, California, USATaylor and FrancisCEDS_A_567029.sgm10.1080/03055698.2011.567029Educational Studies0305-5698 (print)/1465-3400 (online)Article2011Taylor & Francis0000000002011Dr [email protected]
Faculty learning communities (FLCs) are collaborative collegial groups of facultyand other teaching staff who are interested in and committed to the improvementof their teaching to accommodate a diverse student population through groupdiscourse, reflection and goal setting. In this article, we describe our FLCexperiences that were supported by a federal grant to ensure accessible learningenvironments on our campus. The project, Ensuring Access through Collaborationand Technology (EnACT), sought to introduce faculty at a medium-sized stateuniversity to a pedagogical framework to provide universal access to thecurriculum for all students and to encourage faculty to adopt accessibletechnologies. We describe the recruitment process, the FLC meeting structure, ourintended outcomes and the challenges we faced in meeting them.
Keywords: faculty learning communities; accessibility; EnACT; learningcommunities; diverse needs; higher education; students with disabilities
Effective teaching practice and faculty development are important but complex issuesin higher education. While how to measure teaching effectiveness is a hotly debatedissue, there is no doubt that most faculty members value their teaching and want todevelop high-quality learning environments to ensure their students’ success. In addi-tion, student demographics have changed considerably in colleges and universities.According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), university studentenrolment has rapidly become more diverse, especially in state-supported universities.This diversity is represented across the spectrum with regard to language, race, ethnic-ity, socioeconomic status and gender. Special need or learning diversity is also a markerof diverse student needs. This plurality of student learning needs truly presents a chal-lenge to university faculty (NCES 2006). For example, 11% of undergraduates reportedhaving a disability in 2003–2004. Among students with a disability, one fourth statedthey had an orthopaedic condition, 22% said they had a mental illness or depressionand 17% said they had a health impairment. Such demographic distribution is fairlyconsistent across most medium and large institutions. In specific terms, 45–48% ofthese institutions enrolled students with hearing impairments, students who are blindor visually impaired and students who have health impairments or problems, and 39%reported that they enrol students with mental illnesses or emotional problems. For alldisabilities, public two-year and four-year colleges and universities were more likelythan private institutions to enrol students with disabilities (NCES 2006). More
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Vol. 38, No. 1, February 201 , 111–121
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2011.567029
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postsecondary students with disabilities attend community and technical colleges thantheir non-disabled peers. Though the majority enrol in two-year (community and tech-nical) colleges, 42% of them enrolled in four-year schools (Horn and Berktold 1999;Paul 2000).
Unlike the past, higher education faculty need to be pedagogically skilled in orderto meet their students’ learning needs. No longer is lecturing alone a viable pedagogy(Thorsen 2006). However, changing one’s teaching practice requires more than atten-dance in a series of training workshops. The literature suggests that improvement ofteaching practice develops through inquiry and dialogue that is critical, reflective andconstructive, taking place in social contexts with supportive peers (Schlager andSchank 1997). Collaborative groups, often described as professional learning commu-nities (Schlager and Schank 1997; Lenning and Ebbers 1999; Schlager, Fusco, andSchank 1999; Shapiro and Levine 1999), provide a social context, network andsupportive structure for faculty to engage in the professional development processtowards improved teaching and learning.
Faculty learning communities (FLCs) are collaborative collegial groups of facultyand other teaching staff who are interested in and committed to the improvement oftheir teaching to accommodate a diverse student population through group discourse,reflection and goal setting (Cross 1998; Shapiro and Levine 1999). Wade (2004)suggests that the FLC be curriculum focused and that an FLC might be organised ascohort based or topic based. Most agree that an FLC, in its transdisciplinary composition,serves to enhance teaching and learning, and that FLC activities are aimed at providingfaculty learning and development (Wade 2004). In fact, in community college settings,it is considered an innovative way to combat the increasing demands due to studentdemographic changes and inadequate resources for development (Outcalt 2000). Someadd that these groups can also serve the function of mentoring and supporting juniorfaculty as they negotiate the maze of the retention, tenure and promotion (RTP) processof the academy. In other instances, it is conceptualised as the cure-all remedy for univer-sities’ and colleges’ institutional problems (Cox 2001, 2004).
In this article, we describe our FLC experiences that were supported by a federalgrant to ensure accessible learning environments on our campus. The project, Ensur-ing Access through Collaboration and Technology (EnACT), sought to introducefaculty at a medium-sized state university to a pedagogical framework to provideuniversal access to the curriculum for all students and to encourage faculty to adoptaccessible technologies. We describe the recruitment process, the FLC meeting struc-ture, our intended outcomes and the challenges we faced in meeting them.
Literature review
Adopting technology for teaching and learning
Challenges in technology learning in higher education are documented in the literatureon education innovation and change. However, barriers that impede technology adap-tation in higher education from the faculty’s perspectives are difficult to overcome. Ina study listing these barriers, Butler and Sellbom (2002) found that the faculty felt thatthe reliability of new technology was their greatest challenge in adopting a new tech-nology. In addition, the faculty perceived that the time they invested in learning newtechnology was too long and that the technical support to their learning was weak(Butler and Sellbom 2002).
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Jacobson (1998) studied the adoption patterns of faculty who integrated computerin teaching and learning in higher education. She found that most important to thefaculty’s adoption of technology for classroom use is on-campus colleagues’ supportand mentoring, and the hands-on opportunities with one-on-one assistance. Accordingto Jacobson (1998), the most important components of successful adoption of technol-ogy are careful planning before implementation and provision of collegial support.Further, incentive and reward structures “from above” are needed to sweeten the deal.Faculty members understand that learning about and implementing new technologiesand pedagogies will take time and effort. Administrator support, retention and promo-tion recognition, and financial incentives build the motivation for busy faculty tobegin the task, while collegial support and assistance maintain and sustain their moti-vation to persist when the learning curve is steep.
Collaboration in higher education
The concept of collaboration is difficult to adopt for higher educators because highereducation institutions tend to ascribe to specialisation of individual disciplines. Few ifany institutions of higher education reward and encourage collaboration as a scholarlyendeavour due to the competitive nature of the retention and promotion process inmost universities. Single authoring and writing grants are highly supported. To prac-tice collaboration among faculty means to foster a sense of trust and collegiality(Sergiovanni 2002). In two different studies (Miller and Stayton 1998; Mellin andWinton 2003), organisational and administrative factors were identified by faculty tobe the biggest barrier to interdisciplinary collaboration in higher education. Interper-sonal problems, such as rigid thinking, jealousy and ego issues, were the secondbiggest barrier to interdisciplinary collaboration in higher education, as identified byMiller and Stayton (1998). Clearly, faculty members need a safe, non-competitive,collaborative and encouraging space to improve their teaching practices.
It is with the above-stated circumstantial challenges that we began our FLC work,with the EnACT grant support. The purpose of the grant was to help faculty acquirenew knowledge, skills and abilities that will meet diverse student needs, including thelearning needs of those with disabilities at a state university. Specifically, faculty wereintroduced to principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a pedagogicalframework for ensuring access to learning for diverse learners (discussed below) andwere encouraged to use technologies that would support universal access to the curric-ulum. The participating faculty were asked to implement a new teaching practice,modify a current practice and use technology in an innovative way using the UDLprinciples. These projects provided fertile grounds for discussion, critique and reflec-tion for improving teaching practice, while also providing the faculty with an oppor-tunity for publication. The projects were offered for peer review for publication byMERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) inorder to apply in the retention and promotion process.
Goals for our FLC
We had three major goals for our FLC. Our first goal was to introduce the faculty toUDL principles (Center for Applied Special Technology [CAST] 2009) to guide theirteaching practices. Our second goal was to assist the faculty in using instructionaltechnology within the UDL framework to provide access to learning for students with
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disabilities. Our third goal was to support the faculty in developing teaching/learningprojects that they could publish in order to apply their work to the retention andpromotion process. Monetary support from the grant allowed the participating facultyto be paid to produce an Accessible Instructional Multimedia resource (AIM) projectfor use in their classroom. In order to support the faculty in their efforts to improvetheir teaching and to recognise the importance of their work in the RTP process, weestablished a peer-review process based on EnACT grant guidelines that facilitated theauthoring faculty in publishing their AIM projects as scholarly work.
The role of UDL
Three pedagogical principles to frame the act of differentiated teaching and learningwere representation, engagement and expression (CAST 2009). Representation ischaracterised by multiple ways of representing the content. Teachers may providehandouts in class, deliver information by lecture and demonstration and providestudents with links to websites that they can access from their web tools that supporttheir class. Engagement is characterised by multiple activities designed to providestudents access to information. For example, students may read about a topic, listen toa lecture and watch the instructor model examples in class, and students may haveaccess to a website that has specific information, instructions, a PowerPoint presenta-tion or guidelines about the topic. Finally, expression is characterised by the multipleways students have to show what they know or have learned about the topic. Studentsmay have the opportunity to write about the topic, give oral presentations or createvisual representations to explicate what they know or have the opportunity to visitwebsites to answer questions designed by the teacher.
Essentially, UDL principles point faculty to instructional excellence that providesoptimal learning opportunities to all students, including those with disabilities. UDLprinciples enable faculty to effectively design and deliver their instructional materialsto benefit students with diverse learning needs without watering down their coursecontent. It is important to know that UDL does not remove academic challenges; itremoves the barriers to access such that all students have equal access to instructionalmaterials for their learning.
The role of technology
Technology has been proven to be an important tool in supporting diverse studentneeds, in particular, students with disabilities (DO-IT 2010b). Specifically, assistiveand adaptive technologies are now being widely used in learning environments toaccommodate students with diverse needs (DO-IT 2010a). While having the knowl-edge of UDL principles and, moreover, skills in the use of technology to create a moreaccessible curriculum is crucial, university faculty need support in their efforts to useaccessible technology in their classrooms.
All participating faculty were required to have an orientation to the UDL princi-ples through our UDL workshops, available in both online and face-to-face formats.The expectation was that the participating faculty will utilise multimedia technology,accessible to students with disabilities, in their instruction. Nevertheless, it is fair tosay that technology, a key component of this UDL model, represented a steep learningcurve for most of the faculty. This learning curve was even more impeding because ofthe lack of resources and training, typical in rural universities.
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Because of the available funding, our FLC was able to acquire trainings in tech-nology regularly through the support of the university technology lab. This feature ofour FLC was planned in our budget and action plans every year. The considerationwas that we would draw campus expertise to increase the technology competence ofour participating faculty. For example, since most faculty were using PowerPoint, webegan with this familiar technology by introducing ways to create slides that permitstudents with visual impairments to acquire PowerPoint content in an organised fash-ion by punctuating where appropriate so that a screen reader will recognise when topause during the reading to maximise the listener’s comprehension.
The faculty were also invited to attend a variety of workshops with topics fromcreating an accessible syllabus to using a variety of newer technologies such asCamtasia, a screen-capture technology that allows faculty to create a voice- andvisual-accompanied presentation to be archived later for students to view/read/listento multiple times to ensure access. The faculty were also introduced to new ways ofmaximising the use of elements of the university’s learning management system,VISTA.
Implementing FLCs
Recruiting participants for the FLC
To invite participation, we tapped on the university’s existing venues in faculty devel-opment such as new faculty orientation and Center for Excellence in Learning andTeaching (CELT) annual conference, aside from using university announcements toencourage inquiry. Further, we created recruitment opportunities by visiting depart-ments during their faculty meetings. We offered tailored workshops to departmentsthat were interested in learning more about accessibility and thus promoted FLCparticipation.
FLC meeting norms
To facilitate efficient group work to allow the processes of critique, self-reflection andself-disclosure to take place, the participating faculty as a whole adopted a set of meet-ing norms or elements that would facilitate a positive environment in which to takerisks.
The following norms were adopted:
● Openness to improvement.● Trust and respect.● A foundation in the knowledge and skills of teaching.● Willingness to offer and accept supportive and constructive feedback.● Shared commitment to teaching and learning.
The goals for EnACT FLCs were to:
● Create a professional learning community.● Make teaching practice explicit by “talking about teaching”.● Help faculty work collaboratively in democratic and reflective communities.● Establish a foundation for sustained professional development based on a spirit
of inquiry.
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● Provide a context to understand our teaching practices and a forum to considerour assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning.
● Have each EnACT faculty member participate in UDL workshops, webcastsand seminars related to UDL, and Summer Institute on UDL and Accessibility.
Meeting length, frequency and structure
We met twice a month. An FLC meeting lasted approximately 1.5 hours. The firstmeeting introduced the project information items necessary to clarify what the projectgoals and benefits to the faculty were and what a project to improve teaching andlearning would entail. We used a “critical friends” meeting protocol. We began ourfirst meeting by asking that the participating faculty share one course syllabus,describe course objectives and purpose, and self-examine on the course effectiveness.Other faculty acted as “critical friends” serving as the sounding board offering probingquestions based on UDL principles so as to help the presenting faculty arrive at UDLalternatives (representation, engagement and expression). For example, havingconsidered the syllabus, objectives and assignment descriptions, the presenting facultymight describe a challenge posed by international students whose English proficiencyimpedes their completion of assignment. As other faculty probed him/her to considerthe assignment purpose, the presenting faculty might become aware that the “principleof multiple expressions” would apply in this case.
Building trust and ensuring bonding are critical for a successful FLC. Theelements of “openness”, “ trust and respect”, “willingness to help” and “accepting crit-icism”, when put into practice, require a lot of care on the part of the facilitators. Firstof all, as the facilitators, we insisted on being transparent in our work with the partic-ipating faculty. In addition, we led in the firsts of the entire set of FLC meetings tomodel for the community the process of presenting their own syllabi and self-assessment of their own teaching effectiveness based on the UDL principles. We alsoprovided individualised coaching to all participating faculty to ensure that each facultywas comfortable in speaking of their course and ready to discuss alternatives to whatthey were doing.
To ground the faculty’s teaching practice in UDL principles, representation,engagement and expression, we introduced them to a 14-principle checklist that wouldguide them in reflection upon the presence or absence of UDL principles in theirteaching and in application of these principles (Table 1). For instance, the statementon the clarity and organization of one’s syllabus prompts faculty in re-examining theorganisation and the wording in his/her syllabus for clearer, more accessible presen-tation of information.
These principles guided the dialogue, discussion and critique led by the FLCmember whose work was the focus of the FLC meeting. The FLC member coulddiscuss the degree to which he or she incorporated UDL principles in his or her workand the “critical friends” could participate in collaborative discussion about technolo-gies and approaches to ensure universal access to students.
Measuring success
As we initiated the FLC process, we considered the following as a means of measuringour success: participation, feedback and professional growth.
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Participation
We defined this as the individual faculty’s record of attendance and participation inthe syllabus sharing and the production of multimedia resource, which was requiredof our campus by the EnACT grant. We set the goal of having five to seven partici-pants for our monthly meetings. Because the participating faculty had different teach-ing schedules, it was difficult to get 100% attendance. In the second year of the grant,in order to accommodate teaching schedules, we broke into two groups, an afternoongroup and a morning group that met on different days of the week. The group size atany given meeting was between four and seven participants.
Members volunteered to present their syllabus for feedback. The monthly meet-ings took the format of syllabus discussion based on the FLC protocol, supplied by theEnACT project. The purpose was to help the participating faculty develop a knowl-edge base on syllabus accessibility and usability and provide collective solutions toany of the challenges the faculty expressed. Given the purpose stated, we perceivedthe FLC process and outcome as successful and functional. However, the scheduling
Table 1. Fourteen UDL principles.
UDL principles checklist 1. A statement or information is contained in my course syllabus that specifies campus-based
student support services, including disability support services.2. I provide a comprehensive syllabus that clearly specifies all course requirements, course
expectations and due dates.3 I offer multiple forms of contact information so that students have varied ways to contact
me with questions or concerns.
Representation 4. I utilise multiple methods of expressing general course content utilising different modes
(visual, graphic, verbal, auditory, etc.) so that students have varied ways to access the course content.
5. I provide multiple ways of clearly identifying and explaining essential course concepts (lecture with guided notes, etc.).
6. I ensure accessibility in all course content and materials (accessible websites, captioned videos, e-textbooks, etc.).
7. I provide examples and/or illustrations of all major course assignments or activities.
Engagement 8. I offer varied instructional methods to involve students in the learning process throughout
the semester (lecture, small-group work, online assignments, class discussion, etc.).9. I encourage natural support systems (study buddy, partner work, study groups, etc.) in and
outside of class.10. I provide alternatives for students on how they can participate or complete all major course
assignments or activities.
Expression 11. I offer clear and specific feedback on assignments and encourage re-submission of
assignments as appropriate.12. I allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of subject matter through a variety of
means (oral presentation, written report, etc.).13. I encourage the use of assistive, adaptive or other technologies to ensure that students can
accurately express what they know.14. I provide clear guidelines and/or evaluation rubrics for all major course assignments or
activities.
Source: EnACT 2006.
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of our meetings was always difficult as faculty participant’s teaching and meetingschedules changed every semester; consequently, we had less faculty participation ona regular basis than was desirable due to schedule conflicts.
Member feedback
We used a protocol to solicit the participating faculty’s evaluation of their own FLCexperiences. Faculty feedback is critical to improving meetings and increasingcollaboration. At the end of each semester, we sent an anonymous open-ended ques-tionnaire to the participating faculty which asked questions regarding their participa-tion in the FLC and how it impacted their teaching practice, changed theirperspective on student learning, made their teaching accessible to students and solic-ited suggestions they had for the following year’s FLC meetings. All participatingfaculty responded to the questionnaire. We believe this was due to the collegialitythat had grown over the time we worked together. Here are some quotes from theirresponses to each prompt given:
(1) How has participation in FLC impacted your teaching practice? ● “I don’t take for granted one size fits all [anymore]”.● “I’ve been able to practice technologies I would not otherwise have
used”.● “I now have a community of peers to troubleshoot with”.● “It helped me assess where I am in terms of having my Blackboard Vista
accessible to all students”.(2) How has participation impacted your perspective on student learning?
● “I’ve become more tolerant of difference, more patient with students whomay have trouble reaching standards, more flexible”.
● “I am more likely to place myself in the role of the student and consider howmy methods impact them”.
● “I realise that I teach the way I was taught and that this may not always servediverse student needs”.
(3) Describe a successful teaching experience. ● “I made my PowerPoint lectures more accessible by screen readers”.● “I have received excellent student and peer evaluations. I don’t always
lecture now”.● “I recently had a deaf student. The regular consultation enabled me
to find alternative videos or use videos interpreters that could easilytranslate”.
(4) What are some changes in the FLC experience you would like to see? ● “Keep focus on one learning objective during a meeting rather than an entire
syllabus”.● “Pre-schedule meeting times so that they are fixed at the beginning of the
semester”.● “I would like to see more scholarship-oriented activities and a more struc-
tured agenda”.● “I could use help in better ‘packaging’ my FLC involvement for my RTP
dossier”.● “I would like to have more recognition from my Chair and Dean for the
work I am doing”.
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Professional growth
We defined this as using UDL principles and technology in at least one course whileteaching at the university or as a part of the work of serving students at the university.For example, while six of the seven participants were untenured faculty, one of themembers of the FLC was a librarian who wanted to meet the needs of disabledstudents through her work in the library. We also included presenting FLC informa-tion or participation at conferences that relate to accessibility and/or publishing apaper or project.
Several national and international presentations resulted from the FLC work. Onefaculty member succeeded in getting two peer-reviewed publications that describedher use of technology and one article in a university newsletter, and she presented twopapers at international conferences. Three other faculty members published theirprojects electronically through a peer-reviewed process. All seven of the facultypresented either locally, nationally or internationally on their work using accessibletechnologies.
Discussion
The culture of competition for limited resources, the pressure to publish and the needto achieve high scores in student evaluations of teaching during the tenure and promo-tion process are particularly challenging to new faculty. Spending precious time inmeeting with peers and learning new ways to improve the teaching and learningprocess are not typically rewarded in the same way that publications are in the tenureand promotion process. In addition, the use of technology for accessibility was a newconcept to all of the faculty members when they first joined the FLC. The FLC processwas overall successful in meeting its goals in that:
(1) All faculty who participated had adopted the use of at least one type of tech-nology to improve accessibility.
(2) All faculty had the opportunity to evaluate their courses for UDL principles.(3) All faculty were able to participate in at least one presentation to include in the
RTP process and some published their work.(4) In addition, the group process became a supportive source of collegial social
and professional mentoring.
We found that the benefits of regular meetings were many. We knew that thegroup had become a safe place to problem-solve, provide support for achievablechanges, produce real projects to improve teaching, and for publication, receive ongo-ing feedback, and learn a framework accessible instruction using UDL principles.
However, it was clear that we needed to consider enlisting more support fromadministrators so that faculty schedules could prioritise the FLC meetings, that facultyattending the meetings could get more recognition and that they would be assured thatproviding evidence of accessible instruction in their teaching would be counted inevaluating their teaching ability for retention and promotion. In addition, we foundthat using some of the meeting time to assist faculty in organising their projects fortheir teaching portfolios and assisting them in writing for publication would have beena valuable use of the FLC time together and might have motivated more consistentattendance in the meetings.
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Recommendations
Based on our experience, we believe that organisers of FLCs in higher education insti-tutions would benefit from the following recommendations.
Administrative support
Securing administrative support by informing key players of the organisational infra-structure is one recommendation. Making instruction accessible to all students is aworthy teaching goal, but faculty have to be assured of the relevance of improving orchanging their teaching practices. When administrative leadership makes accessibilityfor students with disabilities a high priority in addition to supporting the use oftechnology to do so, faculty see the direct relationship to career advancement.
Faculty preparation and meeting content
Having a head start to chart the course of your FLC meetings may be critical to howsmooth things run. Because of the collaborative nature of the EnACT project, FLCleaders are wise to set aside time for planning meetings for FLC before the semesterstarts and then remain in dialogue with the participating faculty to adjust and constructthe content and focus of the meetings based upon the needs as they arise while work-ing on projects. Having specific actions planned out will allow for more productivityas well. Having a flexible yet structured meeting process will ensure productivity andrelevance to faculty.
Notes on contributorsHsuying C. Ward, PhD, is currently an associate professor in the Department of English Peda-gogy at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile. She is a teacher educator andhas served diverse student population, especially students with disabilities, over the last 30years. She writes about curriculum and instruction that leads to accessible learning for studentsof diverse backgrounds in both public education and higher education settings. Her recentpublication on “powerful oral language learning” provides a learning structure that elevatesEnglish learners’ oral language development.
Dr Paula M. Selvester, EdD, is an associate professor of teacher education in the Departmentof Education, California State University, Chico. Her research interests include technology inhigher education, emergent and adolescent literacy development, and second language teachingand learning. She is currently writing a book on power and voice in the development ofadolescent literacy.Email: [email protected]
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