Spring 2024 Faculty Learning Community (FLC) offerings
Interested in gathering with an intimate group of fellow instructors a few times a semester to talk about your teaching? Want to stay up-to-date on conversations in teaching and learning? If so, we welcome you to join our faculty learning community (FLC) program! All faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students with an interest in teaching are welcome to join us.
This semester our focus is on how we can continue to improve as teachers. Each week we will talk about how to use different sources of information and facilitators will share short relevent readings to prompt discussion.
We also have a number of groups focused on specialty topics, please check out the offerings below.
FLCs will meet 6 times during spring semester. Unless noted below, FLCs will meet during the weeks of January 22, February 5, February 19, March 11, March 25, and April 8.
Several of the FLCs are full. Please email Kate Bunton (bunton@arizona.edu) to see if the group you are interested in has space available.
Spring Schedule:
| Days/Times | Topics and Facilitators |
|
Monday 9-10am ZOOM |
Facilitated by Michael Mulcahy and Kate Bunton How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
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Monday 3-4pm ZOOM FULL |
Facilitated by Arin Haverland and Lisa Rezende How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
|
Monday 4-5pm ZOOM |
Facilitated by Erin Galyn and Sanlyn Buxner STEM Education Research and Practice This group is open to any and all students, staff, and faculty interested in exploring education research and implications for practice in STEM. Discussions will focus on both education research methodologies and research results that inform teaching and learning practice. Although centered on STEM-based scholarship, we welcome individuals from any discipline. |
|
Tuesday 9-10am ZOOM |
Facilitated by Kathy Bronek How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
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Tuesday 2-3pm ZOOM FULL |
Facilitated by Jackie Maximillian and Kate Bunton How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
|
Tuesday 3-4pm ZOOM |
Facilitated by Ronnie Mullins Preparing your Online Course for Quality Matters (QM) Review. In this FLC, faculty will prepare their online course to meet QM standards. We will review several QM standards and look at examples from courses that have Met the standards and achieved the QM certification. |
|
Wednesday 12-1pm ZOOM FULL |
Facilitated by Cheryl Neal and Cheryl Casey We’ll explore open educational resources (free, customizable course materials), open pedagogy (involving students in the creation of OER), and UArizona’s Pressbooks publishing platform. |
|
Wednesday January 24th to February 29, 2024 10am-11am ZOOM |
Facilitated by Emily Jo Schwaller and Audrey Tocco The What, Why, and How of ePortfolios for Learning Did you know that students in General Education create ePortfolios? Did you know that ePortfolios are a High-Impact Practice? Did you know that you can do ePortfolios in all disciplines? Join us to debunk ePortfolio myths and learn how to implement and utilize this pedagogical practice to enhance meaningful learning for students. In this FLC we will read, explore, and play around with various resources and ePortfolio examples to create actionable to-do strategies participants could implement in their classrooms. |
|
Wednesday January 24, 2024 to February 29, 2024 12-1pm ZOOM |
Facilitated by Aimee Mapes and Ahn Dang Beyond Enrolling to Serving Multilingual Students as Writers Who are your students? Are they mostly domestic students, international students, or a mix of both? Have you ever wondered about the resources that multilingual students can bring to the classroom? As it turned out, nearly all international students are multilingual; but not all multilingual students on our campus are international students. This FLC fosters dialogue about supporting multilingual students on and across campus. We will share our experiences, develop a common ground for working with multilingual students, and discuss major Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) principles that connect our thinking. Our goal is to learn about our respective contexts and to help explain what we mean when we talk about “multilingual students,” “English language learners,” or, for that matter, “native speakers,” and develop strategies for promoting assets and meaningful writing for all students, including multilingual students.
|
|
Wednesday 2-3pm ZOOM |
Facilitated by Sarah Grace This FLC is centered around a pivotal idea: to transform students from mere participants in their education to thoughtful, deliberative individuals who contribute meaningfully to society upon leaving college. We will be reading this book (available online from the library): Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World by Paul Hanstedt. |
|
Wednesday 3-4pm ZOOM |
Facilitated by Kathleen J. Kennedy Applying research, how this can add value to your teaching? |
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Thursday 9-10am ZOOM |
Facilitated by Tierra Stimson This FLC is for faculty, staff, and administrators to support a discussion on the engagement of non-traditional students which can lead to student persistence and ultimately to their completion/graduation. We will discuss what it means to be a non-traditional student, pedagogy regarding persistence and retention of non-traditional students from an institutional and student perspective, as well as three engagement dimensions: behavioral, affect/emotional, and cognitive. Finally, we will discuss how we can assess engagement and create a goal to implement in our own classroom, department, or unit at the university. |
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Thursday 9:30-10:30am ZOOM FULL |
Facilitated by Bill Neumann How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
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Thursday 10-11am ZOOM |
Facilitated by Jennie McStotts Mentoring Honors Students Every Franke Honors student at UArizona must complete a 6-unit culminating project known as an Honors thesis, but what do you need to know when a student approaches you as a potential mentor? This FLC will cover the basics of the Honors thesis, highlight some of the creative project designs of the last few years, dive into best practices for mentors, and introduce you to the resources in Franke Honors for undergrad research, like Quest projects and exploratory mini-grants. |
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Friday 10-11am ZOOM FULL |
Facilitated by Darin Knapp and Tim Ottusch How do we continue to improve as teachers? 1. How could peer observation be used to improve our teaching? |
FAQs
Our learning communities are open to anyone who is interested in teaching and learning in the UArizona community! We encourage all faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students to participate.
Click the REGISTER button at the top of the page. You will be taken to a Qualtrics survey to fill out. Once you register, you are registered for the entire semester.
Participants can register for more than one group; however, sessions are capped at 10 in order to facilitate intimate, meaningful conversation. To register for more than one session, you will need to fill out the registration form twice.
Yes! Active participation is expected from all community members, so please plan to contribute your ideas, questions, examples, and curiosities at each session.
Yes! Participants who attend at least 4 of the 5 sessions will receive a certificate to demonstrate their continuing professional development in Edge Learning.
This summer, all FLCs will be on Zoom. However, note that we do not offer asynchronous learning communities at this time.
Please contact Lisa Elfring (elfring@arizona.edu) and Kristin Winet (kwinet@arizona.edu) to discuss any accessibility needs you may have.