Faculty Learning Communities
Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) and Instructional Learning Communities (ILC) are offered at various times throughout the year. Each learning community offers an area of focus that is relevant to your teaching whether you are just beginning or have tons of teaching experiences. In a learning community you will work in large or small groups to learn about effective teaching methods and strategies and how to implement them in your classroom. If you are interested in participating in a faculty or instructional learning community, please register with the appropriate community below.
If you are interested in offering an FLC or ILC for the greater NDSU teaching community, contact our office early with details about your FLC or ILC and we will help you organize and promote it.
AI in the College Classroom
Monday, October 2 - Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Registration Deadline: Monday, October 2, 2023
Meeting dates and times will be determined after participants are registered.
Led By: William Grube, Founder and CEO of Gruvy Education
Gain valuable insights into the cutting-edge landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. We'll explore its transformative impact on student learning, future trends, and practical strategies for leveraging AI tools to set students up for long-term success.
Meeting times for the FLC will be scheduled based on the preferences indicated by registrants on the registration form. To accommodate various schedules, recordings of each meeting will be made available for those who are unable to attend in real time. Additionally, you have the option to engage entirely asynchronously, if you so choose.
Past FLCs Offered
The following FLCs have been offered through the Office of Teaching and Learning. If you would like to offer any of these FLCs for your department or college, please contact our office and we will help you facilitate the details of your FLC.
Practical Transformation Toward A Student-Centered Class FLC
Registration Deadline: Friday, February 3, 2023
Meeting dates and times will be determined after participants are registered.
Led By: Dr. Jessica Striker, OTL Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics
Learn and discuss practical strategies for incorporating more active learning in your classes. Identify ways to incorporate active learning in your classroom. Share the changes you are making in your classes and receive input, ideas, and support from other faculty.
Faculty and other instructors, from all disciplines, who are interested in working together to transform their class meeting time to be more student-centered are invited to become a part of this faculty learning community (FLC) for Spring Semester 2023.
If you are interested in this learning community, register today. For more information, contact Dr. Jessica Striker.
High Impact Practices Learning Community
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | 4 p.m.
Registration Deadline: September 12, 2022
Led by: Dr. Stacy Duffield, OTL Director
Are you interested in increasing student engagement and learning? Would you like to increase your effectiveness as an educator? The Office of Teaching and Learning invites you to apply for the High Impact Practices Learning Community. The HIP Learning Community will meet 8-10 times over the academic year to reflect on current practices; learn about evidence-based, high impact practices that promote student success; design and implement instructional changes; and study impact of changes.
Full-time faculty and instructors from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to educators who teach high-enrollment, gateway classes. Applications are due September 12th, and notifications will be sent out by September 19th. The first meeting will be October 4th in the Group Decision Center with a light meal. Participants will receive a $500 allocation that can be used toward resources or conference attendance that supports effective instructional practices.
Program Agenda:
The following topics may be addressed based on the customized needs of each participant.
- High Impact Practices: What are they and how can they promote equity and learning for all students?
- Customizing Learning: Identification of Best Practices
- Understanding the variables that create classroom inequity and barriers to learning
- The impact of educator mindset and asset-based thinking
- Deep Learning to promote fidelity of HIP implementation
- Communicating to support inclusivity and learning
- Increasing Accessibility to Learning
- Assessment of and for learning
- Establishing a classroom learning community
- Facilitating collaborative learning/common intellectual experiences
- Experiential Learning
- Measuring impact of HIPs
- Reflecting on current practices and examining student success data
Registrations are now closed for this FLC.
For more information, contact Dr. Stacy Duffield, 701-231-7102.
Pedagogical Research FLC
Future dates to be determined.
Led by: Cheryl Wachenheim, OTL Faculty Fellow
Most faculty at NDSU have a teaching appointment and many are subject to research expectations. Pedagogical research is a means to simultaneously answer questions related to our role in student education and contribute towards our academic research portfolio. All it takes is a pedagogical curiosity and a desire to conduct research to satisfy this curiosity.
Are you interested in the characteristics, background and experiences that contribute to success in your classroom? Would you like to compare learning in an in-person offering of a course and that offered online or through HyFlex instruction? Are you planning to test a new teaching method and are interested in how it affects your student ratings of instruction? Evidence-based answers to these and an unlimited number of other questions can result from pedagogical research. Presenting or publishing our results will provide information to our colleagues with similar questions and contribute to our research portfolio. And it is fun!
We seek to increase application of pedagogical research among NDSU teaching faculty, staff and graduate students through a mentoring program relying on faculty mentors, peer support, and feedback. Participants will identify a research question and work with one-another and their faculty mentor to develop a research proposal, submit the proposal to IRB, conduct the research plan, and publish and present the results. Participants are free to work on an independent research project or collaborate with one or more others.
All teaching faculty, instructional staff, and graduate teaching assistants are invited to participate. If you would like to inquire about future offering contact Cheryl Wachenheim, 701-231-7452.
Understanding and Promoting Language Diversity in Our Classrooms FLC
Future dates to be determined.
Led by: Lisa Arnold, Ibtissem Belmihoub, Stephen Disrud, and Fahad Hossain
Recognizing and promoting language diversity in our classrooms is critical to creating a positive and socially just learning environment. Language bias complicates these efforts. In this learning community, participants will learn about the concepts of linguistic diversity and language bias. We will consider how language diversity affects our interactions with and assessment of students. Participants will learn and develop socially just, inclusive teaching practices that will promote linguistic diversity in the classroom.
This faculty learning community is free to join. If you choose to purchase the book, it can be purchased through the publisher or an online book seller of your choice. For your convenience, links are provided for Amazon and the publisher below. We recognize the cost of the book may be prohibitive; therefore, four copies of the book have been put on hold in the library for the purpose of this FLC.
The primary reading is English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States by Rosina Lippi-Green | ISBN: 978-0-415-55911-9
All faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students are invited to participate. If you would like to inquire about future offering contact Lisa Arnold.
Online Teaching and Learning FLC
Future dates to be determined
Led by Dr. Melissa Vosen Callens
In this faculty learning community, you will examine key concepts and pedagogical issues related to online learning. Develop and/or revise an online course, selecting appropriate instructional strategies and technologies.
The book can be purchased through the publisher or an online book seller of your choice. For your convenience, links are provided for Amazon and the publisher below. We recognize the cost of the book may be prohibitive to participation for many graduate students; therefore, four copies of the book have been put on hold in the library for the purpose of this FLC.
The primary reading is Teaching Online by Claire Howell Major.
All faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students are invited to participate. If you would like to inquire about future offerings, contact Melissa Vosen-Callens.
Ungrading: Into the Summer! FLC
Future dates to be determined
Led by: Dr. Jenni Momsen
If you don't want the ungrading conversation to end or want to start planning for fall semester, join our Ungrading: Into the Summer! faculty learning community (FLCs). To help meet your needs, we will organize a variety of summertime FLCs, based on Susan Blum's book, Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). Some FLCs will focus on further readings and discussion, others on prepping courses to incorporate ungrading ideas. You can join one or several!
Proposed FLC topics include:
- Further reading + discussion
- Course implementation - small courses, upper division
- Course implementation - graduate courses
- Course implementation - large enrollment courses
- Course implementation - introductory courses
- Course implementation - Arts & Humanities
- Course implementation - Social Sciences
- Course implementation - Science
- Course implementation - Engineering & Mathematics
- Other: Ideas you submit in the registration form
The book can be purchased through the publisher or an online book seller of your choice. For your convenience, links are provided for Amazon and the publisher below. We recognize the cost of the book may be prohibitive to participation; therefore, four copies of the book have been put on hold in the library for the purpose of this FLC.
The primary reading is Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead) by Susan Blum.
All faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students are invited to participate. If you would like to inquire about future offering contactDr. Jenni Momsen.