• Center for Teaching Excellence
• Faculty Learning Communities

Faculty Learning Communities

 Each Faculty Learning Community brings together 6-10 faculty who meet regularly over the course of the semester (or sometimes throughout the entire academic year) to discuss topics of mutual interest, to share teaching strategies and techniques, and to provide support.  Faculty participants receive an honorarium for their participation.  Below is a list of current-year FLCs and FLCs from recent years.

AY 2012-2013

*  Teaching with the iPad Faculty Learning Community  (iPad FLC)—Four cohorts of faculty have participated in this innovated FLC, which introduces faculty to ways in which the iPad can be used to teach more effectively and efficiently.  Some faculty find subject-specific apps that they can use in the lab r classroom (e.g., anatomy or lighting design apps), other faculty use apps to provide more effective feedback on student papers, and still others are considering how students can take field study notes on the iPad.

*  Teaching Writing in the Cultural Studies Program Faculty Learning Community  (CSP FLC)—The CTE has collaborated with the Core program to offer this FLC for several years.  Faculty in this Learning Community discuss strategies for teaching critical thinking and writing, writing assignment design and prompts, and feedback and evaluation of student papers.

*  Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Learning Community (SoTL FLC)—This is a new Learning Community that supports faculty publications in the field of Teaching and Learning.  Faculty will meet to workshop drafts of their essays and support one another through the publication process.

*  First Year Faculty Learning Community (FYFLC)—Each year, the newly hired tenure-track faculty meet together throughout their first year in the First Year Faculty Learning community.  Our meetings aim to orient new faculty to Oxy students and teaching at Oxy, to familiarize them with campus offices and services, to introduce them to faculty outside their departments (including the prior year’s new faculty, recently tenured faculty, the Faculty Council, and Advisory Council), to talk about how to establish themselves as teacher-scholars, and, in general, to help them transition into our community.

*  Faculty-led study abroad programs Faculty Learning Community (FLSAP FLC)—As part of the college’s concern to instill in students global literacy, the college has made a commitment to offer more faculty lead short-term study abroad trips linked to semester courses.  In Spring 2013, the CTE will co-sponsor with the International Programs Office a FLC on designing pedagogically effective programs that integrate a faculty-taught on-campus course with a faculty-led short-term field study abroad.

*  Teaching and Mentoring Undergraduate Research Faculty Learning Community (UR FLC)—The extensive support of undergraduate research is a distinctive feature of Occidental College: students learn how to conduct undergraduate research in the second-semester CSP course, many students are funded to conduct summer research through the URC, and many majors culminate with a senior comprehensive paper.  In spring 2013, the CTE will convene a Learning Community to discuss how best to mentor and advise undergraduate research at all of these levels.

 

AY 2011-2012

*  First-year FLC

*  CSP FLC

*  iPad FLC

*  Scholarship of Teaching & Learning reading and discussion group

*  Combining Motherhood and Teaching reading and discussion group

 

AY 2010-2011

*  First-year FLC

*  FLC on Writing Instruction

*  FLC on Research

*  Teachers Body reading and discussion group