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In 2013–2014 academic year, the authors led a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The goal of the FLC was to increase participants’ knowledge of and experience with SoTL. The facilitators resided and worked in United States; the co-facilitator and the participants worked at Universidad Del Norte in Colombia South America. The facilitators in the United States spoke English; the participants spoke Spanish. While the technology was sometimes problematic, the translation difficult, and the distance inhibiting, overall the learning community was very successful in meeting its goals. We conclude with the lessons learned from this cross-cultural FLC experience.

In the USA, as elsewhere, there is an ongoing need to improve quality in higher education. Quality improvement models from business have not been widely embraced, and many other approaches to accountability seem to induce minimal compliance. This paper aims to contend that learning communities represent a viable alternative in the quest for quality. By restructuring the curriculum and promoting creative collaboration, learning communities have become a major reform effort in US colleges.

The paper provides an overview of learning community theory and core practices and four original case studies of institutions that have made learning communities a long‐term focus of their quality improvement efforts.

Findings include: effective learning communities are clearly positioned, aimed at large arenas and issues and are central to the organization's mission; learner‐centered leadership is a key component of effective programs; learning communities offer a high leverage point for pursuing quality; effective learning communities meet faculty where they are; successful initiatives create new organizational structures, roles and processes; successful programs attract and reward competent people and build arenas for learning from one another; and successful programs have a living mission and a lived educational philosophy reaching constantly toward more effective practices.

Educators will draw rich lessons from this concise overview of learning community theory and practice and the story of these successful institutions.

In this chapter, the authors discuss the process of embedding experiential learning in a required ethics and diversity course (ED200). The course is a model of humanistic education in which students develop disciplinary-based methodological expertise while also drawing on cross-disciplinary, inclusive, problem-solving skills. The authors suggest that in a course that challenges students to think about their lives in community, engagement with that community plays a critical role in humanizing the learning experience. This pedagogical emphasis on experiential learning, instantiated as community engagement, unites the foci of ethics and diversity through students’ practical application of and reflection on their experiences to enhance ethical and cultural self-awareness. In the process, it also fosters a desire for participatory and justice-oriented citizenship (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). In what follows, the authors provide a history of the development of ED200. The authors then justify the inclusion of experiential learning in the course from theoretical and practical perspectives: Why is it valuable to include experiential learning in this course and how does it advance the goal of developing critically engaged citizens through improving ethical reasoning skills and actionable understanding of diversity? Last, the authors detail positive impacts and implementation challenges and indicate next steps for continued development.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and assess a faculty development program targeted at pedagogically sound integration of technology by faculty into their courses.

The paper developed a program that combines a summer training institute and a yearlong faculty learning community. This program is supported by instructional technology and faculty development experts, and rewards the participants both with a stipend and with acknowledgement. To assess the effectiveness of this program, the paper used electronic anonymous surveys during the middle and end of the program.

Self-reported evaluations suggests that the alumni of the 2011-2012 cohort will continue to develop and adapt technologies in their course, and would encourage their colleagues to do the same. In addition, the majority report that the program has changed the way they see and use technology in the classroom. Additional observations about the program alumni's involvement in continuing efforts to improve teaching with technology indicate that this program may be having an effect beyond the individual participants.

Assessment of the program was limited to only one year, and needs to continue to evaluate the program and the faculty after they leave the program.

This program provides a possible model to implement change at a university, on teaching with technology, or other teaching- and learning-related topics.

In a world where there are increasing expectations of technology in teaching, a successful model of faculty development which produces an increase in pedagogically sound faculty adoption of teaching technology is a valuable one to higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to outline findings from practitioner research with a university faculty learning community (FLC) that organized itself to effect bottom-up change. The study explores beliefs about the efficacy of collaboration among members of the FLC and serves as a best case of grassroots faculty collaboration during a period of institutional change.

This is a case study using semi-structured interviews with FLC members and document review of short-term learning data from students who participated in workshops offered by the FLC.

Creative faculty responses to challenges posed by large-scale institutional transformation improved the teaching and learning environment for faculty and students. This case study highlights four characteristics that were crucial to the success of this FLC and which could provide a helpful starting point for faculty collaboration at other institutions.

This is a preliminary, self-reflective study with a small number of participants working at a unique institution. Findings are presented not as strictly generalizable truths about faculty collaboration in higher education, but as “lessons learned” that may be valuable to other faculty seeking to take a more proactive role in contexts of institutional change.

This case study highlights four characteristics that were crucial to the success of this FLC and which could provide a helpful starting point for faculty collaboration at other institutions.

This study illustrates how bottom-up, faculty-led collaboration can address institutional problems in a university setting. Creative faculty responses to challenges posed by large-scale institutional transformation can improve the teaching and learning environment for faculty and students.

This study documents one FLC’s innovative responses to institutional challenges and shifts the conversation about university-based teaching and learning away from bureaucratic mandates related to faculty interactions and productivity and toward faculty’s organic responses to changing institutional conditions.

Higher education institutions are required to evaluate program quality through cyclical program review processes. Despite often being considered the “gold standard” of academic review, there persists dissatisfaction with the lack of integration of program review findings into other planning processes, such as budgeting, assessment and strategic planning. As a result, the notion of program review action plans “collecting dust on the shelf” is so ubiquitous that the concept is normalized as an expected outcome. The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptual model whereby teams of faculty members receive education and training from quality assurance practitioners and educational developers, access to institutional resources, opportunities for cross-departmental collaborations and collective advocacy to increase the capacity of faculty members to implement improvement goals resulting from program reviews.

The authors theorize that a professional learning community is a meaningful approach to program review and present a conceptual model – the Academic Program Review Learning Community (PRLC) – as an antidote to hierarchical, fragmented, compliance-oriented processes. The authors suggest that the PRLC offers a reliable institutional framework for learning through formalized structures and nested support services, including peer learning and external coaching, which can enhance the catalytic capacity of reviews.

The authors argue that postsecondary institutions should create formal structures for incorporating learning communities because, without a reliable infrastructure for collective learning, decision-making may be fragmented oridiosyncratic because of shifting demands, priorities or disconnected faculty.

A learning community model for program review fits well with a new way to think about program review because faculty are most engaged when they feel ownership over the process. Furthermore, few models exist for conducting program review; as a result, chairs and academics often struggle to conduct reviews without a coherent framework to draw upon.

This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library types.

It introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2014.

It provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

In an environment of constrained resources and related quality assurance efforts, a growing number of American institutions are tapping collaborative relationships to develop creative ways to advance institutional outcomes. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE), a non-profit organization incorporated in 1993, is a collaborative of eight private colleges and universities located in the Greater Philadelphia region. SEPCHE’s institutions are small to mid-sized colleges and universities, and like other institutions of higher education, they are increasingly challenged by several environmental factors including diminished growth in enrollment; reduced family financial capacity; limitations in availability and types of funding; and greater demand for accountability.

This chapter highlights the challenges faced by faculty to ensure that students are learning at the highest levels while balancing teaching, research and institutional responsibilities, and the role that collaborative professional development can play in helping faculty attend to these challenges. Several examples illustrate how faculty-led professional development efforts have expanded professional and research capacity efforts across institutions.

The chapter includes faculty perspectives on what has helped and hindered adoption of these efforts within and across institutions. It assesses institutional conditions and supports for sustained collaborations. These efforts are part of an initiative examining faculty work and student learning in the 21st century funded by the Teagle Foundation.