Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)
What is a PLC?
A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is a cross-disciplinary group of 8-12 faculty and academic staff who engage in a collaborative semester-long program to ask questions about innovations in teaching and learning, explore teaching innovations, and generate products of value to the campus community (e.g., surveys, policy papers, teaching tools, presentations, and manuscripts).
A PLC usually consists of several basic traits:
Cross-disciplinary (often combining faculty and professional staff)
8-12 members (plus two facilitators)
Active, collaborative learning experience
Regular structured scholarly activities and discussions
Semester-length (though some run one year)
Often creates an end product (e.g., scholarship, conference, presentation, syllabus revision).
Spring 2019 Professional Learning Communities
Teaching Disciplinary Ways of Reading
Dr. Lisa Bosley
Initial Meeting Time: TBD
Meeting Location: Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning (FCT&L)
The PLC will explore the Decoding the Disciplines framework, a program that emerged from a Freshman Learning Project at Indiana University to address bottlenecks to learning. Participants will read selections from several recent books on the Decoding the Disciplines framework and use these to think about ways to bridge the gap between novice and expert reading.
PLC Learning Outcomes:
- Learn about the Decoding the Disciplines framework
- Identify challenges to reading disciplinary texts
- Analyze mental moves for reading disciplinary texts
- Learn how to model those mental moves for students to improve their critical reading
- Plan ways to assess students’ disciplinary reading
- Consider possible research (SoTL) projects on teaching and learning critical reading
DEEP Course Connections: Metacognition, Critical Reading, Thinking Critically and Creatively,
Learning Threads: Pedagogy, Scholarship
Texts and Resources: Available online
Register for the Teaching Disciplinary Ways of Reading PLC
Peer and Self Analysis
Dr. Cynthia Resor
Initial Meeting Time: TBD
Meeting Location: Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning (FCT&L)
Looking for ways to improve your teaching? In this PLC, you’ll learn strategies for peer and self-analysis of teaching and how these powerful tools can enhance student learning in the classrooms of both new and experienced professors. Participants will observe and assess their own teaching through video as well as form partnerships to visit the classrooms of others. Both experiences will provide valuable insights into classroom dynamics and the impact of instructor behaviors. Improvement plans will be created and implemented and progress will be assessed through a second cycle of peer and self-assessment. You’ll develop a new awareness of your own teaching practice and the effective classroom strategies of peers.
PLC Learning Outcomes:
- Define and describe goals of self and peer analysis of teaching as described in published literature
- Implement self and/or peer analysis of teaching to improve targeted teaching skills
- Assess (critique) teaching skills of self and/or peers to create plan for improvement
- Design plan for improved teaching based on self and/or peer assessments and implement plan
DEEP Course Connections: Foundations
Texts and Resources: Available online. Starter resource available here
Register for Peer and Self Analysis PLC
Best Practices for Teaching Large Enrollment Courses
Dr. Matthew Winslow
Meeting Times: Wednesdays 8:30-9:30am, first meeting date TBD
Meeting Location: Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning (FCT&L)
In this PLC, faculty will explore new ways to teach large sections In this PLC, faculty will design a course that can accommodate large enrollments and consider ways to conduct SoTL research on large enrollment courses.
PLC Learning Outcomes:
- learn of best practices for teaching large sections
- develop an overall approach to teaching large sections
- consider engaging in scholarship about their teaching of large sections
- DEEP Course Connections: Critical Reading,Foundations, Flipping the Classroom
Learning Threads: Pedagogy, Scholarship
Texts and Resources: Available online
Register for Best Practices for TeachingLarge Enrollment Courses PLC
Planning an Online or Hybrid Course for Significant Student Learning
Dr. Paula Jones
Meeting Time: Mondays starting Jan 28 - March 25 from 3:30-5:00pm
Meeting Location: Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning (FCT&L)
During this session, participants will have the opportunity to explore options for planning and developing significant learning experiences for their students. To support this effort, we will read/discuss/apply concepts from Dee Fink's book titled Creating Significant Learning Experiences. At the end of the session, our goal is to have one or more modules created in our practice course sites that support significant learning experiences for our students.
PLC Learning Outcomes:
- apply Dee Fink's methods of course planning and design
- discuss and identify key elements needed in their specific course sites to support student learning.
- develop a module within Blackboard that applies the Fink model and meets quality standards.
DEEP Course Connections: Foundations
Learning Threads: Pedagogy, Technology
Texts and Resources: Available here
Register for Planning an Online or Hybrid Course PLC