Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL)

Faculty Learning Communities

Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) provide a deep dive into a single subject over a year. FLCs are faculty-led communities of six to 12 members that are designed to foster communication across disciplines and drive innovation in teaching and learning. Members spend the year reading, researching, discussing and exploring solutions to an issue or question at the heart of their community’s inquiry. At the end of their projects, FLCS will share their work and products with the university community through various outreach events. Communities are formed and begin working at the start of the academic year (fall semester).

2023-2024 CITL Faculty learning Communities

Proposals for the 2023-24 academic year are due on Friday, April 28 2023.

Click here for more information and the link to submit. 

CITL will host two information sessions to provide a space for questions about the FLCs. These sessions will be held via Microsoft Teams on the following dates:

 

2022-2023 Faculty Learning Communities

 

Below are the specific communities, faculty facilitator(s) and a description of the work they are engaged in throughout the academic year. Please contact individual facilitators with questions about that group. For general questions about the FLC program, please contact CITL at citl@usf.edu  

Professionalization for the English Major

Facilitator: Cynthia Patterson, English (cpatterson@usf.edu) 
"What can I do with a degree in English?" Participants in this FLC will provide answers to this question by modifying a course syllabus and developing a lesson plan to embed a professionalization assignment into their courses. In this way, students pursuing Literary Studies (LTS), Creative Writing (CRW), or Professional/Technical Communication (PTC) concentrations in English begin to practice skills connecting their classroom learning to the world of work.

 

Cheating, Plagiarism, and Forgery, OH MY!

Facilitator: Alison Oberne, Public Health (aoberne@usf.edu) 
Violations of academic integrity continue to rise and evolve as we see new uses for technology and shifts in teaching and learning practices. The purpose of this FLC is to discuss academic integrity concerns that faculty face. Then, as a group, we will develop tools to be used broadly at USF for faculty guidance and/or student engagement. Examples may include worksheets for faculty in navigating academic integrity violations or Canvas modules for students.  

 

Decolonizing Social Science and Humanities Courses FLC: A Pedagogical Shukūk

Facilitators: Kiran Jayaram, Anthropology (kjayaram@usf.edu) and Tangela Serls, Women's and Gender Studies (serlst@usf.edu)
This FLC is an interdisciplinary project designed to a) foster learning about various ways "decolonization" has been applied to intellectual work, b) support participants' critical examination of their existing teaching (i.e., shukūk, Arabic meaning "doubt"), and c) to create new pedagogical materials that reflect their learning and pedagogical reflection. The FLC brings together instructors of various levels as a peer-based support network for collaboration on re-imagining and decolonizing syllabi, assignments, activities, classroom environments, student-teacher interactions, or other pedagogical domains. This process will allow participants to implement decolonial practices to create a more inclusive classroom, thus facilitating success for all students, especially those from historically marginalized groups.

 

Accommodations, Accessibility and Ableism in Academia

Facilitators: Jamie Sommer, Sociology (jamiesommer@usf.edu), Adam Davidson, Judy Genshaft Honors College (adamdavidson@usf.edu), and Deborah McCarthy, Student Accessibility Services Director (dmccarthy@usf.edu)
Using Jay Timothy Dolmage’s 2017 text, Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education as the starting point for discussion, this FLC strives to create a community of faculty interested in exploring disability and accessibility as diversity.

 

Teamwork Resources for STEM Students

Facilitators: Sheila Gobes-Ryan, Engineering (gobes@usf.edu) and Nancy Barr, English (barrn@usf.edu)
This faculty learning community will research and develop resources to assist faculty and students in building skills such as creating team charters, managing conflict, and planning workflow within existing coursework and other student activities.

 

Public Scholars

Facilitator: Heather O'Leary, Anthropology (oleary@usf.edu)
This FLC will teach faculty at varying levels of public scholarship to increase the reach of their research dissemination to the public, stakeholders, and interdisciplinary colleagues. Podcasting and other new educational technologies will be used to demonstrate the broader impact of our research to everyday issues faced by regular people. This will ultimately empower us and our students to be both better listeners and teachers to our wider communities.

 

2021-2022 CITL Faculty Learning Communities

Below are the specific communities, faculty facilitator(s) and a description of the work they are engaged in throughout the academic year. Please contact individual facilitators with questions about that group. For general questions about the FLC program, please contact CITL at citl@usf.edu

Learning Analytics to Address Inequities in STEM

Facilitator: Sarah Lee, Integrative Biology (lee7@usf.edu)  
Before disparities like achievement gaps in STEM can be addressed, they must be documented and understood. The long-term goals of this learning community are to:

  • Identify questions about students and courses,
  • Access, analyze and visualize de-identified data specific to each question,
  • Reflect on data,
  • Communicate results to home departments, and
  • Develop strategies to address findings.

Members:

  • KT Scott, Integrative Biology
  • Autar Kaw, Mechanical Engineering
  • Ruthmae Sears, Teaching and Learning
  • Jennifer Lewis, Chemistry
  • Daniel Cruz-Ramirez de Arellano, Chemistry
  • Henry Alegria, Chemistry
  • Kimberly Fields, Chemistry
  • Dennis Walpole, Innovative Education

Language Teachers for Technology Literacy and Innovation

Facilitator: Matt Kessler, World Languages (kesslerm@usf.edu)
This faculty learning community is devoted to developing language teachers' literacy when it comes to engaging with and/or adopting different technologies in the classroom. Group sessions will focus on expanding teachers' knowledgebases of digital games and tools through a combination of peer-to-peer sharing activities, invited guest presentations discussing tips and best practices, and more.

Members:

  • Anastasia Khawaja, INTO USF
  • Ariadne Miranda, INTO USF
  • Brian Thompson, World Languages
  • Celia Paula-Davies, World Languages
  • Margarita Altuna, World Languages
  • Margit Grieb, World Languages
  • Martine Wagner, World Languages
  • Robert Hedrick, World Languages

 

Working the Process

Facilitator: Brianne Stanback, Health Sciences (bstanback@usf.edu)
The purpose of Working the Process is to bring together a faculty community interested in learning more about different process writing assignments and activities, drafting or updating process writing assignments, developing strengths-based review strategies, and creating resources for future use.  This FLC might make students, and maybe ourselves, better authors.

 

Developing Tomorrow's Researcher

Facilitator: Heather O’Leary, Anthropology (oleary@usf.edu)
Adjusting from mentoring in a classroom to actively structuring and managing a research lab is an abrupt transition that faculty receive surprisingly limited training to overcome.  This FLC is designed to focus on innovative student research management techniques to streamline key dimensions like record-keeping, personnel development, and maintaining the heart of research.

 

Taking the Stress Out of Teaching Classes with International Students

Facilitators: Meghan Bratkovich, Foreign Language and ESOL Education (bratkovich@usf.edu) and Jane Harvey, INTO USF (jkharvey@usf.edu)
Since 2010, the number of international students at USF has risen from 1300 to around 4500, with the onus of adapting to teaching increasingly multilingual/multicultural classes left on faculty of all disciplines. This FLC is intended to explore teaching approaches and classroom strategies that reduce faculty stress and support the learning of all students, both domestic and international.

 

Developing Open-Access Media to Support Florida Interdisciplinary Climate Justice Education

Facilitator: Alexandra Panos, Literacy Studies (ampanos@usf.edu)
Climate change, or the climate crisis, is widely understood to be a mega-challenge that exacerbates existing inequities and injustices. Teaching about the climate crisis, and how to act towards ecological justice, locally drives this Faculty Learning Community. As a group of cross-disciplinary and cross-campus faculty, we seek to develop, implement, and research interdisciplinary curricular materials that span the educational lifespan of Florida students in engaging with the unique needs of our precious and precarious environment.

 

Facilitating Critical Thinking through Student Writing

Facilitators: Morgan Gresham, English (gresham@usf.edu) and Alaina Tackitt, English (atackitt@usf.edu)
Our Faculty Learning Community focuses on facilitating critical thinking by creating and cultivating resources for faculty and administrators related to the development, evaluation, and assessment of writing tasks that allow students to demonstrate critical thinking skills. Our broad goal is to expand conversations around critical thinking across the university and to contribute to a robust, interdisciplinary understanding of the concept. By co-constructing disciplinary definitions of critical thinking, synthesizing elements that are essential to our institutional goals and curriculum, and connecting them to broad contexts, such as the AAC&U Value Rubric, our FLC will design resources on teaching critical thinking skills, developing critical response tasks, evaluating student writing for critical thinking, and assessing the samples as connected to student learning outcomes. Members will be encouraged to construct writing tasks for their courses, which will allow us to include students and their feedback in our conversations and to operationalize evaluation and assessment approaches.

Additional Learning Communities

Inclusive & Equitable Pedagogy Learning Community

Facilitators: Drs. Ashley Reese (CITL; anreese@usf.edu) and Michelle Madden (DIEO)

This is a semester long learning community where participants adapt one future course based on the principles from the Inclusive and Equitable Pedagogy Course, resources gathered with a USF Librarian, and classroom observation and syllabus feedback from one another. The learning community’s monthly meetings will also have specific themes that build on what is discussed in the pedagogy course: classroom community, accessibility, and difficult conversations. In addition to meeting monthly, this group will also be expected to participate in peer observation of one another’s class and peer evaluation of one another’s syllabus. This learning community brings together faculty from across all three USF campuses.

Becoming a Credentialed Incredi-Bull Critical & Creative Design Thinking Faculty Member

Facilitators:  Drs. Mike Gillespie, Department of Psychology, and Helene Robinson, College of Education & Director of Critical & Creative Design Thinking Program

This FLC will explore the application of critical thinking, creativity, and design thinking to faculty teaching, research, or service projects.  Faculty will explore resources and engage in live discussions twice a month to facilitate their own integration of these frameworks with their work.  Through participation in this FLC, faculty may submit a proposal to become a credentialed Incredi-Bull CT or CCDT faculty member through the CCDT Program. By becoming a credentialed faculty member, faculty may mentor students working toward the student CCDT award.  Credentialed faculty may also be asked to participate in external fee-based training workshops and may be eligible to apply for resources to support their work in CT or CCDT.  Participation in this FLC will support the revision of any targeted courses for the integration of critical thinking or both critical thinking and creative design thinking.  It may also support the application of these frameworks and rubrics into your research projects.  

Critical Thinking was the QEP on the Sarasota-Manatee campus prior to consolidation.  With the new revised program, it has been expanded to include creativity and design thinking,  a student engagement component, and an external fee-based training component. For information about the CCDT program visit:  https://www.sarasotamanatee.usf.edu/academics/critical-thinking. 

By participating in this FLC, you will become the first faculty members across all three USF campuses to earn this credential and join an interdisciplinary community of faculty who are innovatively applying this framework to create transformative solutions, products, research, and learning experiences.  This FLC will meet twice a month for 4 months and is expected to start in February.  Exact meeting dates will be determined based on participant’s best availability.  All of the meetings will be held virtually.

To Join:  Contact Helene Robinson helene2@usf.edu