SCHEV offered eight pre-determined FLC topics for 2019-20.

Student-Centered Teaching Practices

Facilitator: Breana Bayraktar, Northern Virginia Community College

This FLC will focus on exploring and adapting Student-Centered practices from research into our own classrooms. Each month we will discuss a new strategy/approach, plan how we could implement it in our classes, and then debrief the next month on what worked well and what needed improvement. The overall goal will be to experiment with gradually incorporating more student-centered teaching practices, and share that knowledge with colleagues on our campuses and across the state.

Integration of the Socratic Method in the Classroom

Facilitator: Nadjhia Normil-Skakavac, Virginia State University

The Socratic Method encourages ongoing dialogues in the classroom and empowers students to think, question and develop their own ideas in various group settings. One of the most important aspects of this pedagogical approach is the transformation of passive students into active learners. This FLC will focus primarily on implementing the Socratic Method in a collaborative, stimulating and safe environment with great emphasis on instilling in students the habit to reason and analyze critically.

Competency-Based Education

Facilitator: Kimberly Brown, Radford University

Competency-based education (CBE) within higher education is not a new concept, but it is one that can be more readily applied to certain disciplines than others. Education in health care disciplines, for example, is driven by differing accrediting bodies, therefore "competency" language varies. This FLC will explore the application of CBE across various academic fields/disciplines, compare and contrast methodologies of implementing CBE, and isolate CBE best practices within higher education.

Contemplative Pedagogical Practices

Facilitator: Caitlin Bergendahl, Virginia Commonwealth University

Mindfulness is a concept with which many of us are familiar, but integrating mindful or contemplative practices into our teaching is something new for many of us. Contemplative pedagogy is a wide field of research and practice, designed to cultivate deepened awareness, concentration, and insight within our students and within ourselves. This FLC will attempt to explore the role of contemplative practices within our teaching and learning environments. We will explore current research, inspect a wide variety of programs on contemplative pedagogy, and develop and share our own contemplative pedagogical practices.

Equity-Driven Teaching Strategies

Facilitator: Pamela Tracy, Longwood University

The first step for this learning community is to develop a list of resources (e.g. scholarly sources, teaching strategies, course design practices, etc.) that help us understand what we mean by equity in higher education. Furthermore, these resources should provide theoretical and practical guidance to inform how our pedagogical choices and practices can contribute to closing achievement gaps and improving the educational experiences of all students and more specifically, our historically underrepresented students. As a group, we will decide our overarching goal.; for example, we might decide to develop teaching strategies to distribute, design a blog site, develop a conference proposal, etc.

Equity-Driven Teaching Strategies in the Community College Classroom

Facilitator: Jamie Lennahan, Germanna Community College

The goal of this FLC will be to learn about how equity-driven teaching strategies can be used to meet the unique needs of community college students. FLC members will research best practices of equity-driven teaching strategies and implement one or more of those strategies within their own classrooms. Based on our research and practice of equity-driven teaching strategies, we will create a deliverable (specific form to be determined by FLC members) to share what we've learned from our research and practice of equity-driven teaching strategies with colleagues at our respective institutions.

Engagement in Online Courses

Facilitator: Metta Alsobrook, Sentara College of Health Sciences

In this FLC, participants will identify strategies for online engagement that lead to more interactive and active learning. We will also discuss strategies that help overcome obstacles to student engagement and develop a plan to improve student engagement in online courses.

Supporting Minority Faculty Through Mentorship

Facilitator: Carol Carr, John Tyler Community College

This FLC creates an academic and practical forum for those invested in developing/enhancing mentorship programs that support ascent to leadership for minority faculty. The FLC will create a playbook for formal, targeted programs within diversity and inclusion advisory councils. We will take a limited but flexible academic approach to existing knowledge surrounding successful mentorship programs. In addition, members of the FLC will share practical (personal) experiences with the group. As its final product, the FLC will create an experiential-based PowerPoint presentation to share with interested academic institutions.

If you would like to explore a different topic, consider creating your own FLC. See the Faculty Learning Communities page for information on how to submit a proposal.