Faculty and Staff
"What's so great about a Learning Community?"
"Being a Learning Community Coordinator is one of the most meaningful and fulfilling aspects of my job. It is a leadership experience that has elevated my skillset and my confidence to lead in a way I never could have imagined. In partnership with our Peer Mentors, we've had the opportunity to transform the culture in the Theatre & Dance Department and establish a family-like atmosphere that our students take great pride in. I've thoroughly enjoyed creating a mission, purpose, and set of values for our LC and evolving those over time, with new sets of Peer Mentors adding their touches to it each year. I look forward to continuing to lead our Learning Community by providing great service, support, and guidance to our wonderful students!"
- James Fortune, Theatre & Dance Learning Community Coordinator
A case study of three learning communities offered as part of Temple's Learning Communities Program included a discussion of the experiences of faculty. This portion of the study centered on the question, "How do professors and graduate assistants experience Learning Communities?" The study revealed that the flexible design of learning communities allowed teachers to shape communities in ways that reflected their own interests and priorities. For one professor, the academic connection was the important aspect of Learning Communities. All of the professors interviewed for this study reported that teaching in a Learning Community had changed their pedagogy or philosophy toward teaching and learning in some manner. Some professors reported that they gained more of a "student perspective". Others described an increased understanding of the impact of group work on teaching and learning. Several faculty members came away from the Learning Community experience with a renewed sense of excitement toward teaching. Others were so pleased with the success of their learning community courses that they implemented changes in their teaching styles in their non-learning community courses.
N Shapiro & J Levine (1999) Creating Learning Communities
LC Coordinator Connection Meetings
Learning Communities hosts monthly meetings for our LC Coordinator group to discuss the LC program, best practices, upcoming LC programming, and more. These meetings typically are hosted on the third Friday of each month at 1 pm, subject to change based on campus events or conferences. Up-to-date meeting dates and times can always be found in the monthly Learning Communities Newsletter.