Learning Communities have flourished at KSU and across the state of Ohio. There are currently several learning communities at Kent State University fully or partially supported by the fpdc.
The goals for the FLC on Disability Issues is to assist faculty with focusing on the nature and needs of the most common disabilities of students in higher education, assist in the transition of college students with disabilities, be aware of classroom accommodations and assistive technology for students with disabilities, develop effective teaching strategies and universal design for learning to assist students with disabilities, and educate colleagues to be
advocates for college students with disabilities.
There will be a dual emphasis of the FLC on Disability Issues:
teaching methods to assist students with disabilities will be studied .
synthesizing research to better understand the
experiences of students with disabilities.
Through the FLC on Disability Issues the faculty will be conducting action research that directly relates to their individual needs. The FLC on Disability Issues will be important to all students. As we have discovered, through documented research findings, accommodations made for students with disabilities benefits the class as a whole.
This community investigates the use of the Sympodium™ interactive pen display and SMART Notebook™ in two Astronomy courses as a vehicle for exploring various teaching and learning methods and strategies not fully executed in “techless” environments. We also consider the broader perspective of technology and The College of Wooster’s mission.
For More Information visit their Wiki http://wiki.wooster.edu/display/WoosterLC
Convener: Simon Gray, sgray@kent.edu
Membership: Contact Convener
The Kent Academic Support and Advising Association (KASADA) and several collegial units at Kent State University, seek to assess the learning outcomes in the Master Advising Plan during the common " FlashPoint " course that all first year students take at Kent State University. The Learning Community, made up of collegial units, Residence Services, First-Year Experience, Career Services, and the KASADA Executive Board and KASADA Advisory Council, will utilize technology, such as the Web-Scheduler, Blogs, Podcasts, and other forms of multi-media to communicate informationto students and followthrough with an assessment of the student learning outcomes across the University.
Convener: Charity Synder, csnyder1@kent.edu, (330) 672-2862
Membership: Open to New Member
Meets: Kent Campus
Walsh University sponsors a learning community that is studying and creating hybrid courses ( combining technology, online learning , and face-to-face interaction) that will be then implemented at the University in subsequent academic years. This year long process will be multi-desciplinary and include best practice as it relates to the teaching learning process.
Convener: Kathy Buttermore , kbuttermore@kent.edu
Membership: Contact Convener
In upgrading student assessment process, Ursuline College has adopted the Collegiate Learning Assessment program for freshmen and seniors. Preliminary results indicate the need for increased attention to writing and critical thinking in our core carriculum, the Ursuline Studies Program (USP), and its satellite courses. To address these issues, we will integrate Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), a collaborative, internet-based writing program, into USP and biology satellites. Effectiveness will be evaluated through CPR-designed assessment tools, a comparison with control sections not usin CPR, and variety of student responses. The information will be disseminated to the community through workshops and, potentially, publications.
Convener: Lita Yu , lyu@ursuline.edu, (440) 646-8302
Membership: Contact Convener
Meets: Ursuline College
This community will explore, design, create, evaluate, share and catalog Learning Objects from common courses, departments and divisions to increase student learning and engagement. Partnerships in this community will include faculty, Informati on Technology, Library
Services and the Center for Transformation Learning.
Convener: John DiGennaro, jdigenna@bw.ed
Membership: Open to New Members
An Academy Funded by the Ohio Board of Regents
The Academy has several goals:
- To attract and retain the most academically capable high school students from the middle and upper Cuyahoga Watershed for careers in teaching in science, technology, enginering and mathematics ( STEM) subjects.
- To establish and support innovative learning communities that include high school students.
- To develop curricular materials in science subjects that are relevant to local students, promote learning of all students in science subjects, and excite students to consider STEM careers.
- To improve the Cuyahoga watershed and decrease negative environmental impacts of students and their communities through student learning that promotes critical thinking about roles that each resident plays in improving or degrading our own watershed environment.
Objectives: The participants in this Learning Community will be able to:
Engage in open dialogue about current issues relative to ethical inquiry and decision making in all courses across the curriculum
Discover practical approaches for engaging students to think reflectively and critically about ethical issues facing them as college students
Employ strategies for facilitating ethical inquiry from freshman through senior year to foster strong professional behaviors during their time at KSU and beyond and
Discover meaningful ways in which faculty can assess moral development throughout a course or program of study.
This Learning Community will strive to bring together Kent State University faculty to encourage interaction regarding ethical issues challenging faculty and students. The main focus of this learning community will be to discover ways to engage students in critical thinking activities through a Moral Courage™ Approach to facilitate the development of professional behaviors in our students.
Convener: Kim Peer
In harmony with KSU initiatives to broaden our strides and expand our research and pedagogical scopes, this Learning Community creates and discovers new ways to bring international foci to courses and programs at the local level and extend local foci to an international audience.
Convener: Kenneth Cushner,kcushner@kent.edu
Membership: By Application
Meets: Kent State
DIGITAL GAME BASED LEARNING
SECOND LIFETM LEARNING COMMUNITY
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
This Learning Community draws several faculty members and graduate students from a variety of departments and campuses to examine ways of bringing the power of games and virtual worlds to KSU educational practices. The Digital Games-based Learning FLC is exploring Second Life™ for education. Our primary goal is to develop online virtual science camps in which 7th – 12th grade student can explore science concepts through collaborative problem solving activities. We hope these explorations and experiments will lead to further innovations and course/curriculum improvements.
Convener: Dale Cook, dcook@kent.edu, 330-672-0611
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Monthly, Kent Campus
This new FLC is designed to enable participants to explore student learning in large classes. Drawing on the experiences of members, the growing literature and research on teaching large classes, and on students who learn in large classes in a diversity of disciplines, FLC members will develop individual projects tailored to their current teaching assignments but that will have implications for other courses as well. Teaching methods, learning styles, assessments procedures, use of technology, etc., as applied to large classes are all relevant issues. supports colleagues with the unique challenges of large classes and helps identify challenges and resources of fpdc & university.
Facilitator: Murali Shanker, mshanker@kent.edu,330-672-1165
Membership: Open to New Members
The Teaching Scholars are a group of pre-tenure faculty members who are committed to studying their own teaching and to enhancing their students’ learning. They focus on individual projects, engage in bi-weekly seminars and workshops on teaching and learning, and participate as a community in at least two conferences on college teaching, one at KSU and in one or two of the Lilly Conferences. Scholars select and work with faculty mentors and student associates who provide alternative perspectives on teaching and learning.
Convener: Mary Lou Holly, mholly@kent.edu, 330 672-7892
Membership: Application due in Spring for following academic year
Meets: bi-weekly, Kent Campus
The Student Success Learning Community brings those interested in increasing their knowledge of student success concepts together to interact, to learn, and to transform the way we educate students in and around the classroom. The project is determined by the membership at the beginning of each academic year.
Facilitator: Pam Jones, pjones@kent.edu, (330) 672-9292
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Kent Campus
The WEBTAS LC will evaluate existing practices and promote best applications of web-based teaching, help faculty improve the development of web-based learning objects for their blended and fully integrated web courses, and assist staff with designing web-based academic support services for students.
The LC will also explore ways to use web-based technologies to improve strategies that promote student content creation. Eventually, the WEBTAS LC hopes to establish a model of practice for other campuses through the creation of a resource center portal for faculty and staff across the university community.
Convener: Mary Hricko, mhricko@kent.edu, 440-834-3717
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Kent Campus and other KSU Regional Campuses
Academic service learning is a teaching strategy that uses community service to help students gain a deeper understanding of course content. Service learning classes or course components integrate the academic needs of students and the learning goals of the course with ways to meet real community needs identified by community partners. The relationships between faculty, students, community partners, and the institution as a whole are reciprocal: service-learning strikes a balance between the altruism of volunteerism and the practical academic goals of an internship or practicum. Service learning is a way to help students to see how different aspects of their academic courses can impact the world around them, and in turn students can begin to question their roles in the community and in what ways they might want to have an impact on these communities.
Convener: Andrea Adolph, aadolph@kent.edu, 330-535-3377
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Kent Campus and other Regional Campuses
“Writing Matters” exists primarily to create professional development and service-learning opportunities for undergraduate writing center tutors within the eight-campus Kent State University system, and at colleges and universities across northeast Ohio. We also hope to serve as a clearinghouse for students, tutors and faculty for information and the exchange of ideas about writing in undergraduate education. We meet at least once a semester, and have an active listerv plus a vista work area.
Convener: Jeanne Smith, jrsmith3@kent.edu, 330-672-1788
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Kent Campus and Online
The Scholarship of Innovative Learning and Teaching - SILT – group is a learning community comprised of an initial group of teachers (Kent State University faculty members, staff, and administrators) who are interested in studying our teaching and our students’ learning. We are people who teach in the Center for Innovative Learning and Technology (Moulton Hall) and are using technology that is innovative - new to us and to our students. It may be that the technology is new and it may be that the ways in which it is used are new. The group meets at noon on Mondays (Sometimes called the Monday Lunch Bunch). Come join us - either as interested folk or potential members (that takes a higher degree of engagement than dropping by every once-in-awhile). Do you have a class that you would like to improve? Are you interested in Action Research? Is there something in particular that you would like to focus on– say running more engaging class discussions? Would you like to find out more about what colleagues in other disciplines are up to in their teaching? Are you interested in learning more about how to engage students in their own learning? If so, drop in to the Faculty Professional Development Center lounge (217 Moulton Hall) on a Monday at lunchtime, or contact Mary Lou Holly.
Convener: Mary Lou Holly, mholly@kent.edu, 330-672-2992
Co-Convener: Albert Ingram, aingram@kent.edu
Membership: Open to New Members
Meets: Kent Campus
The LC will re-design the advanced writing courses for
on-line and hybrid delivery with a service-learning component at KSU. This year we will be revising the expository writing course offered in English (English 30065). We especially welcome inter-professional associate members interested in writing, service-learning, and/or on-line delivery. We will meet at least twice a month starting in late August for 2007-2008.
Convener: Margaret Shaw, mshaw@kent.edu,330-672-1747
Membership: Open to Associate Members
Meets: Kent Campus
This is a community comprised of new faculty – those new to Kent State University within the last year. The community is designed to be a space for communication (we have a listserv and other electronic space for questions, responses and other postings), a place for conversation (e.g. we have bi-weekly brown bag lunches), a calendar of special events, resources (e.g. people, materials, links with funding, information), field trips (ever wonder what the rest of KSU looks like?), conferences and learning institutes (you may have already experienced the New Faculty Conference in August, the Learning Community Kick-off is another, and you will be invited to the January Learning Institute too), and a whole lot more, all of which will support you in your teaching and research. The cross-disciplinary community offers conversation, collegiality, learning, support for living a balanced life, and ways to help you to understand and navigate the professional development and tenure and promotion systems at Kent State University. This community is responsive to your wishes and dreams as well as your professional goals as new faculty member at KSU. This is the start of something big – your career at KSU with colleagues, many of whom you will come to know well as your careers develop and you move toward tenure and promotion over the next several years.
Convener: Jeffrey Pellegrino, jpelleg1@kent.edu, 330-672-1902
Membership: By Application
Meets: Kent Campus and other KSU Regional Campuses
After a year of exploration, trial, success, and perhaps a few errors - second or third year faculty will focus on honing the tools the university offers each of us in our teaching, research, and professional
development that blew by during the first year. Also, we hope to build our social and professional networks.
Convener: Jeffrey Pellegrino, jpelleg1@kent.edu, 330-672-1902
Membership: Open to Faculty in the first 3 years at KSU (Full Time, NTT, Part Time)
New to the idea of Service Learning, tried and had some “issues” or had grand success? Join colleagues in and out of the classroom environment to develop details and strategies for success of your learning objectives through public engagement and service-learning.
Convener: Jeffrey Pellegrino, jpelleg1@kent.edu, 330-672-9292
Membership: Open (community is individual project based)
Meets: Various KSU Campuses |
