Describing and Facilitating Productive Teaching Talk in a Faculty Online Learning Community

Lau, Alexandra C.; Dancy, Melissa H.; Henderson, Charles; Rundquist, A.

doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.lau

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In reviewing recordings of virtual meetings and analyzing asynchronous communications it is clear that deliberate attention is needed to ensure the most productive outcomes. We have done some analysis of virtual meetings [62] and asynchronous communications [63] to better understand facilitator moves and structural supports that encourage desired outcomes. Initial analysis indicates that helpful facilitator moves include the facilitator withholding their own opinion to encourage others to share, giving agency by focusing the conversation on ideas of participants, and encouraging participants to elaborate on their ideas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faculty online learning communities: A model for sustained teaching transformation

Dancy

Lau

Rundquist

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Many physics faculty are aware of and interested in using research-based instructional strategies. However, knowledge and motivation are not sufficient to support successful and sustained adoption. To address this problem, we present a faculty online learning community (FOLC) model for educational change and describe its application (the New Faculty Workshop FOLC, NFW-FOLC) to provide a year of support to new faculty following attendance at the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop. FOLCs are an extension of the faculty learning community model. Here we present the theoretical underpinnings of the general FOLC model, the design principles of our particular NFW-FOLCs, and the learning objectives for NFW-FOLC participants. We demonstrate the efficacy of our NFW-FOLCs by analyzing postexperience interviews with participants from the first four NFW-FOLC cohorts. The primary motivation given by faculty for joining our FOLCs is to improve their teaching as they learn more about teaching strategies, get implementation help, and connect to a broader community. These motivations align with our NFW-FOLC design principles. Participants overwhelmingly report the experience was valuable and impacted them positively with the most commonly reported impacts of NFW-FOLC membership being changes in their implementation of teaching strategies, increased reflection about teaching, increased confidence as teachers, increased knowledge about teaching, benefits to their students, time saved, and gaining a resource. The reported impacts provide evidence that the NFW-FOLC is successfully meeting its goals. We argue that the reported impacts are uniquely supported by the FOLC model of professional development. We advance FOLCs as a generalizable model of professional development offering a number of advantages over traditional reform efforts as well as traditional Faculty Learning Communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faculty online learning communities: A model for sustained teaching transformation

Dancy

Lau

Rundquist

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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“…Of the handful of studies on STEM FLCs and FOLCs at the university level (e.g., Corrales et al, 2020;Dancy et al, 2019;Elliot et al, 2016;Price et al, 2021;Tinnell et al, 2019), only one brief paper focuses on facilitation (Lau et al, 2018). We are not aware of any literature examining how faculty members approach their facilitation role, nor how and why they change their practice over time as the needs of the learning community change.…”

Section: Facilitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, faculty online learning communities (FOLCs) have been used as geographically distributed, discipline-specific FLCs that support and provide resources for faculty implementing Research-Based Instructional Strategies (RBIS) to enhance student learning (Cox, 2004;Dancy et al, 2019;Price et al, 2021). Facilitators use various strategies to achieve the goals of their communities alongside the needs of the faculty members (Andrews-Larson et al, 2017;Lau et al, 2018;Ortquist-Ahrens & Torosyan, 2009;van der Want & Meirink, 2020;Zhang et al, 2011). This article will broadly explore the ways that facilitator goals and strategies can change over time and possible change mechanisms.…”

Section: Flcs Are Groups Of Approximately Ten Faculty In Relatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this theme, we developed the segment sequence coding scheme, which built on Lau et al (2018) idea of withholding, when a facilitator does not immediately offer their opinion or try to solve a problem (Lau et al, 2018). For each meeting segment we identified when Craig responded to a probe (question raised by participant); did he "jump in" to answer with his own experience, or did he "withhold" his own response and/or encourage others to respond first?…”

Section: Response Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding how facilitators adapt to needs of STEM faculty in online learning communities: a case study

et al. 2022

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Background Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) and Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are ways to support STEM faculty implementing research-based curricula. In these communities, faculty facilitators take on the role of sharing expertise and promoting discussion. However, as members gain more experience, their needs change from addressing logistical to pedagogical issues. Hence, facilitators need to change their practices in response. However, there is little research on the mechanisms of faculty facilitator change. In this article, we provide a case study of a specific STEM FOLC facilitator and demonstrate the usefulness of a teacher change model to investigate facilitator change. Results Guided by our adaptation of the InterconnectedModelofProfessionalGrowth(IMPG), we conducted interviews with FOLC facilitators, and selected a case facilitator who reported changes in facilitation goals and strategies over time. The model helped us identify specific areas of change and potential mechanisms for these changes. Using themes of change identified in the case facilitator interview, we developed coding schemes to analyze his FOLC meetings over a 2-year period. We found empirical evidence from multiple data sources, including FOLC meetings and facilitator reflections, that supported the change themes, including: changing his role as an “expert” by sharing his own expertise less and drawing on others’ expertise more frequently, changing his response to members’ comments by jumping in to answer less frequently and withholding his own responses more often to encourage member sharing, and a change in group discussions towards less logistical and more pedagogical conversations. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the IMPG can be fruitfully adapted to study facilitator change. A diagrammatic representation of the IMPG provides a description the types of change the case facilitator experienced and the factors that supported those changes. We discuss how the methodology used to analyze facilitator actions in FOLC group meetings may be useful to study other types of professional growth. Finally, because our analytical model allowed us to identify mechanisms of facilitator change, we describe the implications and provide suggestions to support facilitators in other faculty community groups.

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“…During their online meetings, FOLC members troubleshoot issues with the course, curriculum, and/or pedagogical strategy they are trying to implement. These conversations are often rich with pedagogical ideas and advice [6,9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for classifying opportunities to learn in Faculty Online Learning Communities: A preview with sample application

Lau¹,

Corrales²,

Goldberg³

et al. 2020

2019 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings

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Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are unique professional development environments built to support instructors as they adopt research-based teaching strategies and curricula. FOLC participants meet via a video conferencing platform to discuss their teaching challenges and to generate solutions. In order to capture the breadth and depth of learning that can occur by participating in a FOLC, and to identify connections between facilitation moves, discursive structures, and learning opportunities, we have developed a taxonomy to characterize the opportunities to learn (OTLs) in a FOLC meeting. In this paper we will preview the taxonomy, presenting its main components, and provide an overview of its development based on meetings from a FOLC centered around the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (NGPET) curriculum. Using an excerpt from a NGPET-FOLC meeting, we demonstrate how the taxonomy can be used as an analytical tool. We end with a discussion of the potential applications for this taxonomy.

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Describing and Facilitating Productive Teaching Talk in a Faculty Online Learning Community

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Faculty online learning communities: A model for sustained teaching transformation

Faculty online learning communities: A model for sustained teaching transformation

Understanding how facilitators adapt to needs of STEM faculty in online learning communities: a case study

A framework for classifying opportunities to learn in Faculty Online Learning Communities: A preview with sample application

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