Chapter 6: Creating a Holistic, Continuous Approach to Learning Communities: From Unconference to Teaching Circles to Focused Reflection

How can Learning Communities (LCs) improve teaching effectiveness and a sense of collective mission for educators across disciplines at a small, primarily undergraduate STEM institution? Clarkson University (CU) is a small, rural residential university with a focus on engineering, science, and business. From its Institute for STEM Education and Teaching & Learning Corner, we have initiated a series of activities that formed a fluid institution-wide LC together. Distinctive features include, within the same LC, participation of educators across all institutional disciplines and forms of teaching, the inclusion of a broad diversity of the university community (faculty, staff, administrators, students), and a range of distinct but complementary LC modules that keep participants engaged, while also creating a healthy “churn” of new members joining as others step out. This chapter will describe elements of the LC that may be transferable and beneficial to other institutions, especially those comparable to ours in size, mission, and composition. We will show how our model results in a common understanding and sense of shared mission among educators from diverse pedagogical traditions and practices. This authentic LC is developing better educators by sharing, trying, and practicing teaching innovations from across the campus community and from very different pedagogical traditions. It has also proven effective at fostering community amidst the changing operational parameters imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe this model will work well at other institutions to help dismantle disciplinary pedagogical silos and build a supportive community of educational practice that leads to institutional and cultural change.