Faculty Learning Communities

What are FLCs?

A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is a faculty-led community of practice with five or more members (eight to twelve is the recommended size). Key goals for FLCs include building community, engaging in scholarly (evidence-based) teaching and advancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Cox & Richlin, 2004). FLCs enable faculty to focus on specific issues or interests and provide a safe and supportive environment to investigate, challenge, assess, and adopt or change practices (Cox, 2001).

FLCs Are Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly" (Wegner-Traynor & Wegner-Trayner, 2015). As communities of practice, FLCs are groups with:

Shared purpose/interest
High level member interaction
Members who are practitioners

Membership involves the sharing of "resources: experiences, stories, tools...", however, communities of practice also:

Innovate & solve problems
Invent new practices
Create new knowledge
Define new territory
Develop a collective & strategic voice

(Wegner-Traynor & Wegner-Traynor, 2015)

Benefits of Participation

Learn about just some of what you can expect to gain from participating in an FLC—and why many participants say joining a group has completely transformed their experience on campus.

- Transdisciplinary networking
- Opportunities to talk and reflect on teaching and learning
- Learning with others in a small group of 8-12 faculty members
- Groups facilitated by faculty skilled in leading communities of practice and passionate about teaching and learning
- Regular face-to-face interactions (minimum of 4 to 5 times over the semester for a total of 10 contact hours)
- Goal-focused activities with impactful outcomes (i.e. course improvements, teaching resource creation, research contributing to the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, conference presentations, publications, case studies, policy recommendations)
- Evidence of commitment to teaching excellence, which can be documented in your annual reviews or P&T materials

100% of FLC participants surveyed (2022) reported:

Increased self confidence
Increased sense of accomplishment
Increased enthusiasm

"The cross departmental, cross-college, cross-disciplinary community that was created through this flc was incredible" - Fall 2022 FLC Participant

FLCs Take on AI

Rethinking College Writing in an AI Era is one of the many FLCs that MSU faculty facilitated and engaged with during the fall 2025 semester. The FCTL sat down with the facilitators of this group, Professor John Turner and Dr. Cynthia Johnson, to get an in-depth look at their group and the impact it's having on our campus community.

Read the Article

a picture of the letters A and I overlaid with technological wiring

References

Cox, M. (2001). Faculty learning communities: Change agents for transforming institutions into learning organizations. To Improve the Academy, 19(1), 69-93.

Cox, M. (2004). Introduction to faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 5-23.

Cox, M. & Richlin, L. (2004). Developing scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning through faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 127-135.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Wenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015) An introduction to communities of practice: a brief overview of the concept and its uses. Available from authors at https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice.