Six faculty learning communities formed

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), is introducing a series of faculty learning communities that will allow faculty members to informally meet together (roughly once a month) to discuss topics of mutual interest. Each of these learning communities will determine when and where it will meet and will decide what topics to address. At the 9/4/08 COLT meeting, the following set of initial groups was proposed:
  • Cognitive science and education,
  • Diversity
  • International education
  • Large-class instruction
  • Student motivation, and
  • Teaching with technology.
The purpose of these communities is not to create another set of committee assignments... it is to provide a mechanism for us to add a bit of structure to the sort of discussions that might otherwise occur in hallways, over lunch, in offices, etc.  We all face similar issues, challenges, and situations in our classrooms. Some people will have suggestions that will help you and you will have some that will help others. Let's see if we can get together and help each other become more effective.

To help begin this process, sign up for one or more learning communities. This process has been automated by using some of the tools available in ANGEL. To do this:
  • Go to http://oswego.sln.suny.edu. Log in using your SUNY-Oswego e-mail prefix and password
  • Scroll down (if necessary) on the left-hand side of the screen until you see the CELT community group link. Click on this.
  • Click on the link to the survey in the opening announcement on the lower right-side portion of the screen.
  • Answer each of the 6 questions concerning these 6 faculty learning communities.
  • Click on Submit.
  • You will receive a pop-up confirmation for each of the learning communities that you joined. Click on "OK" to close the popups.
  • Click on continue.
(You may remove yourself from any of these forums by repeating the process above and selecting "no" instead of "yes" for any of the learning communities that you wish to leave.

Once you have joined any of the groups in which you are interested, post any suggestions that you have in the discussion forum set aside for the relevant group(s). You may also communicate with other members of the learning community by sending mail to the corresponding team using ANGEL's e-mail facility (available under the "Communication" tab.