This is the third of a three-part series which will share information about how a mid-size, comprehensive university has worked to a learning community program, including a residential curriculum. This article focuses on how those working with Learning Communities navigate program development during changing institutional priorities.

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) offer opportunities for educators to collaboratively inquire and study innovative literacy practices. However, scheduling conflicts and other challenges often interrupt or create barriers for PLCs. This article provides suggestions for integrating technology into a face-to-face PLC as a means of supporting…

Studies have documented the contribution of vocabulary knowledge in second language acquisition and have shown the benefits of repetition, creating context, and the use of multimodal instruction across visual and verbal modalities. This study examined instructional strategies used to teach French vocabulary in an inclusive, prekindergarten foreign…

First-year seminars and learning communities (LC) have been used to help increase retention, provide continuity, and support students as they transition to the university setting. Another high impact educational practice--common intellectual experiences (CIE)--includes student activities centered on a theme to help facilitate learning, increase…

The fundamental challenge of higher education lies in its ability to intentionally design thriving, innovative, educational spaces that nurture and inspire transcendent and transformational outcomes at the individual, group, and institutional levels. One of the most studied high impact practices, a well-crafted learning community that fosters…

Effective strategies to enhance the competence of practising health professionals are limited. Communities of Practice are proposed as strategy, yet little is known about their ability to develop cultural competency and practice. This study aimed to measure the impact of a Community of Practice on the self-assessed cultural competency and change…

Much research in the area of pre-service teacher (PST) identity formation has focused on the mentoring relationship between PSTs and their supervising teachers. While this is important to identity formation, interaction with peers is another area that needs to be examined. Using Wenger's matrix as a theoretical framework, this study aimed to…

This study examines the complex process of change among teacher educators who have chosen to improve their practice in a professional development community. Storyline methodology was used to reveal the dynamic process which teacher educators undergo when they consider adopting innovative pedagogy. Findings reveal critical moments in professional…

A successful active learning community in which students engage in meaningful learning is characterized by a number of critical elements. These include a safe learning environment in which both instructor and students are willing to take intellectual risks and share their thoughts about content being discussed. Although many instructors recognize…

This quantitative research study examined one instructor's redesign of her introductory Anthropology course (N = 265) from Teacher-Centered (TC) to Learning-Centered (LC) and the resulting impact on her students' perceptions of Teaching Presence (TP), Social Presence-Interaction (SP-I), Social Presence-Participation (SP-P), Cognitive Presence…

The teaching profession, at its core, is relational. Professional development of teachers is provided in many ways: one day seminars, professional learning communities, mentoring, etc. However, there has been little attention to the interaction between the teachers involved in the process and what influence this interaction has on their…

As universities in the United Kingdom gear themselves up for the next Research Excellence Framework, REF2021, with peer review at its core, we critically re-visit the idea of peer review as a gold standard proxy for research excellence. We question the premise that anonymous peer review is a necessary and enabling condition for impartial, expert…

In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study collective over time and distance, and with/through technology. Born out of a self-study project in one of our early doctoral courses, our self-study community has evolved over several years to one that is hybrid in nature. As we have continued our…

While many researchers have studied teacher leaders, a corresponding field of research on teacher leadership has been slow to develop. This narrative account charts our strategic efforts to build a community of scholars capable of strengthening teacher leadership as a field of study. It documents the parallel development of two entities, the…

This study examines the impact that producing a print newspaper using cell phones had on marginalized students in a high school journalism classroom. Analysis of data from participant observation, artifact analysis and student interviews revealed that a) students negotiated cell phone use for educational purposes, despite school bans on such…