Learning Circle: Innovations in Faculty Development

• faculty learning communities tied to the mission of the university
• alternative modes for outreach (underground movements)
• food, alcohol
• brown bags, enticing by doing short tech intros over the period of lunch
• require fac to submit proposals for summer development projects
• core literacies for technology
• faculty come to the table when tech solves a problem, so how do we create those problem spaces
• what you call it matters, 'workshop' is a dirty word, call it 'faculty prep'
• developing online learning communities to compliment faculty learning communities
• engage librarians in faculty development
• need to build long term trust relationships with faculty before they will engage in the risk-taking of exploring new methodologies
• Theme-based events to create ambience at workshops (e.g. Indy 500)
• getting faculty to present their work to other faculty, getting them to talk to each other about what they do
• helping faculty to understand where to go for what kind of help
• Digital Fellows, recognized by the institution - oooooh, I like this!
• talk w/faculty about how tech tools can also fit into their research or other publications/presentation (faculty seem to value most recognition by others in their disciplines)
• Incentive to faculty: learning more about tech will help you give good academic presentations
• Poster sessions at the end of a faculty development cohort completes it's work

Faculty/Staff Cultural Divide

• focusing on tech innovations within a particular field
• specialize as staff in a certain dept or area of research
• presenting ourselves as a support service is contributing to the divide, use different language
• open up partnership to others, grad students or TAs
• Teaching a class makes a difference, makes you 'one of them'

Media Fluencies:

• If teachers are not media/information fluent, who will teach the students to be?
• Does tech fluency requirements need to differ by discipline?

Unworkshops:

• help teachers help students learn
• 5 minute starters/teasers in existing faculty meeting

(side thought: what do we really know about the tenure review process? Do we need to really understand it so that we can help faculty do their research/publishing, therefore influence their teaching?)