Self-Directed Learning in a Faculty Learning Community: The FLC as “Organizing Circumstance”
Abstract
Faculty learning communities (FLCs) have been broadly adopted by colleges and universities to provide collaborative settings for faculty to enhance pedagogical knowledge in a safe environment of supportive peers. Few studies, however, have examined individual or collective learning processes that make the FLC an effective strategy for faculty development. The authors’ description of a two-year FLC examines learning through the lens of self-directed learning theory, asserting Spear and Mocker’s (1984) concept of the “organizing circumstance” as an apt descriptor of how an FLC in enhancing teaching and learning with technology functions to structure the environment for learning.
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