The College STAR Faculty Learning Community: Promoting Learning for All Students through Faculty Collaboration

This study describes the impact of the College Supporting Transition, Access and Retention (College STAR) project at a public university in the southeastern United States, which sought to develop faculty knowledge, skills and competencies to better meet the needs of diverse student populations, especially those with learning differences. A focus of the program was to establish a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) around implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Alternating between content-based workshops and working sessions, participants collaborated to redesign their courses around the principles of UDL. The FLC's emphasis on shared learning and collaboration helped faculty feel supported and empowered to implement changes in their teaching and to introduce discussion about UDL into their home departments. Using multiple measures, including the assessment of faculty's pre- and post-participation levels of the knowledge and use of UDL principles and artifact analysis, the evaluation evidenced the positive impact of the FLC on those participating faculty.According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2011), postsecondary student enrollment has become increasingly diverse. In addition to the diversity associated with ethnicity, gender, language and socioeconomic background, a number of students enter postsecondary education with a range of learning needs.Higher education institutions that want to improve graduation rates must address the importance of working with academically diverse student populations and embrace the notion that faculty can and must play an intentional role in supporting student persistence (Stevenson, Buchanan, & Sharpe, 2006-2007). Faculty bring extensive content expertise and passion about the subject matter they teach, and many are skilled in communicating with students in engaging ways and helping them make connections with the material. However, faculty face several challenges in working with diverse student populations beyond the academic content they are familiar with. First, faculty tend not to have had formal pedagogical training before teaching collegelevel courses. In addition, many also find themselves teaching large numbers of students who have a variety of learning needs. Consequentially, some faculty may feel unsure or unsupported when they try to apply new pedagogical strategies in their daily instruction.The purpose of the College Supporting Transition, Access and Retention (College STAR) project was to develop faculty knowledge, skills and competencies so that they could better meet the needs of diverse student populations, especially those with learning differences. In this study, we describe the design, delivery and outcomes of the faculty development component of the College STAR project. Additionally, challenges we faced during the process are discussed and recommendations for supporting faculty in providing universal access to students are described.The project was carried out through a Faculty Learning Community (FLC), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was adopted as the main pedagogical framework that guided the discussions regarding curriculum design and instructional practices in the FLC. The College STAR FLC had two goals: 1) to support and guide faculty through redesign of their courses according to UDL principles in order to provide access to learning for all students, and 2) to promote UDL practices across the institution through FLC participants disseminating their experiences and outcomes to their peers.Theoretical FrameworkA FLC is a structured and intensive shared inquiry model through which a group of faculty and professional staff engage in a long-term active, collaborative and sustained program of exploration in order to enhance the quality of teaching and learning (Cox, 2003). Since they have various content and professional expertise, faculty and professional staff benefit from shared inquiry that builds upon and extends their understandings of college teaching and learning and enhances the quality of their interactions with college students. …