{"id":7909,"date":"2024-04-15T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/?p=7909"},"modified":"2024-04-12T09:28:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T14:28:03","slug":"how-this-college-implemented-a-community-of-practice-to-advance-faculty-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/how-this-college-implemented-a-community-of-practice-to-advance-faculty-development\/","title":{"rendered":"How This College Implemented a Community of Practice to Advance Faculty Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

A profile of how 32 Kingsborough Community College faculty came together and implemented a community of practice, the lessons learned, and advice for peer institutions. The formal framework they use brings emerging issues in teaching and learning into the open.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kingsborough Community College (KCC) in Brooklyn, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), serves a diverse community. As part of its mission, the college strives for equity and seeks to provide each student with the appropriate resources and supports to foster success.<\/p>\n

After the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with more experience offering both in-person and online courses, KCC began to identify gaps in living up to its mission. In early 2021, the Provost convened a group of faculty members to work on bridging those gaps, and in 2022 KCC joined a new professional development initiative with Achieving the Dream (ATD) that led to building and sustaining a faculty community of practice to explore implementing equity-minded teaching practices.<\/p>\n

Joining a one-year program<\/h2>\n

ATD, in partnership with the University of California Race and Equity Center, offers the Racial Equity Leadership Academy<\/a> (RELA) to \u201chelp equip college leaders with the tools they need to address and dismantle systemic structures that have long served as barriers for racially minoritized students.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELA brought together 10 schools to participate in an intensive one-year program, including Kingsborough. It seemed a perfect fit, KCC President Claudia V. Schrader said at the time<\/a>. \u201cWe serve a very diverse student body, and now more than ever, we need an intentional plan to close racial equity gaps and advance the success of students of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan McKinney, Professor of Theater Arts and Director of the Kingsborough Center for Teaching & Learning (KCTL), says many colleagues have been eager to examine their teaching practices through an equity lens. McKinney, along with Loretta Brancaccio-Taras, Director of the Kingsborough Center for e-Learning (KCEL), spearheaded the intensive project.<\/p>\n

A dedicated framework for a community of practice<\/h2>\n

The heart of the work at KCC was implementing many of the principles and tools outlined in Communities of Practice in Higher Education: A Playbook for Centering Equity, Digital Learning, and Continuous Improvement<\/a><\/em> authored by ATD, the Association of Public & Land-grant Colleges, the Online Learning Consortium, and Every Learner Everywhere\u00ae.<\/p>\n

Choosing a community of practice wasn\u2019t necessarily a big leap for the KCC faculty. McKinney points out that they already existed at Kingsborough, although in less-structured formats.<\/p>\n