{"id":9071,"date":"2025-09-15T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/?p=9071"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:24:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:24:32","slug":"supporting-students-with-faculty-learning-communities-at-university-of-south-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/supporting-students-with-faculty-learning-communities-at-university-of-south-alabama\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Students with Faculty Learning Communities at University of South Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a public regional institution, the University of South Alabama (USA) serves a large number of students who are the first in their family to attend college. These students are building skills and confidence to navigate college, including a close reading of a syllabus and proactively managing due dates.<\/p>\n

Supporting students through their first two years in college has been a focus for Lisa LaCross, the Associate Director of Faculty Development at USA\u2019s Innovation and Learning Center. Since joining in 2020, she\u2019s been building faculty learning communities (FLCs) to further develop a culture of teaching inquiry, particularly as part of USA\u2019s first- and second-year experience programs. Much of their discussion is about how large-enrollment gateway courses that first- and second-year students take can make or break their experience in college.<\/p>\n

In spring 2025, Nicole Carr, the AVP of Student Academic Success, asked LaCross to participate in the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU)\u2019s Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success training in spring of 2025 and to develop an FLC based on it LaCross saw that as an opportunity to help the university\u2019s incoming students transition more seamlessly. The course is one of the menu of professional development programs<\/a> available through Every Learner Everywhere\u00ae and delivered by partners like APLU.<\/p>\n

The cohort taking Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success consisted of eight faculty from different disciplines. LaCross broke that cohort into two smaller groups and set up study halls where the faculty would get together before their training and coaching sessions to do the assignments as a group.<\/p>\n

Because gateway courses look very different in each department, the small group study halls allowed faculty to learn from each other and trade ideas across disciplines. \u201cFaculty members would take the instructional practices and apply them to their own unique situation in their departments,\u201d LaCross says.<\/p>\n

Along with facilitating the study halls, LaCross kept everyone on track with emailed reminders and updates. She also used a spreadsheet provided by the course facilitator for collaborative notetaking and to share information on each training and coaching session, using multiple tabs to keep everything organized in one place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd our coach, Julian, did a phenomenal job walking us through all the steps of planning our initiative and planning our next steps,\u201d LaCross says.<\/p>\n

Putting a plan in action<\/h2>\n