For more information, and to participate in one of the following learning communities, please contact its facilitators.

Academic Freedom and Free Speech

Co-Facilitators

Join other MSU educators in a learning community to explore how instructors’ academic freedom and free speech intersect in the classroom context. Meetings may be online or in person and will be facilitated by members of the Provost’s working group on Academic Freedom and Free Speech. Our goal is to create a community of practice where we come together to engage the rights and responsibilities we have as educators.

Please join us for two Academic Freedom/Free Speech Learning Community Sessions this fall 2024 semester. All faculty, academic staff, staff, and graduate students are invited; lunch will be provided. Registration is required and space is limited.

Our fall semester will focus on:

  1. generating values and norms to guide our conversations and work together as a learning community
  2. surface questions, issues, concerns, ideas, and possibilities related to academic freedom and free speech

Both meetings will take place in 149 Phillips (Mason Seminar Room), registration is required:

Friday, November 22, 2024, from noon – 1:30pm click here to register to attend
Friday, December 6, 2024, from 1:00-2:30pm click here to register to attend

Anti-Racist Community-Engaged Learning at MSU: From Theory to Practice

Co-Facilitators

The “Anti-Racist Community-Engaged Learning at MSU: From Theory to Practice” learning community will provide a space for interested practitioners to come together to dive deep into a new publication, Anti-Racist Community Engagement, and explore strategies for enhancing community-engaged teaching and learning at MSU. Members will read, dialogue, and critically reflect while considering implications for their own current or future practice. Learning community members will spend the first half of the year reading and book charting as a group, and the second half of the year in a reflective process to produce a collective self-study paper.

Arts-Based Research Methodologies Learning and Project Development Group

Co-Facilitators

  • Karenanna Boyle Creps, Department of Teacher Education, kcreps@msu.edu
  • Liv Furman, Department of African American & African Studies, furmanol@msu.edu

This learning community will serve as an interdisciplinary gathering place for researchers (including artists, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars) at any stage in their careers who are interested in learning more about and conducting arts-based research. Meetings will include a combination of online and in-person gatherings, webinars with ABR practitioners from MSU and beyond, workshops, and opportunities to initiate/dialogue about ABR projects. Meeting agenda items may include discussions of arts-based research texts, methodological workshops, ongoing collaborative research project support, arts-based research presentations/dialogues, and encounters with arts events to inspire future research.

COIL curriculum integration for course content internationalization

Co-Facilitators

Our group proposes to share experiences and ideas on how to integrate a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) activity into an existing curriculum. We will take a practical approach, offering group support in all aspects of the COIL integration. Assessment of student learning and growth in cross-cultural awareness will also be discussed. If you are interested in offering a collaborative, international experience to your students, please join us.

The FLC will provide resources and support for MSU faculty interested in:

  • integrating a COIL activity into their current curriculum
  • discussing creative ways and practical concerns about COIL operation and student engagement
  • discussing ways of assessing COIL learning outcomes and learner impact

Community-Engaged Research: Theory and Praxis

Co-Facilitators

  • Miles McNall, Office of Public Engagement and Scholarship, University Outreach and Engagement, mcnall@msu.edu
  • Diane Doberneck, Office of Public Engagement and Scholarship, University Outreach and Engagement connordm@msu.edu

Faculty and academic staff who engage partners beyond the borders of our campus in co-discovery and co-generation of knowledge are welcome to join this learning community. Together, we will learn from and contribute to one another’s improved understanding and practice of respectful and ethical engagement with community partners. We will co-construct a resource list and a set of practices and tools to support our own and others’ community-engaged research.

To learn more, attend one of our information sessions:

Tuesday, August 20, 2024 from 10:00-11:00 AM EST
https://msu.zoom.us/j/91637800939?pwd=9yf5jYHFslorJ1MHCZlgFbnhPJR1RR.1
Passcode: CERLC

Thursday, Aug 22, 2024 from 2:00-3:00 PM EST
https://msu.zoom.us/j/95611927851?pwd=1lrFSr9D5aAuc8aulHgTKYsHs2Vbhy.1
Passcode: CERLC

Decolonizing the University 3.0

Co-Facilitators

The “Decolonizing the University” learning community will focus on the colonial roots that exist in our institution and our practices as educators. This learning community will explore how colonialism structures still impact our work and how they can be replaced with strategies and practices that encourage the success and whole-person development of all its students, faculty, and staff.

Dialogic practices – Student Flourishing

Co-Facilitators

Join us for discussions on the best ways to implement dialogic methods in learning spaces. Keeping belonging in the center, we will explore dialogue as a pedagogical tool for student flourishing.

Digital Collaborative Learning for the 21st Century 3.0

Co-Facilitators

  • Stokes Schwartz, Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, stokessc@msu.edu
  • Marohang Limbu, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (WRAC), limbu@msu.edu

Digital Collaborative Learning 3.0 will continue its critical examination of the increasing importance of digital-collaborative learning for 21st-century learners, student success, and a smooth transition to global digital ecology/economy after graduation. Related activities will consider how we might further integrate DEI principles, anti-racist pedagogy, and Gen AI to enhance student learning and foster increased global competency in our graduates.

Digital Humanities Pedagogy Learning Community

Co-facilitators

The DH Pedagogy LC brings together educators from across campus who are new to digital humanities methods and theories and interested in integrating these approaches into their undergraduate courses. Digital humanities methods – such as annotation, digital curation, mapping, text analysis, visualization, and social media analysis – allow students to explore topics of the humanities through multiple hands-on ways of knowing and integrate active learning approaches alongside critical approaches to engaging with technology. Over the course of the year, LC members will transform the syllabus of a course they teach to integrate a digital project (or several) into the class.

For more information and schedule click here.

Disability Dynamics: Theory, Accessibility, and Practice at MSU

Co-facilitators

  • Jessica Lutz, Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities, lutzjes1@msu.edu
  • Hannah Huey-Jones, Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities, hueyjon1@msu.edu

This community will serve as a place for those interested in making campus more inclusive and accessible for disabled students and staff. Facilitators will lead discussion on important topics in the field as they relate to teaching, research, outreach and relationships on campus. Monthly Zoom meetings will be influenced by member interest and practical needs.

Environmental Justice and Climate Action Pedagogy Learning Community

Co-facilitators

  • Laura Markham, Center for Integrative Studies in General Science (CISGS), markham@msu.edu
  • Janet Burke, Center for Integrative Studies in General Science (CISGS), burkej25@msu.edu

The Environmental Justice and Climate Action Pedagogy LC is a space for sharing and building teaching resources to empower students with tools for navigating our changing planet. We seek to incorporate perspectives and strategies from a wide variety of fields to reveal the multidisciplinary nature of climate challenges and solutions.

Feminist Community-Engagement Disrupted: Writing our scholarship stories

Co-Facilitators

  • Chelsea Wentworth, Office of Medical Education Research and Development, wentwo21@msu.edu
  • Jessica Barnes-Najor, University Outreach and Engagement, barnes33@msu.edu

We co-design research with partners as an ideal plan; but, in reality, numerous changes impact our implementation. Our learning community discusses disruptions external to the community (e.g., COVID-19, political or community/campus violence), or internal to the community (e.g., partners leaving their roles for new jobs), or within individuals in the community (e.g., illness, stressors). This Learning Community will write together on three previously identified areas of collective scholarship: 1) sharing engagement stories (individual and collective) through multiple outlets; 2) writing historical and decolonial reflections on feminist community engagement; and 3) providing critiques of the use of feminist community-engaged diversity statements. We include scholar-educators who are innovating in their community-engaged practices working from diverse disciplines, and welcome new members.

To learn more, attend our information session:

September 9, 2024 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM EST  click here to join

Graduate Teaching Assistant & Postdoc Teaching Learning Community (GTAP TLC)

Co-Facilitators

This Learning Community meets bi-weekly with the goal of sharing pedagogy, evidence-based best practices, holistic educator development, and accessible and inclusive student and educator success strategies. The sessions are organized collaboratively with graduate teaching assistants and postdocs. We strive to practice a culture of care and build an inclusive community throughout the year and invite educators in any role to engage with and share their topical expertise with this group.

ISS 3-2-1

Co-Facilitators

  • Brandy Ellison, Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science
  • Seven Mattes, Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science
  • Marcie Cowley, Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science

Come together with ISS faculty, graduate assistants, and undergraduate assistants to build community and share teaching expertise across the various disciplines that comprise the social sciences! Our meetings will follow a 3-2-1 format: We will meet to share 3 tips or strategies for implementing a social science discipline into your classes during a 2-hour time slot on the 1st Friday of every month.

Learning Community for Supporting International Student Success

Co-Facilitators

We are an assets-based, idea-sharing group focused on the holistic concept of international student success at MSU, aiming to ensure that MSU is a welcoming and supportive institution for culturally diverse learners. We collectively seek solutions for emergent, timely issues such as challenges to academic learning brought to the fore through navigation of travel restrictions, availability of technology, and online instruction in varied time zones, as well as persistent issues such as those associated with linguistic differences and varied cultural constructs of academic concepts; and we routinely share innovative and thoughtful pedagogical approaches. Co-facilitators recruit members through personal/professional networks, the adviser listserv, the ISP distribution list, the Education Abroad and Global Youth Advancement Network newsletters, and by requesting that current learning community members spread the word.

MSU Trauma Services and Training Network

Co-Facilitators

  • Kelley Blanck, School of Social Work, Blanck, kblanck@msu.edu
  • Natalie Moser, Department of Psychology and Office for Resource and Support Coordination, mosern@msu.edu

The focus of the Learning Community is to support, explore and develop strategies to advance a commitment to creating a trauma informed university. The work focuses on service delivery including clinical services, advising, and student support services. In addition, the Learning Community presents and trains on trauma informed teaching and developing trauma-informed communities. The MSU TSTN has developed content for use in training across the campus community. The Learning Community is open to anyone interested in working to build a trauma-informed campus.

Programming in Practice

Co-Facilitators

“Programming in Practice” is a community for those with an interest/need for computing but who aren’t sure how to practically apply it to their project. We will work through an introductory book to create a text analysis project in Python while organizing collaborative help sessions where participants can learn and practice the skills necessary to turn introductory programming experience into a publishable computational product. Our primary goal is to develop a community of scholars interested in computing across disciplines who can mentor and learn from one another.

Teaching & Learning in Veterinary Medical and Animal Science Education

Co-Facilitators

The MSU College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has a learning community focused on how to promote learning and improve teaching in the context of veterinary medical and animal science education. This learning community meets every three weeks on Zoom and annually in person to discuss topics agreed upon by participants, which include pre-clinical and clinical faculty, staff, graduate students, and house officers. New members are encouraged to attend via emails and departmental meeting announcements. Individuals outside of veterinary medicine are invited to join. All are welcome to join as often as they can! A learner-focused discussion where current veterinary students share ideas and strategies for success will be hosted each semester and communicated via email and class announcement boards. Contact Drs. Manfredi (manfred1@msu.edu) or Bookbinder (bookbin1@msu.edu) for more information.

The Large-Course Learning Community

Co-Facilitators

  • Brandy Ellison, Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science, belliso1@msu.edu
  • Sandy Burnley, Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science, burnley2@msu.edu

Everyone is welcome to join us as we share experiences, advice, and ideas for teaching students in large courses. While not all classes at MSU are large, almost all students at MSU will take large classes and we want to ensure their experiences are stellar and their professors are supported. If you are unable to attend our regularly scheduled meetings, please engage by connecting with us directly via email to ask questions, share ideas, and/or access the recordings of our meetings.

Undergraduate Student Success – Five Opportunity Areas Learning Community

Co-Facilitators

Join members of a campus-wide community that will contribute to new discoveries and refine the institutional commitments and metrics for five opportunity areas of undergraduate success outlined in the Spartan Undergraduate Experience resource guide. This guide supports our 2030 Strategic goals of increasing retention and graduation rates by closing opportunity gaps in undergraduate student success. We will meet monthly in different formats [workshops, lunch and learns, design labs] depending on the topic and participant interest.

To express interest in joining this community click here.