When you picture the ideal faculty workplace, what image comes to mind? Is it a vision of a community, wherein faculty members collaborate with one-another toward the betterment of their department or campus? If so, have you wondered whether such collaboration would really yield positive outcomes?

Team teaching, a component of what is commonly referred to as a learning community (LC), is one example of faculty collaboration. In this practice, two (or more) instructors work together to teach one course. As a result, those faculty not only get an opportunity to share with each-other their best teaching strategies, but, especially when faculty teams serve to unite disparate fields, their students also get to see in a very direct way how connected are the topics of various disciplines.

In Student Success in College , George Kuh and his colleagues describe learning communities that have led to significant differences in the experiences of first-year students at several liberal arts colleges. At Wofford College in South Carolina , over half of the faculty worked together to create learning communities that resulted in a single academic year. Campus conversations are now focused on how students can better integrate new knowledge. In addition, students, now engaged in the new learning community structure, often identify themselves by association with a particular LC (e.g., humanities or
psychology). This, in my opinion, is a step toward the ideal faculty workplace.

-Martin Springborg, CTL Faculty Development Coordinator

Kuh, George [et al] (2005). Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.