2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

When implementing new evidence-based pedagogy in a course to improve student learning, the faculty must address the course goals, teaching strategies, and assessments [1]. The time required to make these changes can be challenging for faculty who are juggling their research and service commitments. To address this challenge, higher education practitioners have encouraged these pedagogical changes through Communities of Practice (CoP), particularly Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) [2-4]. Faculty gain a deeper understanding of the topic while advancing the use of evidence-based teaching strategies [4]. However, while short-term approaches are often discussed [4], identifying effective strategies to sustain a long-term pedagogical change through an FLC experience, especially in engineering education, has been a challenge and remains underexplored in the literature on faculty development.
We have developed and assessed an FLC model to support curricular and instructional change, as part of a sustainable faculty development program. In this paper, we describe how this three-year FLC was designed to promote entrepreneurial minded learning (EML) for our students and developed into a transdisciplinary EML and design CoP. The FLC outcomes were based on the framework developed by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) [5].
We advanced our FLC model through three iterations and adapted it to the needs of our faculty, while also dealing with constraints from the COVID pandemic. To lower barriers to faculty participation, we designed our program to take place during the academic year, meeting approximately once a month for six sessions at 90 minutes each session. The meetings are active workshops, in which the facilitators model activities as instructors, and the faculty engage as if they were students. Faculty are supported with teaching resources and by attending three 1:1 hour-long sessions with the FLC facilitator. They also administer three “micromoment” activities (2-30 minutes) in their classes, which can then be developed into a larger implementation for a published KEEN Card [6].
The KEEN FLC was implemented in 2019-2021 with three cohorts and 21 STEM faculty members across eight departments. An FLC participant described the benefit of the micromoment activities, resources, and faculty cohort by stating, “Our meetings were quite active, which can sometimes be tiring, but actually using the tools during our meetings made me more confident to use them in my classes.” By also engaging faculty from previous and current cohorts, we helped to build our community. We formally assessed the impact of this program on faculty and their students using surveys and other assessment tools. Faculty reported not only learning more about EML, but also implementing best teaching practices based on their FLC experience.
With strong support, immediate implementation of the pedagogy, and focusing on value to participants, we created a model for faculty to improve their teaching and enriched student experiences. By making the pedagogical changes manageable, faculty will be successful in the implementation and more likely to sustain this practice.

[1] E. Elliott, R. Reason, C. Coffman, E. Gangloff, J. Raker, J. Powell-Coffman, and C. Ogilvie, “Improved Student Learning through a Faculty Learning Community: How Faculty Collaboration Transformed a Large-Enrollment Course from Lecture to Student Centered,” CBE Life Sci Edu., vol. 15, pp. 1-14, March 2016.
[2] S. Pulford, N. Ruzycki, C. Finelli, L. Hahn, and D. Thorsen, “Making value for faculty: Learning communities in engineering faculty development,” in 2015 ASEE Annual Conf. & Exposition, (Seattle, WA), (June) 2015. pp. 26.1128.1 - 26.1128.17.
[3] M. Cox, “Introduction to faculty learning communities,” New directions for teaching and learning, vol. 2004, no. 97, pp. 5-23, Apr. 2004.
[4] T. L. Tinnell et al, "Sustaining pedagogical change via faculty learning community," International Journal of STEM Education, vol. 6, (1), pp. 1-16, 2019.  
[5] Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network: Engineering Unleashed. “The Framework” https://engineeringunleashed.com/framework (accessed October 11, 2022).
[6] Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network: Engineering Unleashed. “Cards” http://engineeringunleashed.com/card (accessed January 10, 2022).