UITL Faculty Fellow publishes volume on teaching and learning communities

ACRL Publishing has just released a new collection co-edited by Craig Gibson, University Institute for Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow, and Sharon Mader, Dean Emerita of Libraries at the University of New Orleans, and formerly Visiting Program Office for Information Literacy at ACRL. The volume, entitled Building Teaching and Learning Communities: Creating Shared Meaning and Purpose, brings together perspectives on higher education pedagogy from some of the leading names in educational development in North America.

Chapters by Pat Hutchings, Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Nancy Chick, Joan Middendorf, Linda Hodges, Peter Felten, and Kateryna Schray illuminate a wide range of teaching-related topics of interest to disciplinary faculty, educational developers, librarians, and educational technologists. Among these are SoTL (the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), signature pedagogies, Decoding the Disciplines, threshold concepts, liminality, and faculty as learners.   

Co-authored chapters show how shared understandings for teaching grow from collaboration: the chapter on Decoding the Disciplines by Middendorf is co-authored with librarian Andrea Baer, and the chapter by Felten on learning partnerships is co-authored with colleagues at Elon University: faculty member Kristina Meinking, librarian Shannon Tennant, and student Katherine Westover.   

All of the chapters also address, in part, the potential of the Framework for Information Literacy to promote deeper conversations and collaboration about teaching and learning. With a Foreword by Margy Macmillan, a leader in bringing SoTL discussions into the library profession, and an Introduction and Conclusion by the co-editors, the collection offers a shared vision for professional learning for all who teach in higher education.

Gibson and Mader have written a brief article about the book for the Viewpoints newsletter of NILOA (National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment).

Additional information about the book is available here.