Participating in a learning community is a great way to further your professional development, deepen your knowledge of teaching or research practices, and make meaningful connections with colleagues who share your interests.
A learning community is a small, cross-disciplinary group of educators who meet regularly over the course of a semester or academic year to learn about and discuss topics related to teaching and learning. Learning communities are designed to be supportive environments where participants can explore specific teaching strategies together, try out new approaches, and reflect on successes and challenges. The learning community model was first developed over 40 years ago at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and is used today at universities across the world.
Each year the Drake Institute provides opportunities for Ohio State instructors of all experience levels to engage in learning communities on teaching and research, sometimes facilitated in collaboration with partners across the university. While all provide participants with valuable educational development experiences, select Institute learning communities serve as curricular pathways to Teaching Endorsements and may provide professional development funds for participation or completion of associated projects.
Explore learning community opportunities for the upcoming academic year below.
Creating Wicked Students Learning Community
In Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, Paul Hanstedt outlines strategies educators can use to redesign courses and assignments that help their students develop “wicked” competencies. Wicked students have a sense of authority and believe they are capable of addressing wicked problems, or problems that are messy, evolving, and have no clear solutions. Such problems are often divisive in the sense that stakeholders disagree on what the problem is, or what the solution should be. In other words, most real-world problems are wicked.
The Drake Institute invites all interested Ohio State educators to apply to the "Creating Wicked Students" Learning Community. The group will read and discuss Creating Wicked Students and explore teaching strategies together. By the end of the year, participants will have a designed or redesigned a course with wicked learning outcomes and assessments in mind.
The learning community will meet 10 times during the 2025-2026 academic year. Autumn 2025 meetings will be held in-person on Columbus campus from 2 -3:30 p.m. on the following dates: September 2, September 23, October 14, November 6, and November 25. Spring meetings are to be determined.
To apply to the Creating Wicked Students Learning Community, please complete the application survey by Monday, August 18.
If you have questions, contact Mark Moritz, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Anthropology, at moritz.42@osu.edu.
Apply to Creating Wicked Students Learning Community
SoTL/DBER Learning Community
The Drake Institute invites Ohio State faculty and instructional staff to apply for the 2025-2026 cohort of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) Learning Community. This learning community is designed for educators who are interested in developing and implementing a SoTL or DBER research project. Participants will engage in virtual monthly meetings during the Autumn and Spring semesters to discuss project development, receive feedback, and explore how to best engage in SoTL and DBER research with support from Drake Institute staff. Participants who complete the program will be eligible to receive a $1,000 professional development award.
To apply to the SOTL/DBER Learning Community, please complete the application survey by Friday, September 12.
If you have questions, contact Zac Patterson, Assistant Director of Research, at patterson.957@osu.edu.
Apply to SOTL/DBER Learning Community
CIRTL Learning Communities for Graduate Students
The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), originally developed through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, has grown to a network of over 40 research universities across the United States and Canada aimed at supporting teaching excellence in higher education through future faculty development. CIRTL offers unique programming to support aspiring faculty (primarily graduate students and postdocs) to learn evidence-based approaches to instruction.
The Drake Institute is pleased to serve as the official CIRTL home at Ohio State and offer local CIRTL learning communities for grad students and postdocs, beginning each autumn term.
Teaching-as-Research Learning Community
The Drake Institute invites Ohio State graduate students and postdocs to apply for the 2025-2026 cohort of the Teaching-as-Research (TAR) Learning Community. This community is designed for those pursuing a career in academia and offers support with fully designing and implementing a research project in an area of teaching and learning. Participants will engage in virtual monthly meetings during the Autumn and Spring semesters to discuss project development, receive feedback, and explore how to best engage in teaching as research. Participants who complete the program will be eligible to receive the Teaching-as-Research Practitioner Endorsement.
To apply to the TAR Learning Community, please complete the application survey by Friday, September 12.
If you have questions, contact Zac Patterson, Assistant Director of Research, at patterson.957@osu.edu.
Apply to TAR Learning Community
Foundations of Pedagogy Learning Community
The Foundations of Pedagogy Learning Community is designed for Ohio State graduate students who are interested in learning more about teaching methods, especially those new to the body of research on teaching and learning. Participants will leave the learning community with greater knowledge of pedagogical concepts and of the field of teaching and learning, and greater readiness to complete the CIRTL Teaching as Research endorsement, if desired. They are also eligible to receive a teaching endorsement from the Drake Institute.
Participants will engage in monthly meetings from October to May. Each month, they will read 1-2 pieces of research on a teaching and learning topic and engage in online and in-person activities to help them understand and apply it. Topics include course and assignment design, active learning, accessibility and Universal Design for Learning, collecting and interpreting student feedback, and writing effective teaching statements.
The application window is not yet open. For more information or to express interest, contact Erin Mercurio, Assistant Director for Graduate Initiatives, at mercurio.40@osu.edu.