Faculty Learning Communities
Introducing the 2026-2027 FLCs
| Environmental Sustainability and Justice Frameworks across the Disciplines听 | Facilitators: 听 Diana Rice (Office of Sustainability), Jennifer de Vera (Office of Sustainability), and Brian Mader (Biology) | 鈥淏ringing the real world to the classroom: Environmental Sustainability and Justice Frameworks across the disciplines鈥� will support faculty across disciplines integrating sustainability and justice frameworks to enrich student learning. 听We will look to Experiential Learning, Active Learning; and Abolitionist Pedagogy as models that successfully support the integration of sustainability and justice frameworks, in any discipline (Really! We Promise!). Studies have shown that when individuals are provided with the tools to affect the world around them in visible ways, engagement increases, stress and violence decreases, and overall well-being increases, all of which improves student success rates. | |
| The Embodied Classroom: Bringing the Body Back into Learning | Facilitator: Daniel Goldsmith (Humanities) | Do you want to energize your teaching and deepen student engagement beyond discussion and lectures? This FLC explores how to integrate more body-based activities into teaching across disciplines. What might change if students didn鈥檛 only think about course material, but physically and emotionally experienced it? What does research say about the impact of embodied learning on cognition and retention? Participants will examine examples of embodied pedagogy and redesign one or more lessons with peer support. | |
| The Post Prompt Classroom. Teaching in the Age of AI | Facilitator:听 Andrea Strudensky (English) | This FLC will explore how AI is reshaping reading, writing, and thinking, and what that means for our teaching. Do you want to share ideas and strategies for keeping curiosity alive and assessments meaningful in this netherworld between insight and autocomplete? Together, we鈥檒l recharge, discuss research, develop and test activities, and identify best practices. This group is not a reaction against technology; rather, it is an open exploration of possibilities, including whether AI can be a resource. Our goal is to build a practical toolbox that supports both student learning and instructor morale. | |
| Planning Assessments for Student (and Teacher) Well-Being | Facilitator:听 Heather Martin (CRLT) | This FLC will focus on developing assessments with an awareness of student well-being. We want students to complete assignments, to understand our expectations and know where to focus their energy. 听Drawing from literature and best practices, the group will work together to find practical ways we can structure authentic assessments which maintain standards and achieve outcomes, while reducing student anxiety, improving student self-efficacy, and developing learner agency. Ideally, this will improve our well-being as educators, through increased student engagement, more efficient grading and effective feedback. | |
| Re-enactment as a Pedagogical Activity:听 Living the Social Science Experience | Facilitator:听 Catherine Braithwaite (History) | What can your students learn from a re-enactment of a 15th century witchcraft trial or as participants in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles peace negotiations? How about a mock parliamentary debate on a current political crisis or new bill to learn about current events? Whatever the name – game-playing, re-enactments or simulations 鈥� immersion in real social science issues allows students to (re)experience historical, political, sociological and economical events across regions, time, and disciplines. As players, students are immersed in a variety of topics and must confer and negotiate with others to find solutions to real problems and events. This Faculty Learning Community will bring together teachers interested in exploring how pedagogical re-enactments and simulations can be developed in their courses to facilitate maximum understanding of the course material and student engagement. |
Please note: These FLCs are provisional pending participant interest and final release approval.
Call for Participants
Want to connect with colleagues, engage in rich discussions about the scholarship of teaching and learning, and tackle teaching challenges as part of a convivial and collegial group? Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) might be the answer. Sign-ups are currently open to participate in our new Faculty Learning Communities for the 2026-27 academic year.
Here is听.
If you鈥檇 like more information, please see our听听(on Moodle) or reach out to听FLC@dawsoncollege.qc.ca.
You are invited to meet the Facilitators for 2026-27 and hear more about each of their communities at our PED day session on January 14. Register here.
List of FLCs for 2025-2026
FLC Facilitators for 2025-26, pictured from left to right:听 H茅l猫ne Nadeau (Physics), Cornelia Howell (Anthropology), Michael Filtz (Cin-Com), Felix Fuchs (Cont Ed/English), missing: Selma Hamdani (psychology). Photo by Jeff Gandell
| ContEd with Care: Feedback Tools for Stress-Free Student Success 听 |
Facilitator: 听 Felix Fuchs (English/ContEd) |
This FLC is designed to create a collaborative space that will bring together experienced Early Career and ContEd teachers across disciplines to explore existing resources and strategies for balancing actionable high-quality feedback with a manageable workload for teachers. Together, we will share our experience in the classroom, discuss relevant research, and identify which resources work best in the specific context of 暗网吃瓜 as we pool resources to build and use a “ContEd Survival & Student Success Toolkit.” | Who is this FLC for?
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| Beyond the Echo Chamber: Tools for Teaching Journalism and Media Literacy |
Facilitator: Michael Filtz (Cinema-Communications) |
This FLC will focus on journalism and media literacy, beginning with an assessment of current practices and needs within the Dawson community. Many students struggle with recognizing the standards and ethics that underpin credible journalism, leading to difficulties in distinguishing reliable reporting from opinion, bias, or misinformation. Together we will create a toolbox website containing resources for producing quality journalism and materials that teach media literacy skills, such as identifying bias, spotting fake news, and finding reliable, objective sources. | Who is this FLC for?
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| Enjeux/Thematic Issues Teaching Community听 |
Facilitator:听 Cornelia Howell (Anthropology) |
This FLC will address the challenges of implementing the new tri-disciplinary course in Social Science, which will be taught largely in French in the 2025-26 school year. The goals of the group will be to share disciplinary resources, and pedagogical activities, collaborate on possible team-teaching scenarios, strategize and share resources regarding the transition to teaching in French. We will collaborate with the French Task Force group for assistance in transitioning the class from English into French. | Who is this FLC for?
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| Immersive Pedagogy: Transforming Education with VR |
Facilitator:听 Selma Hamdani (Psychology) |
This FLC aims to support educators in integrating Virtual Reality (VR) into their teaching practices. Members will benefit from hands-on training, access to curated resources, and opportunities to experiment with VR applications tailored to their disciplines and aligned with curriculum goals. By joining this FLC, educators can build confidence in using VR while contributing to a growing community of practice dedicated to impactful teaching innovations. | Who is this FLC for?
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| Designing an Interdisciplinary Science Integrative Project Course听 |
Facilitator:听 H茅l猫ne Nadeau (Physics) |
This FLC鈥檚 goal is to provide support to the teachers interested in teaching the integrative project course, which is the capstone course of the new version of the Science program. The participants will share their ideas, develop activities, reflect on grading strategies, and start planning their own flavour of the course in collaboration with others. The FLC will also provide teachers the opportunity to discuss hurdles and successes in their courses, in addition to providing disciplinary expertise on some of the specific student projects.
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Who is this FLC for?
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Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) are groups of 6-12 faculty members from different disciplines and professionals who participate in year-long explorations of specific topics related to teaching and learning. Individual and collective growth are direct byproducts of the community dynamic: diverse groups of teachers that can support, challenge and inspire one another in a spirit of exploration and discovery.
FLCs allow for focus and continuity to work on one teaching-related topic with similarly interested people over the course of an entire academic year. They are designed to be able to fit easily into a full-time teacher鈥檚 workload, and to provide much-needed moments of collegiality and intellectual stimulation. 听In short, FLCs are a way to increase career satisfaction and efficiency by being part of a community, while developing techniques and materials that can have a tangible benefit to the students鈥� success and well-being.
FLC topics will be driven by teacher interest and student needs – each year there will be a call for Facilitators who can propose topics. Topics could be related to any aspect of teaching: assessment, learning activities, grading, feedback, AI, Active Learning, writing, critical thinking, creativity, student engagement, etc. FLC topics and Facilitators will be selected in close consultation with the steering committee, who will provide support and guidance throughout the application process. 听Once the Facilitators and topics are selected for the following year, there will be a call for faculty and professionals to participate in each FLC.
The recommended duration of an FLC is two semesters, with get-togethers typically occurring 3-5 times per semester. The frequency, length, curriculum, and format of gatherings will be determined by each group. The focus throughout will be on building and nourishing a community of faculty and professionals who can support and inspire one another. These get-togethers will also allow each member to identify and work through specific challenges in their classrooms. Each FLC will work toward developing pedagogical approaches and creating artifacts that will be shared with the larger Dawson community. These artifacts could be created collectively or individually and can take various forms: assignments, assessments, rubrics, toolkits, web sites, etc.
Each FLC will culminate in an end-of-year presentation (e.g. Ped Day, or other similar event), which will detail the group鈥檚 learning journey, the questions or problems they wrestled with, and some of the artifacts that were created.
Want more information? Have an idea for an FLC?
Please reach out to FLC@dawsoncollege.qc.ca with any questions or ideas.
