The name of our new organization has two very important words in the title that embody its purpose, namely “learning community.” We deliberately chose those words because we want to create a place where culinary arts and hospitality educators can come together in person or in cyberspace to work together as a cohort to better facilitate student learning.
The concept of a “learning community” is not new; it originated in the early 1930’s with the work of educational innovators like John Dewey and Alexander Meiklejohn with the focus primarily on students. When it comes to students, the term “learning community” has been most closely associated with models comprised of a cohort of first or second year undergraduate students enrolled in a group of courses and the faculty that teach those courses.
A new model began to emerge in the 1970’s to create learning communities by and for faculty members, which was pioneered by Milton Cox at Miami University, Ohio. It was Cox that categorized the concept of faculty learning communities into two different groups, issue-focused and cohort-focused. The issue-focused faculty learning community is one that brings together a group of faculty members who wish to engage in a cross-disciplinary study of a specific topic often related to teaching and learning (e.g., grade inflation, course evaluations). Cohort-focused faculty learning communities address the teaching, learning, and developmental needs of an important cohort of faculty or staff to help them connect with each other and feel less isolated, stressed-out, or neglected, which can occur on almost any secondary or post secondary campus.
More importantly, both types of faculty learning communities share something in common that epitomizes the Foodservice Educators Learning Community; they meet on a regular basis in an open, empathetic, trusting, energizing manner to engage and empower faculty to take on complex problems that once solved have the potential of transforming institutions into learning organizations. That indeed is the goal of our faculty learning community and hope that like-minded culinary arts and hospitality educators join our new organization. It is also no surprise that our inaugural Summit will kick off with Milt Cox delivering a keynote address on what learning communities are and why they are more important than ever to educators today.
To learn a great deal about more about Milt Cox and his work on faculty learning communities, please visit http://www.units.muohio.edu/flc/
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