Professional Learning Community

Professional Learning Community (PLC)

2024/25

Program begins September 27

For the last seven years faculty and staff from every college and school across campus have joined together in groups within a Professional Learning Community (PLC) to learn from each other, research together, and develop new and creative ways to enhance and assess teaching and learning in their classrooms. Join our CRTLE PLC Fellows Program this year! Colleagues meet together twice a month on Thursday or Friday afternoons from 1 pm - 3 pm in person and/or online to learn, share ideas, and integrate unique, faculty driven, and innovative teaching practices into their courses. Fellows earn a stipend as well as other supports and benefits. This year's PLC topics are:

The Theory and Practice of Storytelling in our Courses (Online only; Thursday 1 - 3 pm).

Creating Open Educational Resources (OER) and Using AI in Teaching (Friday 1 - 3 pm).

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free learning materials that anyone can use, adapt, create, and share. Open Educational Practices (OEP) involve using these resources to promote active learning and collaboration, often through open pedagogy, where students become creators of knowledge rather than just consumers. Why OPEN with AI? Integrating AI into OER and OEP represents a transformative shift in education. AI can improve these practices by assisting in the creation of high-quality resources and supporting instructors in personalizing their courses, while also offering tailored learning experiences for students.

This group is led by Led by Kim Breuer (Dept of History and Geography) and Megan Zara (UTA Libraries) this group will explore best practices for finding, curating, and adapting OER, creating new OER content, and developing cost-free courses; examine how open pedagogy improves accessibility, fosters collaboration, and supports authentic learning while teaching valuable skills; discuss open publishing and workshop personal projects and materials development; explore the potential and ethical considerations of integrating AI into course development, materials creation, and pedagogy, while determining responsible AI use and encouraging a broader dialogue on open practices and AI in education; and look into funding and research opportunities for OER/OEP and highlight UTA Libraries’ support for adopting open practices.

Developing Multimedia Resources and Using AI in Teaching (Thursday 1 - 3pm).

This group led by Nila Veerabathina (Dept. of Physics) and Dakota Jimenez (Center of Distance Education) will focus on creating multimedia resources, especially audio, video, and interactive media, that can be utilized repeatedly in flipped, online, or face-to-face classes. Sessions will discuss best practices, brainstorm ideas, develop concepts, plan field trips to on-campus media rooms and facilities, learn optimal camera settings, and execute multimedia projects to create high-quality resources. The group will also explore the use of AI in creating multimedia.

Implementing Sustainability in Teaching (Friday 1 - 3 pm).

Led by Kendra Wallis, the purpose of this group is to integrate sustainability throughout the curriculum at UTA. By fostering a collaborative environment, we enable faculty to share innovative ideas for how to promote a sustainable mindset. Grounded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) https://sdgs.un.org/goals, the group aims to prepare UTA graduates to contribute to a more sustainable world. Explore how sustainability can enhance your course through themes such as buildings, energy, food, grounds, investment, justice, procurement, social behavior, transportation, waste, water, and more.

Leading Study Abroad to Enhance Global Learning (Friday 1 - 3 pm).

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The video below provides an overview of the PLC program.