Community colleges serve as crucial gateways to social and economic prosperity for millions of Americans, providing opportunities for career stability and social advancement. The success of this educational pathway hinges on the seamless alignment of a college's mission and goals, creating an environment conducive to faculty excellence in…

In fall 2013, The Teagle Foundation issued an RFP inviting selected institutions and organizations to apply for grants that addressed the following question: "How can faculty work together to create a more coherent and intentional curriculum whose goals, pathways, and outcomes are clear to students and other constituencies with a stake in the…

The social aspects of faculty instructional development programs are increasingly recognized because the programs' impact is greatly influenced by social interactions among faculty participants. These interactions allow faculty members to reflect on and improve their teaching practices. Although the literature has shown that effective…

Academic conferences are integral to the dissemination of novel research findings and discussion of pioneering ideas across all postsecondary disciplines. For some participants, these environments are spaces to develop new collaborations, research projects, and social bonds; however, for others, conferences can be a place of marginalization and…

As American teacher educators and teachers are being roiled by restrictive legislation around critical race theory and divisive concepts in some states, our investigation explored the impact of critical communities of practice (CoP) on redesigning and teaching introduction to education courses with a transformative lens. This manuscript details…

Educational leadership faculty from Florida state-accredited educational leadership programs formed the Florida Association of Professors of Educational Leadership (FAPEL) in 1995 to provide a means through which they could effectively communicate and work together on issues of mutual interest, and for twenty-five years members have collaborated…

In this article, we describe how our general and special education faculty collaborated to infuse the Universal Design for Learning framework into our special education preparation program, a dual-licensure special education and elementary education (K-6) undergraduate degree program. We describe the curriculum reform processes and outcomes of the…

This paper explores a teacher leadership development programme initiated by a university-based educational innovation centre that convened 40 teacher leaders from 22 different school districts across Florida for an 18-month voluntary professional learning experience. Underpinning this initiative was a theory of teacher leadership development aimed…

Through a university-rural school partnership, principals and teacher leaders were coached by a university professor to improve teacher optimism and collaboration. The approach benefited teacher and student outcomes and school culture.

This paper explores the potential of collaborative interdisciplinary teaching as a mechanism for advancing feminist pedagogies. The authors, individually and collectively, engage in feminist academic work (e.g., scholarship and teaching) that challenges traditional academic expectations in their disciplines and at their institution. The authors do…

This paper traces the history and impact of communities of practice (CoPs) in supporting early-career academics, although the primary focus here in the United States is on the faculty learning community (FLC) model, a special type of CoP in higher education. The initial development of this model, beginning in 1979, takes place over two decades at…

In a collaboration between the University of North Florida College of Education and Human Services and Sandalwood High School in Duval County, Florida, social studies and science education professors and a science teacher worked together to develop student understanding about the limited use of diesel-fueled cars in the United States when compared…

This paper provides an example of an innovative solution to program development that addresses the diverse needs of teacher educators throughout various geographical locations in Florida, through a collaborative multi-university, multi-agency teacher training program funded by one collaborative grant. In this time of economic uncertainties,…

This paper presents research that explores similarities and differences across six randomized controlled trials of learning communities in community colleges that were conducted by MDRC and the National Center for Postsecondary Research. Five of these studies track students' progress in the program semester and two follow-up semesters, and one…

While African American women have been participating in higher education for more than a century, they remain significantly underrepresented among college and university professors in America. This study was pursued in an attempt to address the underrepresentation of African American women faculty at public and private universities within the…