Center for Teaching And Learning Excellence

Faculty Learning Communities

Faculty Learning Communities CTLE

About Faculty Learning Communities

Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) are small, year-long cohorts where PCC faculty meet regularly to explore a focused teaching theme, apply new approaches in their classes, and share what works. Programming is coordinated by the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE), and each group is led by a peer-facilitator instructor. Part-time faculty are eligible for stipend compensation.

Faculty Learning Communities use the lens of teaching and learning in their programming, but are open to all PCC Staff. Everyone is welcome.

Cohort enrollment cap: Each FLC cohort is limited to approximately 15–20 participants. Because Zoom does not allow us to enforce this at registration, kindly register only for sessions you plan to attend, and cancel your registration if your availability changes (the link to cancel can be found on the confirmation email). This helps us maintain accurate enrollment numbers. If an individual FLC you have registered for has reached capacity, the CTLE team or the facilitators will contact you directly. Thank you for your help.

Registration instructions and FAQs

General instructions for registration are below (expand each section to see more). Detailed instructions are available in the FLC guidelines. A list of FLCs and their details is further down this page.

Kindly enroll at least 3 business days in advance when possible to allow time for instructors to receive the roster and share materials. If enrolling fewer than 3 business days before the event, please email your instructors directly – their contact information can be found in each FLC description below.

How do I register?
  • Pick your FLC from the list below (expand each header to see details)
  • Select the date of the meeting you would like to attend.
  • Register with your PCC email (an active PCC Zoom account is required)
Important! PCC email and Zoom required
  • You must register and attend using your PCC email and its associated Zoom account. If your account is not yet active, sign in at portlandcc.zoom.us first.
  • Attendance Links are unique to your registration and non-transferable.
  • For hybrid meetings (in-person or Zoom), campus and room information is shared in the confirmation email.
Where do I submit accommodation requests?

In alignment with PCC, the CTLE is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all our programming. Please email the CTLE program coordinators at ctle@pcc.edu as early as possible with any requests.

I only want to attend, no transcript or stipend needed
  • Registration with PCC credentials is still required for all FLCs.
  • Access to the Zoom meeting is not available without registration.
What about my Workday Learning transcript?

Attendance will be recorded and added to your learning transcript in Workday at the end of the term.

I need additional assistance

Winter 2026 FLCs and registration links

Expand each section to see the full overview and meeting registration links.

Between a Bot and a Hard Place

This FLC is designed to increase GenAI literacy and to create a resource for our colleagues to help them decide how they want to incorporate GenAI in their classrooms.

What the $#!^ Do Grades Mean Anyway? A Critical Interrogation of Grading Practices

This faculty learning community invites you to explore alternative approaches to grading that center student growth, transparency, and inclusion. Together, we’ll investigate what traditional systems reward and how we can bend grading practices to serve student learning.

Our goal is to mix the theoretical with the practical, exploring ideas and their implementation in the classroom. We’ll read and discuss emerging research, learn about approaches like ungrading, labor-based contracts, and standards-based grading, and anchor into our own classroom practices. Our goal is not to prescribe a single method but to open space for critical reflection, experimentation, and collaboration in a supportive and reflective community.

This FLC is primarily for those who have already implemented new grading systems, but anyone with an interest in equitable grading is welcome to attend. This group will offer a supportive, interrogative environment for exploring the connections between equity and grading.

These sessions will be facilitated by Michelle Kutter, temporary full-time Math faculty, and Samm Erickson, CTLE coordinator and Reading/Writing/English faculty member.

This is a Hybrid FLC – You may attend in-person or remotely. Campus room location available after registration via Zoom.

Information: A Conversation About Creation, Influence, and Consumption

Where does information come from? How does it reach us? How do we know if we can trust it? For the last 10 years, the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education has provided a foundation for librarians’ work with students in navigating these questions. This FLC will use the Framework as a touchstone as we explore some of the complexities and currents in our information ecosphere.

This FLC is for anyone interested in thinking about information in the current day, not just librarians! Information touches us all; let’s try to make sense of it!

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

This is a Hybrid FLC – You may attend in-person or remotely. Campus room location available after registration via Zoom.

Culture and Clicks: Fostering Belonging Through Technology

Looking for practical, engaging ways to build classroom communities while embracing technology?

Join this Faculty Learning Community to explore how digital tools – including AI and ChatGPT – can support inclusive teaching, spark connection, and create environments where all students feel they belong.

Each session offers hands-on strategies, collaborative reflection, and a chance to test out fun, low-barrier tools that blend culture and clicks to energize your course design and classroom practices.

Enhancing the Role of Reading in the Composition Classroom and Beyond

This FLC explores the theory and practice of integrating reading pedagogy into the teaching of writing, particularly for first-year writing courses (but also applicable to any courses asking students to read and write regularly).

We will focus on scholarship about teaching reading in the writing classroom, including theories and studies on reading pedagogy for first-year writers and the relationships among reading, thinking, and writing.

Expect to read and briefly reflect on one or two articles per session. Synchronous sessions will include discussions of the readings and our own reading practices. Participants will also complete a brief survey reflecting on current thoughts and practices on reading in their teaching of writing.

Exploring Reflective Practice

Join Christine Fanning and Colleen Latimer as we explore using reflective practice (RP) to guide, inform, and enhance our teaching.

We will be meeting twice per term and using that time to begin writing reflections about our teaching and talking about using those reflections to implement changes to our classroom.

We want to give you freedom to explore RP in any way you want. You might want to reflect on a specific teaching topic or reflect broadly on items as they come up. We will be learning by doing, which will require you to commit to writing (or perhaps recording) a private reflection once or twice a week.

Lived Experiences in the Classroom

In Lived Experiences in the Classroom, we will explore how lived experiences influence curriculum and teaching/learning community while honoring identity and culture. In addition, we will examine learners’ sense of academic belonging with funds of knowledge and how to build classroom communities.

Outcomes
  • Identify learners’ and instructors’ lived experiences
  • Develop instructors’ cultural competence
  • Recognize adult learning principles in the learning environment
Details
Seeing The World Through a Deaf Lens

This FLC is about recognizing and respecting the unique ways Deaf people experience and interact with the world. It means valuing Deaf language, culture, and perspectives, while also working together to build a society that is more inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Social Change in the Classroom: Community Engagement Through an Advocacy Aid Lens

In this Faculty Learning Community, facilitated by the Community-Based Learning (CBL) team, we are hoping to expand our definition of community engagement to include mutual aid (Fall 2025), advocacy (Winter 2026), and storytelling (Spring 2026). For Winter 2026, our goal is for attendees to learn more about advocacy as a form of civic engagement. Participants will gain hands-on experience in letter writing and contacting elected officials and will build confidence in incorporating community engagement into their own classes.

This FLC is open to everyone, including experienced CBL practitioners and those who are brand new to the work.

Supporting Teaching and Learning in a Second Language Environment

Do you teach students who are still learning English? Do you want simple, effective ways to help them succeed? Curious about how to better support ESOL, international, multilingual learners, ASL students – or even how to thrive as an instructor teaching in a second language yourself?

Join a friendly group of instructors from all disciplines as we share tips, try out new teaching strategies, and support each other. This is a space to learn, grow, and make your teaching even more inclusive. Everyone is welcome – no second language needed!

Supporting Teaching and Learning in a Second Language Environment is a cohort of instructors from across disciplines who work with students for whom the language in which the class is taught is not their first language. This includes ESOL students, many International students, and World Language students. We work together to identify and explore creative implementation of best practices for teaching and learning in second language environments, and in mixed environments, where only some of the students may be using a second language.

We will also explore best practices for instructors teaching in a second language. The FLC will include opportunities to apply and report back on teaching methods.