Running Head: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

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Running Head: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Emergent Professional Learning Communities in Canadian Postsecondary Education: Experiences of Faculty, Educational Developers, Support Staff, and Administrators

Julie Mooney Department of Integrated Studies in Education McGill University, Montreal February 2017 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts, Educational Leadership

© Julie Mooney 2017

Running Head: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Table of Contents LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND APPENDICES ....................................................... 4 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 5 RESUME (ABSTRACT IN FRENCH) .............................................................................. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER ONE: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .................................................... 8 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 8 THESIS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 8 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................... 8

Research Questions .................................................................................................... 10 Defining ‘learning communities’ ............................................................................... 11 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... 13 Researcher Identity within the Context of the Inquiry ............................................... 15 Philosophical Underpinnings ..................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 19

CHAPTER TWO: METHODS OF INQUIRY ............................................................ 20 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 20 INTERPRETIVE INQUIRY ................................................................................................... 20 PURPOSIVE SAPLE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS .............................................................. 20 DESCRIPTION OF LEARNING COMMUNITIES IN THE STUDY ............................................... 22

The Sciences, Arts, & Culture Collaborating (SACC) LC ........................................ 22 The Faculty Writing Community (FWC) .................................................................. 23 The Indigenizing Education Community (IEC) ......................................................... 23 The Integrating Pedagogy and Classroom Design (IPaCD) LC ................................ 24 The Universal Design for Learning Community (UDLC) ......................................... 24 DATA COLLECTION AND RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS .......................................................... 25 RESEARCH ETHICS ........................................................................................................... 25 DATA PROCESSING .......................................................................................................... 26 DATA ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. 28

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES CHAPTER CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 29

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS .................................................................................. 30 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 30 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCHER PRESENCE ................................................................ 31 THEMATIC FINDINGS ....................................................................................................... 31

Nature of a Learning Community .............................................................................. 32 Learning Community Motivations and Goals ............................................................ 34 Participant Motivations for Joining Learning Community ........................................ 35 Unintended Outcomes ................................................................................................ 36 Constraints and Opportunities .................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 37

CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION ................................................................................ 39 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 39 NATURE OF A LEARNING COMMUNITY ............................................................................. 39

LEARNING COMMUNITY MOTIVATIONS AND GOALS ...................................................... 57 PARTICIPANT MOTIVATIONS FOR JOINING LEARNING COMMUNITY ............................... 67 UNINTENDED OUTCOMES ............................................................................................... 69 CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES ............................................................................... 74 CHAPTER CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 81

CHAPTER FIVE: IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................ 82 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 82

SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS OF DISCUSSION ..................................................................... 82 What is going on in professional LCs in postsecondary education? .......................... 82 What do LC members do together?............................................................................ 82 LC members motivations to join and continue to participate .................................... 83 How do LC members view their own professional development? ............................ 83 Is the LC a site of professional development for them? ............................................. 83 Do LC members consider their participation a long-term commitment?................... 84 Faculty-initiated LCs versus LCs established by senior administration .................... 84

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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES Do LC members collaborate to create a culture of learning and innovation? ............ 85 How emergent interdisciplinary LC enable or constrain institutional change ........... 86 THE RHIZOME AND RHIZOMATIC VALIDITY ...................................................................... 87 IMPLICATIONS OF DATA, NARRATIVE VIGNETTES, AND INTERPRETATIONS ...................... 89

Organizational Change ............................................................................................... 90 Faculty and Professional Development ...................................................................... 91 Educational Innovation .............................................................................................. 92 CHAPTER CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 93

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 95 APPENDIX A: PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENT MESSAGE...................................... 99 APPENDIX B: INFORMATION SHEET AND CONSENT FORM ............................ 100 APPENDIX C: INQUIRY CONVERSATIONS GUIDING QUESTIONS .................. 104

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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND APPENDICES

FIGURE 1. INTERPRETIVE INQUIRY PROCESS ....................................................... 21 FIGURE 2. INITIAL DATA PROCESSING CONCEPT MAP ...................................... 26 FIGURE 3. DEGREES OF PARTICIPATION ................................................................ 32 FIGURE 4. IMAGE OF A RHIZOME ............................................................................. 88

TABLE 1: LEARNING COMMUNITY PSEUDONYMS & ACRONYMS ................. 21 TABLE 2: DEMOGRAPHIC DATA BY ROLE ............................................................. 22 TABLE 3: DEMOGRAPHIC DATA BY GENDER ....................................................... 22 TABLE 4: THEMATIC FINDINGS ................................................................................ 38

APPENDIX A: PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENT MESSAGE...................................... 99 APPENDIX B: INFORMATION SHEET AND CONSENT FORM ............................ 100 APPENDIX C: INQUIRY CONVERSATIONS GUIDING QUESTIONS .................. 104

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Abstract

Centres for teaching and learning in postsecondary educational institutions in Canada seek to serve the professional development needs of faculty members throughout the college or university. Recognizing the limits of conventional frameworks for faculty development, such as one-time workshops, pedagogical conferences, and lunchtime discussion sessions, this qualitative inquiry explores learning communities, as an additional framework for serving faculty development and cross-institutional professional development needs. The study asks: What does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada? Data collected through individual ‘inquiry conversations’ (semi-structured interviews) and research memos were used to develop narrative descriptions representing the participants’ respective experiences of a learning community in a large, urban college context in Canada. These narrative descriptions offer portraits of the meaning that learning community members made of their own experience, revealing that the learning communities served not only as sites for professional development, but also formed micro-cultures within the institution, which, over time, influenced educational (academic) and organizational (administrative) change, both in policy and in practice.

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Résumé

Les centres d'enseignement et d'apprentissage dans les établissements d'enseignement supérieur au Canada cherchent à répondre aux besoins de perfectionnement professionnel des membres du corps professoral dans l'ensemble du collège ou de l’université. Reconnaissant les limites des cadres conventionnels pour le développement du corps professoral, entre outres des ateliers ponctuels, des conférences pédagogiques, et des séances de discussion, cette enquête qualitative explore les communautés d'apprentissage comme cadre supplémentaire pour servir le développement du corps professoral et les besoins de perfectionnement professionnel à travers l’institution. L'étude demande: Qu'est-ce que cela signifie pour les enseignants, les conseillers pédagogiques, le personnel de soutien, et les administrateurs de participer à une communauté d'apprentissage dans un collège au Canada? Les données recueillies par des entretiens semistructurés et des notes de recherche ont été utilisées pour élaborer des descriptions narratives représentant les expériences respectives des participants de communautés d'apprentissage dans le contexte d’un gros collège urbain au Canada. Ces descriptions narratives offrent des portraits du sens que font les participants de leurs propres expériences en communautés d’apprentissage, révélant que les communautés d'apprentissage servent non seulement en tant que sites de développement professionnel, mais aussi forment des micro-cultures au sein de l'institution, qui, au fil du temps, aient une influence envers des changements académiques et organisationnels, tant dans la politique que dans la pratique.

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Acknowledgements

I extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Lisa J. Starr, Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, Faculty of Education at McGill University for her supervision of this study and for the valuable advice and guidance she has offered me throughout the process of this thesis research. Through her mentorship, I have engaged in significant learning and I have grown as a scholar.

To my research participants, I express my thanks for their generosity and openness in sharing their experiences. The stories they shared provided rich descriptive data that builds on our understandings of learning communities in higher education in Canada.

To Jennie Ferris, doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at McGill University and educational developer in Teaching and Learning Services at McGill University, who accompanied me throughout this thesis journey, I extend my gratitude for her generosity as a critical friend and peer in the field of educational development.

My heartfelt thanks also go out to my colleagues in the Academic Development Centre at Mount Royal University for their encouragement as I pushed through the writing stage of this research project.

Declaration of Assistance

Professional transcriptions services were hired to complete the transcription of audio recordings collected for this study.

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Chapter One: Conceptual Framework

Chapter Introduction In Chapter One I have introduced my thesis study and its conceptual framework. I have reviewed relevant literature on learning communities, defined the use of the phrase ‘learning communities’ for the purpose of this study, named the problem that motivated this inquiry, and the research questions that have focussed it. Using as a guide, Belenky, Clinch, Goldberger & Tarule’s line of philosophical questioning (cited in Morehouse, 2012, p. 10), I have introduced myself as researcher-practitioner, and have explore the philosophical underpinnings of my work.

Thesis Introduction This thesis is organized into five chapters. In Chapter One I have presented the conceptual framework for the research study, identified the research questions and problem that motivated this study, and introduced myself, the researcher within the context of the study, providing an overview of my philosophical perspectives that underpin this work. In Chapter Two I reported on the methods of inquiry used to conduct the study from choosing interpretive inquiry as my methodological approach and as my methods, to data collection, data processing, and data analysis. Chapter Three has provided an account of the findings resulting from the data collection. In Chapter Four I discussed the findings, grouped into five categories of themes and presented as narrative vignettes that represent the learning community experiences reported by my research participants. Finally, in Chapter Five, I explored the implications of this study and its findings.

Conceptual Framework While the concept of learning as a community first emerged in colleges and universities in the 1920s, learning communities started to prove effective and to take root in higher education in the 1990s (Brownell & Swaner, 2009; Meiklejohn, 1932). Much of the literature on learning communities has focused on student or student-faculty learning communities (Kuh, 2009; Brownell & Swaner, 2009; Price, 2005; Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Lenning & Ebbers, 1999; Gabelnick et al., 1990). This study has taken a broader look at the whole institution as a learning organization (Senge, 2006). While not entirely excluding student participation, this study focused

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primarily on the participation of faculty, educational developers1, staff, and administrators in learning communities (abbreviated as LCs). Learning communities can be philosophically related to Deweyan principles – that education is most successful as a social process and is deeply rooted in our understanding of community and democracy. As we understand learning communities today, they evolved out of cooperative and collaborative learning movements that emphasized social interaction and active learning. Learning communities were almost always discussed in relation to the classroom. But what was once a pedagogical tool is now being used to transform all sorts of campus features, including classrooms, retention programs, distance learning, residential environments, and many other structures. (Lenning & Ebbers, 1999, p. 11) Professors at postsecondary institutions in Canada are selected to teach based on their subject matter expertise; seldom are they required to have prior credentials in the scholarship of teaching and learning (Heinrich, 2014; Mooney, 2015). Their professional development as educators is therefore of instrumental importance to the quality of learning opportunities they offer students (Mooney, 2015). Post-secondary centres for teaching and learning have been established and directed by university and college administrations throughout Canada to serve faculty development needs (Mooney, 2015). Teaching and learning service units often experience low participation rates in their faculty development programming (Heinrich, 2014; Mooney, 2015), which typically include such offerings as new faculty orientation, course design and assessment workshops, pedagogical discussion series, and one-one-one consultations. Despite the quality, variety, and number of services offered by educational developers, for some centres for teaching and learning, outreach to faculty, to support their development as teachers, remains challenging (Mooney, 2015). Faculty development programming - designed as one-time sessions - do not necessarily create conditions for deep professional learning. As an educational developer who has grappled with these challenges, I have asked myself: 1) what could teaching 1 ‘Educational developer’ refers to a classification of employee in a postsecondary educational institution. Educational

developers work with faculty members to support the development of effective and contextually appropriate teaching and learning practices and devices. The role of an educational developer may vary from institution to institution and may include providing support to faculty on course design, assessment strategies, teaching practices, learner differences, the science of learning, the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research, etc. In some institutions in Canada, educational developers are classified as tenure-track/tenured faculty; in other institutions they form part of the professional, support, or managerial staff. Other terms for the role of educational developer are: faculty development consultant, educational development consultant, educational advisor, instructional designer, curriculum developer, etc.

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and learning services in postsecondary education do to create conditions for sustained learning over time that is rooted in professional practice? And 2) are the teachers who do not participate in teaching and learning development opportunities finding other outlets for their on-going professional development as educators? These questions are central to my conceptual framework, a “tentative theory of the phenomenon [I am] investigating” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 33). According to a pilot study conducted in Canada in 2014-15, some faculty members appear to be going elsewhere to find and create their own opportunities for on-going professional learning (Mooney, 2015). Some are connecting with colleagues from across or beyond their institution in what appear to be LCs focused on a common need, a special project, or a shared area of interest (Mooney, 2015). These groups of collaborative, self-directed, self-starters are the types of learning communities at the centre of my current inquiry. In this study I investigated the phenomena of five learning communities, within a Canadian college, that were generally viewed by administrators, faculty, educational developers, and support staff at the college as successful initiatives because of their longevity, their number of active or affiliated members, and/or their influence on the learning culture of the institution. Through individual interviews referred to in this study as ‘inquiry conversations’, members of these LCs were invited to share their respective experiences of a LC, how they have made meaning of their experiences in it, and how their participation in the LC has informed their professional practice. As a member of this college community for several years, I contributed my own observations and experiences of how these LCs inspired change towards an institutional culture of innovation, and an emerging college identity as a learning organization (Senge, 2000).

Research Questions My central research question was: What does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada? My interest was to drill down into responses to this question with follow-up questions related to the learning communities’ histories, activities, members’ motivations to join and stay involved, their views on their own professional development, who the drivers and leaders of LCs were, and the relationship between the LCs, the institutional culture, and systemic change.

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Defining ‘learning communities’ Consistent with the LCs in this study, Wenger’s (1998a) concept of a ‘community of practice,’ identified “mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire” (p. 73) as key properties of the community. All five LCs in this inquiry engaged in mutual exploration of a shared interest, through which they developed a common repertoire of language, knowledge, and practices that shaped their group identity. Wenger defined “communities of practice [as] groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002, p. 4). The notion of LCs explored in this study aligned so closely with Wenger’s understanding of communities of practice that the terms were interchangeable. Because in the data collection site for this study the term ‘learning community’ was used more frequently, I have opted to use learning community (abbreviated to LC) to refer to the concept throughout this thesis paper. Cross (1998) referred to learning communities as, “groups of people engaged in intellectual interaction for the purpose of learning” (p. 4). While this definition applies to the current study, it is insufficient to capture the scope of activities with which the LCs in this study were engaged. The LCs under inquiry also differed somewhat from Garrison and Anderson (2003) description of a ‘community of inquiry’ in that the current study explored a more diverse membership – beyond just teachers and students. However, the LCs in this study did reflect the cognitive independence and social interdependence articulated in Garrison’s and Anderson’s (2003) definition, in which they described a critical community of learners […as] composed of teachers and students transacting with the specific purposes of facilitating, constructing, and validating understanding, and of developing capabilities that will lead to further learning. Such

a

community

encourages

cognitive

independence

and

social

interdependence simultaneously. (p. 23) Price (2005) reinforced the focus on student membership and educational approach, describing LCs as sites of knowledge co-creation and emphasizing the student-to-student and student-toteacher relationships, and the context in which these relationships are lived. Because LCs in this study reached well beyond student and faculty participation, the context of each LC and the culture that developed in each one, differed considerably from classroom- or course-based

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student-only and student-teacher LCs. While my research did not share the focus on student LCs (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, Price, 2005), the LCs I investigated were interested in the deepening of learning, the building of relationships, the marriage of cognitive independence and social interdependence, and the integration of theoretical learning with professional practice that LCs afford their participants (Wenger, 1998a; Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Price, 2005). Cox (2004) described a learning community as “a cross-disciplinary faculty and staff group of 6-15 members who engage in an active, collaborative, yearlong program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning” (p. 8). Although he mentioned ‘staff’ in addition to faculty, as forming the membership of LCs, Cox’s faculty learning community model emphasized the experiences of faculty members. Macpherson (2007) suggested “every member of the institution now has a need to learn and develop themselves in reflexive ways that support student learning” (p. 2). Her model for LCs valued the inclusion of faculty, staff, administrators, and any role within institutions of higher education. This more open and system-wide approach to LCs aligns with Senge’s (2000) concept of the learning organization, which is interested in “tap[ping] the imagination, commitment, and creativity of all [its] members” (p. 2). Goodsell Love (2012) also took a systems approach to LCs referring to them as “one reform effort to change how students, faculty, and student affairs professionals work together to form a more holistic learning experience, both across and within disciplines” (p. 5). I have adopted Macphearson’s and Goddsell Love’s more holistic understanding in my research. Senge (2000) used interchangeably the two phrases: ‘learning communities’ and ‘communities of practice’. He drew on the work of Brown and Duguid (1991), as well as Wenger (1998a) to define learning communities and communities of practice. Of particular relevance to this study, Senge emphasized in his definition the trust between members of a learning community, their shared enthusiasm for a topic or practice, and their desire to spread that excitement and knowledge. Senge’s vision for postsecondary education suggested that universities and colleges that wish to remain relevant and effective in our fast-changing society, need to become learning organizations that treat all members of the campus community as learners engaged in collective learning processes, rather than maintaining the academy’s traditional role as knowing institutions that transmit knowledge from experts to novices. He proposed a model in which 1) aspirations, 2) reflective conversations, and 3) understanding complexity formed the three essential legs of a stool (Senge, 2000). Without all three ‘legs’ in

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the model, the stool would fall over (Senge, 2000). This vision for universities and colleges as ‘learning organizations’ informed my reflections as I embarked on the current research because the three legs in Senge’s model – aspirations, reflective conversations, and understanding complexity – were all qualities I informally observed in the LCs I undertook to study, prior to commencing the study. One of my tentative theories, as I began the inquiry process, was that these LCs were starting to influence the way the institution – in this case a college – was functioning. My suspicion was that the paradigm shift in the academy, about which Senge (2000) wrote, was happening at this particular college, and that the LCs had something to do with that shift. Drawing on Wenger (1998a), Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002), Price (2005), Senge (2000), Macpherson (2007), and Goodsell Love (2012), for the purpose of this study, the phrase ‘learning communities’ has been used to refer to a group of people who are affiliated with a postsecondary educational institution, as employees and/or students, who share a common interest and undertake to inquire about it together. The nature of activities through which they undertake their collective inquiry is understood broadly. They may or may not refer to their group as a ‘learning community.’ Their membership may be fixed or fluid, and clearly or loosely defined.

Problem Statement As an educational developer in an academic development centre, questioning my assumptions about faculty professional development needs, I asked, ‘what is needed,’ and ‘how can it best be offered?’ Through critical reflection, I examined the paradigm of the teaching and learning services department and my role in it. The service-provision model for the teaching and learning centre in the institution under inquiry was established by the senior administration. Originally all professional development for employees was managed through the Human Resources department, as part of an institutional commitment to providing relevant training sessions based on the skills and knowledge needed for employees to fulfill their roles. Shortly after our entry into the 21 st century, the professional development needs of faculty were partitioned from those of other employee classifications. The Human Resources department continued to provide training services for non-faculty employees, while the centre for teaching and learning was formed to specialize in faculty development.

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The perennial challenge to successful implementation of faculty development programs is persuading faculty to participate. A standard metric, however limited, for measuring the success of a program is, how many people participated? When the answer to that question is consistently under ten and often under five, in an institution with hundreds or thousands of faculty members, the reflective educational developer questions the programs being offered, the methods of inviting participation, the timing of the programs, and the very framework for faculty development itself. At the college under inquiry, I noticed the collaborative engagement of faculty members often from diverse disciplinary specialties - in projects around which they shared curiosity and sought to address an educational concern or solve a college-related problem. They engaged in these initiatives, often in addition to their paid working hours. The projects were related to their work, and seemed to nourish their teaching practices and identities. Many of these teachers won awards, fellowships, research grants, and other forms of project funding. They consistently emerged as leaders in the college. They did not necessarily feel the need to sign up for a workshop on teaching strategies, assessment as learning, reflexive practice, or course design. Acknowledging their apparent disinterest in formal faculty development offerings is not meant to trivialize the services that educational developers provide, as some faculty members demonstrate need and interest in such services, and directly apply what they learn in these programs to their professional practices. But in the context of this study, they are a minority of teachers. Another minority of teachers seem to be engaging in their own self-directed professional learning by initiating a project at the college. That leaves a large majority of teachers who, while they may be pursuing their own discipline-specific professional development, appear not to access nor initiate any professional development related to teaching and learning. Given the value of ongoing professional learning for improving teaching practices, I was compelled to ask, ‘how can we reach this majority of teachers?’ If their needs are not met by the conventions of a teaching and learning centre, could a more self-directed project serve their needs? What is going on in faculty-initiated projects that is working well for those involved? Are these collaborative, faculty-driven projects emerging, consciously or unconsciously, as learning communities? With an interest in improving and expanding the ways in which educational developers engage with faculty colleagues to improve teaching and learning practices across the institution

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and throughout the academy, my research has investigated the experiences of colleagues who have initiated or joined one such collaborative project.

Researcher Identity within the Context of the Inquiry This study was conducted in a Canadian college, where I worked as an educational developer for several years. In this professional role, I belonged to various professional LCs. One of the LCs to which I belonged was situated within the college under inquiry; its membership was informal, based on a common orientation towards innovation in teaching and learning, an intention to challenge ourselves beyond the routines and assumptions of formal institutional education, and an engagement with deeper, relevant, applied, and sustained learning. As a LC that met infrequently, and for which membership was fluid, it included teaching faculty, research faculty, educational developers, technicians, support staff, and college administrators. The members of this LC did not necessarily refer to our grouping as a learning community, such was the loose nature of our identity as an entity. My experience of participation in various professional learning communities (abbreviated as PLCs) convinced me that the LC model for professional development leads colleagues in the academy in promising directions, that enhance self-reflections, theoretical understandings, educational practices, and professional identities. Largely through my participation in LCs, I developed an understanding of and the confidence to articulate my identity as an educational developer. I witnessed and began to imagine how the contributions of LCs within the postsecondary sector can and do effect positive change to the learning environment and institutional systems. In parallel to supporting the development of my professional identity, my participation in LCs fostered in me a sense of belonging to the broader social project that is postsecondary education. Through the collegial relationships that I formed in LCs, I learned to articulate the importance of creating learning environments in which trial and error, invention, and innovation are encouraged. These LCs fostered a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) and valued failure as part of the learning process. Creating such learning environments was considered a critical, long-term investment, rather than a provisional, retractable expense. With this background experience in PLCs, I entered the current inquiry as a researcher-practitioner, with a bias towards the benefits of learning communities as a model for re-invigorating the people within higher education and renewing the institutions themselves.

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Philosophical Underpinnings What is truth? What is authority? To whom do I listen? […] How do I know what I know? […] to ask ourselves these questions and reflect on our answers is more than an intellectual exercise, for our basic assumptions about the nature of truth and reality and the origins of knowledge shape the way we see the world as participants in it. They affect our definitions of ourselves, our sense of control over life events, our views on teaching and learning, and our conceptions of morality. (Belenky et al., 1986, p. 3 in Morehouse, 2012, p. 10) In this section I responded to Belenky et al.’s, philosophical questions of ontology, epistemology, logic, teleology, and ethics. Ontology: What is truth? What is knowledge and what is its relationship to ways of being? As a social scientist, I am interested in the situated and lived experiences of the people involved in the phenomena I study. My worldview, that reality is constructed and interpreted by the people who live it, has influenced my research inquiry; rather than depending exclusively on my own observations of the behaviour of others, I am interested in how the agents, from whom I collect research data, construct meaning about their own experiences. In this inquiry, I explored what they see, hear, feel, think, say and do in LCs. I treated their experiences, told in the first person, subjective voice, as knowledge to which I applied my interpretative analyses and understandings, attending to the fact that ‘meaning-making’ is inherently contextual. I recognized that ‘truth’ is tentative and subjective. I sought evolving subjectivities from my research participants, as the rich, storied “evidence” or “blurred knowing” (Butler-Kisber, 2010, p. 64) of human phenomena. As Morehouse (2012) affirmed, “[a]dmissible evidence is generated from both our tacit understanding and tangible accounts of experience” (2012, p. 14). As discussed further in Chapter Two: Methods of Inquiry, I used a qualitative inquiry approach to this study; qualitative inquiry is an “umbrella term for all kinds of inquiry that utilize interpretation” (Butler-Kisber, 2010, p. 8) including interpretive inquiry. In this study, I gathered multiple subjectivities into composite narrative vignettes that represent a collection of lived experiences “in close relationship […with…] ideas that guide [the research participants’] actions” (Boeree, 1998, p. 2). Within an interpretive inquiry study and the ontology described

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above, these composite stories are evidence in the form of rich narrative description of lived experiences, and ways of being. Epistemology: What is the relationship between the knower and the known? What role do values play in understanding? I do not claim objectivity in my role as inquirer, since I engaged in exploring phenomena alongside colleagues who participated in the study. We invariably influenced each other’s understandings and interpretations in conversation about their experiences (Morehouse, 2012). Nevertheless, I analysed the collected data from as many perspectives as possible within the constraints of the study, employing critical reflexivity and acknowledging that any interpretation I made was tentative and limited by my own blind spots, biases, and values. Logic: What are possible kinds of connection between the data? This study did not set out to produce the kind of causal evidence that asserts if A and B, then C. As a qualitative study, using an interpretive inquiry approach, I produced narrative descriptions of complex human experiences and collegial interactions within LCs in a college. I viewed the narrative descriptions resulting from this inquiry as interpretations and representations of “a complex interacting and multidirectional influence between and among human beings, who are themselves situated in social, economic, and political contexts, which preclude linear causeeffect relationship” (Morehouse, 2012, p. 23). These narrative representations offer a way of understanding the phenomena under inquiry – namely, the emergence of several, diverse LCs within a college - at the point in time when the data was collected. In particular, the stories of participants revealed that the LCs in this study were sites for professional development, and also formed interconnected micro-cultures within the institution. These micro-cultures influenced college-wide academic and administrative changes. Teleology: What is research for? Jonathan Michie, (2015) proposed that the Social Sciences are as important to economic prosperity as are the STEM disciplines - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The role of social science is to develop “meaningful and indepth understanding” (Morehouse, 2012, p. 23) of human experience. According to Michie (2015), such understanding is essential to assisting humanity in its pursuit of economic success. Understanding situated human behaviour, interactions, and experiences is the purpose of social science research. Once a researcher has presented a systematic analysis of a phenomenon, any applications of these understandings are at the reader’s discretion (Morehouse, 2012). “Narrative

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researchers question whether anything can truly be generalized when context plays such an important role in understanding” (Butler-Kisber, 2010, p. 64). As Morehouse (2012) explained, although scholarly inquiry offers only “a partial and tentative” (p. 23) view of phenomena, these insights are nevertheless helpful at presenting important relationships within complex systems. For instance, in this study, which is rooted in a specific college context, the influence of emergent LCs on the organizational culture of the college, the relationship between LC participation and individual professional development, and the interaction between faculty LC members and explorations of educational innovations are all important relationships explored. To illustrate the relational practices and interactions advocated by Morehouse, I have set out to draw a portrait of what is going on in learning communities at a Canadian college, and how the members make meaning of their LC experiences. Narrative, “a dialectic between what was expected and what came to pass,” (Bruner, 2002, p. 31, as cited in Butler-Kisber, 2010, p. 63) allows for the re-description of experience (Ricoeur, 1983, as cited in Butler-Kisber, 2010). “It is not surprising, therefore, that narrative ways of knowing and doing crept slowly and steadily into research in the late 20th century and revolutionized the nature of qualitative work” (Butler-Kisber, 2010, p. 63). The dialectic between what the research participants from five LCs intended to do, what they actually experienced, and how they told their stories creates a narrative that has been redescribed in this study, using interpretive inquiry methodologies. The findings from this study have not been presented as generalizable; they have offered portraits or narrative vignettes of what is going on in five particular LCs in this context. In so doing, they have shined light on the phenomena, place, and potential of PLCs within higher education in Canada. Ethics: What is my responsibility to my subject and the people I am studying? Important to qualitative inquiry is a practice of reflexivity on the part of the inquirer, “that is, the researcher must examine carefully what she brings to and contributes to the process” (ButlerKisber, 2010, p. 65). As the participants in this inquiry are colleagues with whom I worked periodically over the course of several years, and the phenomenon I explored was directly connected to my professional role during that time, I was already engaged in a reflexive practice related to the subject of inquiry before undertaking this study. In order to document this practice for the purpose of the inquiry, I have included reflexive memos among the research data. Writing these reflexive memos throughout the data collection and analysis phases served as a practice of

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authenticity in my research, as reminders to me of my presence within the study, keeping me tuned in to and accountable for my own perspectives, biases, and assumptions. I committed myself to, as faithfully as possible, represent the stories of lived experiences shared by my research participants, by developing the narrative vignettes directly from the transcribed audio recordings of my inquiry conversations with the research participants. Nevertheless, I acknowledge my own presence in the study, in the data, and in the data analysis and interpretations. I made choices in the analysis process that privileged some aspects of the stories over other aspects. These choices were based on my interpretations of the data, as an educational developer in the same context from which the data was drawn, and were guided by the research questions that inspired this study. I approached my relationship with participants with care and respect. I engaged participants in on-going negotiation of consent, up to the point of completing the participant checks of data. Through this process, l privileged some individual voices, such as stories from participants in the Indigenizing Education Community. But in general the vignettes were written as composite stories, which I co-constructed with participant data (Butler-Kisber, 2010).

Chapter Conclusion In Chapter One I have presented the conceptual framework for this study, reviewed key literature on LCs, defined this study’s use of the phrase ‘learning communities,’ identified the problem that inspired the study, and the research questions that focused it. Situating myself as a researcher and professional practitioner in the college context of this study, and using Belenky et al.’s line of questioning, I have provided an overview of the philosophical underpinnings of my work.

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Chapter Two: Methods of Inquiry

Chapter Introduction In Chapter Two I have presented my methodological choice, interpretive inquiry. I have described the methods I used to conduct this study, including the purposeful sample of research participants and their demographic data by LC, employment role, and gender. This chapter also includes brief descriptions of each of the five learning communities in the study, in order to set the context for the data. I have then discussed the research instruments I used, the research ethics processes I followed, and I have described the data collection, processing, and analysis I conducted.

Interpretive Inquiry This study used interpretive inquiry as methodology. In this approach the researcher begins without a prior theoretical lens, allows understandings to emerge, then interprets the emergent phenomena and suggests possible actions for change (Butler-Kisber, 2010). I entered into this study with my own experiences and understandings of LCs in higher education, however, my understandings were based on anecdotal evidence and my own professional experience as an educational developer. With this study, I sought to deepen and expand my understanding through multiple individual perspectives, and the experiences of different actors or professional roles within the postsecondary system.

Purposive sample of research participants A purposive sample of participants was selected from among four employee classifications, namely: (1) faculty, (2) support staff, (3) educational developers, and (4) administrators, at the large, diverse, urban college in Canada that formed the site for this study. Colleagues were invited to participate in the study because of their recent involvement in a LC at the college. Fourteen participants, meeting this eligibility criterion, were successfully recruited to each participate in an individual ‘inquiry conversation’ (semi-structured interview). Of the fourteen interviews conducted, ten were retained (as shown in Figure 1), to form the raw data set for the study. During data collection, the researcher detected a bias in a participant’s responses, resulting in data that could not be used to answer the research questions. During data analysis an

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additional two interviews were discarded for lack of relevance to the research questions. A fourth interview was excluded from the data set because the participant was external to the college under inquiry, and, while this participant’s responses were generally pertinent to an exploration of LCs in higher education, they were not situated in the specific context of this study.

interpre ve inquiry process purposeful sample (10) research memos semi-structured interviews

data collec on

par cipant check transcrip on isola ng data

coding

narra ve vigne es

interpreta ons implica ons

pa erns

data processing

data analysis

Figure 1: Interpretive Inquiry Process. This figure illustrates the data collection, processing, and analysis methods used in the study. As shown in Table 1, which lists the LC pseudonyms, among the ten transcripts, two research participants are members of the Sciences, Arts, and Culture Collaborating (SACC) learning community, one participant is from the Faculty Writing Community (FWC), three are from the Indigenizing Education Community (IEC), another three are members of the Integrating Pedagogy and Classroom Design (IPaCD) learning community, and one participant is from the Universal Design for Learning Community (UDLC). The research participants represented all four employment classifications with five faculty participants, two educational developers, two support staff, and one administrator participant (see Table 2). Five women and five men participated in this study, as illustrated in Table 3. Table 1: Learning Community Pseudonyms and Corresponding Acronyms

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Learning Community Pseudonyms & Acronyms Sciences, Arts, & Culture Collaborating (SACC) Faculty Writing Community (FWC) Indigenizing Education Community (IEC) Integrating Pedagogy and Classroom Design (IPaCD) Universal Design for Learning Community (UDLC) Total number of participants

Number 2 1 3 3 1 10

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Table 2: Demographic Data by Role/Employment Classification Role/Employment Classification Faculty Educational Developer Support Staff Administrator Total number of participants

Number 5 2 2 1 10

Table 3: Demographic Data by Gender Gender Female Male Total number of participants

Number 5 5 10

Descriptions of the learning communities in this study I assigned pseudonyms to each LC to respect participant and institutional confidentiality. 1. The Sciences, Arts, & Culture Collaborating (SACC) LC was initiated by a faculty member and a student, eight years prior to data collection. These founders identified that the science program at the college lacked context, real-world application, and connection to the histories, philosophies, and controversies of Science. The educational philosophy of SACC centers around learning through interdisciplinary collaboration. SACC activities over the years have included a web zine, guest speakers and conference sessions, film and discussion series, social gatherings, and an annual visual arts exhibition. They structure their programming around an annual theme that inspires projects and creative works by SACC participants. Their model for open-ended, emergent, experimental learning – learning by doing – is offered as a compliment to conventional, for-credit courses and curricula. At the time of data collection, engagement in SACC included four faculty coordinators, four advisors, one part-time administrative support staff, approximately 15-20 teachers, hundreds of students, a number of college staff contributors, the moral and financial support of the college’s senior administration, student project funding from within the college, and project funding from external donors. Of the LCs in this study, SACC had the greatest longevity.

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2. The Faculty Writing Community (FWC) LC was started seven years prior to data collection by a college faculty member from the English department. Based on the Writing in/across the Disciplines literature, this LC is composed exclusively of teaching faculty, who each receive one course section of faculty release time during the semester in which they participate. Each semester six faculty members from departments across the college work together on integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning into coursework within their respective disciplines. The goal of the FWC is to seed the college with several local experts in Writing In/Across the Disciplines, in order to change the culture of writing instruction across the college. Weekly meetings are carefully organized by the co-directors to move participants through a sequence of topics, readings, and writing assignments. FWC participants are required to produce curricular or pedagogical artefacts that are shared through a website, providing educational resources for the college community and beyond. Additional FWC programming includes a Spring Institute - for faculty who seek an introduction to Writing In/Across the Disciplines, and Department Projects, in which alumni of the intensive FWC program are supported to implement similar training and curricular change initiatives within their departments. At the time of data collection the FWC learning community had an alumni of 72 writing fellows from 25 departments across the college. 3. The Indigenizing Education Community (IEC) began with a gathering of faculty, staff, educational developers, one student, and one senior administrator who shared a concern that the indigenous students at the college were struggling with their studies, and were graduating at alarmingly lower rates than their non-indigenous peers. These founding members included both indigenous and non-indigenous people. As one of the newer LCs in this study, it was established approximately 18 months prior to data collection. In its second year, the IEC created a steering committee and two teachers were given one section each of faculty release time. The IEC’s five priorities were 1) organizing indigenous cultural activities to sensitize and expose the college community to native cultures, 2) establishing a curriculum committee to improve existing curricula and develop a new certificate in Indigenous Studies, 3) developing a bridging program for indigenous students in their first year of college studies, 4) establishing an Indigenous Educational Council, to include indigenous representatives from the surrounding

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native communities as advisors to the IEC and the college, 5) securing a physical space to create a centre for native students and to hire a native centre coordinator. 4. The Integrating Pedagogy and Classroom Design (IPaCD) LC was formed approximately four years prior to data collection. It was established in parallel with one founding member receiving two significant research grants from external agencies that led to the creation of a consortium between several local postsecondary institutions. The consortium’s shared goals were to sensitize teachers to the scholarly literature on aligning technology with pedagogy, and to support teachers changing practices. One of the research grants provided faculty release time. At the time of data collection there were approximately 10 core members, (teachers, researcher, and educational developers) with more experience, of which two were co-coordinators, and two to four, depending on the semester, were fellows. The co-coordinators and fellows received faculty release time to fulfill their roles. There were about 24 peripheral participants in the LC, and another 50 participants in the penumbra, who show up periodically, and unpredictably. The IPaCD LC meets bi-weekly to exchange the challenges and successes they have experienced teaching in these newly renovated classrooms. This multi-disciplinary LC values collaborative inquiry that is embedded in professional practice and disciplinary context. 5. The Universal Design for Learning Community (UDLC) grew out of a research project by two faculty members and an educational developer that investigated the French language learning needs of students with diagnosed learning disabilities. The study led the research team to inquire into universal design for learning (UDL) and universal design of instruction (UDI). Two years prior to data collection for this study, they shared their findings with teachers at the college’s annual pedagogical conference. From that conference session, the UDLC was born. Participants representing several departments and programs joined. They met bi-weekly for six month. The three researchers organized and facilitated the meetings, providing resources on UDL and feedback to participants in response to their efforts to incorporate UDL principles into their classroom activities and course materials. Participants also shared their pedagogical works-in-progress through an online platform, simultaneously developing a repository of resources for implementing UDL. The following year, a new cohort of colleagues formed another UDLC, following the same structure and process as the first.

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Data Collection and Research Instruments Data for this study was collected through inquiry conversations and research memos. The phrase ‘inquiry conversations’ in this study refers to a form of semi-structured interview conducted in a conversational style. All inquiry conversations were audio recorded and conducted between June and December 2015. The research instruments included the email invitation text (Appendix A), the information and consent form (Appendix B), and the list of research questions (Appendix C) that I used to guide each inquiry conversation and ensure, to the greatest extent possible given the semi-structured nature of the interviews, consistency of data collection across interviews.

Research Ethics Prior to contacting potential participants for this study, I applied for and received research ethics approval from the McGill University Research Ethics Board (REB), my home institution for this thesis research, and from the REB of the college where the study participants were recruited. Once I had obtained both research ethics certificates, I sent the invitational email message (Appendix A) and, as a PDF document attached to this email, the information and consent form (Appendix B) to the purposive sample of potential research participants. The candidates who agreed to participate in an inquiry conversation signed and returned to me a paper copy of the consent form. I then scheduled their inquiry conversations and met with them either in person or by Skype call. If we met by Skype call, I reminded participants that with an online conferencing platform, for which servers are located outside Canada, I could not guarantee confidentiality and privacy of the information they shared. However, I assured all participants that the audio recordings I collected – whether in person or by Skype - would be stored securely at all times for a period of five years, at which point I would destroy (delete) all my copies of the data. Throughout the inquiry conversations process and participant checks of their portions of the transcripts, I maintained a practice of ensuring on-going consent, reminding participants that they had the right to withdraw participation and/or their data from the study at any time, up until they had approved their respective interview transcripts. After that point, I communicated to them that I considered their revised raw data final and included it in the study. None of the participants in my inquiry conversations withdrew either participation or data at any point in the

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process.

Data Processing The data processing started before I had transcribed any of the inquiry conversation audio recordings. I started processing the meaning-making of each interview as I collected the data. When I was nearing completion of my data collection, I drew a concept map (Figure 2) to visualise the connections between the individuals and LCs in this study. This concept map, developed in the early stages of analysis, includes groups and individuals that were later dropped from the data set. As my analysis developed further, I went on to explore the rhizome metaphor that emerged in the data set (further discussed in Chapter Five).

Figure 2: Initial Data Processing Concept Map. This figure represents my initial attempts to make sense of the connections between individuals and groups in this study.

I hired professional transcribers to transcribe the ten audio recordings from my inquiry conversations 2. Once all the transcripts were complete, I went through each one while listening to the audio recordings and made the following modifications to the text before sending them to their respective research participants for participant checks. This step of modifying the text in the transcripts is referred to in Figure 1 as ‘isolating data’. 2 Initially, I had planned to transcribe all the audio recordings of inquiry conversations myself. To get through this step in the

process more quickly I decided to hire professional transcribers. Before I implemented this modification to my methods, I obtained ethics approval from both the McGill REB and the college REB. I then contacted all the research participants to request their consent to have a third party access their data for the purpose of transcribing the interview. All participants agreed to this request.

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1. Removed the interviewer's parts of the dialogue (with some exceptions, in some interviews); 2. Edited to make the text easily readable (ex: removing repetitions, "uhms," and other elements of the oral language that do not translate well into written text); 3. As much as possible, expanded acronyms to their full names in at least one instance, for clarity’ 4. Incorporated aspects of the interviewer's comments, for clarity, to complete the thought expressed by the research participant (in these instances, I annotated the section with the tag R:RP hybrid) 5. Removed names of individual people and of institutions, and replaced them with either generic language referring to a general role or category of institution, or with a pseudonym. These changes comply with my research methods protocol and the commitment I made to protect individual and institutional confidentiality, to the greatest extent possible. This does not mean that the people and institutions in this study are anonymous. 6. Added sub-headings to track the questions under discussion. Some sections have multiple sub-headings, since the answers to some questions were overlapping. In the email message to which the participants’ respective data was attached as an MS Word document, I explained all the modifications I had made to the transcripts, and I asked them to review their data, and make any revisions, deletions, and additions they wished to make using track changes. With the participant check process completed, I moved onto coding and identifying patterns in the data. I printed copies of all the approved isolated data transcripts and read through them, making hand-written notes in the margins and highlighting elements I thought were important. I went back through the data again to draft a list of “units of meaning” which I called “themes.” I created an Excel spreadsheet with the themes along the left hand column and the transcript number along the top row. I named the faculty T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5, the support staff S1 and S2, the educational developers ED1 and ED2, and the administrator A1. I put an “x” in each box for which that theme was present at least once in the transcript. I grouped all the themes into five categories: 1) nature of a learning community, 2) learning community motivations and goals, 3) participant motivations for joining learning

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community, 4) unintended outcomes, 5) constraints and opportunities. When my analysis of the transcripts was complete, 27 themes had emerged (see Table 4). With the 27 themes grouped into five categories, I started writing one or more narrative vignettes for each theme. This writing process involved selecting similar or thematically related quotations from across one or more transcripts, and crafting them into a composite narrative.

Data Analysis I chose to write narrative vignettes based on the data because so much of what some participants reported was going on in one LC was also reported by other participants as phenomena in other LCs. The themes that emerged in the data were consistently repeated across many transcripts, demonstrating saturation3 in the data (Beitin, 2012). Since my research questions were to a great extent concerned with the phenomenon of LCs at an institutional or whole community level, the composite narrative vignettes, representing LCs within the institution, served this study well. Where I chose to maintain individual narrative descriptions, I did so in order to preserve the unique lived experiences of participants in the Indigenizing Education Learning Community. Given historic and present day erasure of indigenous experiences and perspectives, it was important to preserve these individual voices in the study. As shown in Figure 1, the work of writing narrative vignettes spanned across both the data processing and data analysis steps. The narrative vignettes largely use verbatim passages from the inquiry conversation transcripts, with the addition of my own words for clarity, for connecting ideas, and for developing composite vignettes, from across transcripts, that make sequential and logical sense. During the writing of narrative vignettes stage, I also referred to my research memos, written periodically throughout the study, to inform my analysis of the data and to monitor my presence as a researcher, colleague, and practitioner in this study conducted in my college of employment at the time. As I wrote the narrative vignettes, which appear indented as citations throughout Chapter Four, I added in my discussion of the themes. Once all the narrative vignettes and discussion around them were written, a clearer picture of the implications for this study emerged, which led me into writing Chapter 5: Implications.

3

“Saturation is reached when the researcher gathers data to the point of diminishing returns, when nothing new is being added” (Bowen, 2008, p. 140).

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Chapter Conclusion In this chapter I have presented the methods I followed in conducting my thesis research. I described my participant recruitment process, using a purposeful sample of colleagues within the college where I was working as an educational developer. I shared the demographic data about the participant sample and I identified the research instruments used for recruitment and facilitation of inquiry conversations, as well as the research ethics protocols I followed to ensure on-going consent from my participants. I explained the steps I took to process and analyse the raw data from the inquiry conversation audio recordings. Figure 1 illustrates the process I followed, while Table 4 lists the categorizing of themes I identified in the raw data. In Chapter Four I discuss these findings using narrative vignettes to represent the research data.

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Chapter Three – Findings

Chapter Introduction “In some scholarly communities, interpretive approaches have become explicitly associated with a postmodernist perspective […]. Shusterman aligns current trends in interpretive theorizing with loss of faith in foundationalism, realism, and objectivity” (Thorne, 2016, p. 223). My research follows the trend by asserting the subjectivity of both the accounts reported by research participants, and the subjectivity of my interpretations of that data. The process of interpretive inquiry I have chosen began with the general context that inspired the research questions, then proceeded into the specific human experience of select individuals, and returned to the general context to interpret and make meaning of phenomena. This sequence does not suggest that the findings lead to generalizations, but rather that the process involves interpretation of big picture perspectives, as well as detailed experiences, in order to render an interpretation of as much of the whole phenomenon as possible. Interpretive inquiry emphasizes the situated individual, lends itself to small-scale studies with relatively small sample sizes, and requires that the particular meanings reported by participants be set within their contexts (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011). The researcher and research participants explore together ‘negotiated meanings’ of individual experiences (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011). Ultimately, the researcher’s “accounts will only be representations of […] reality rather than reproductions of it” (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, p. 181), since the researcher’s interpretations determine to some extent what and how the experiences are retold, while, nevertheless, working to remain faithful to the participant’s stories. “What matters is if the life story is deemed trustworthy, more than ‘true.’ We are, after all, seeking the subjective reality” (Atkinson, 2007, p. 239). I chose interpretive inquiry and the use of narrative vignettes within this methodology because they align well with my research questions, which address phenomena within the whole system of a college culture and organization, and they probe into particular LCs and individual LC members within that college. My overarching research question was, ‘what does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada?’ Various answers to this question arose in the inquiry conversation transcripts. From these answers emerged several themes, which I have organized into five categories. These

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categories and themes were identified as thematic findings and formed the body of Chapter Three: Findings. Data Analysis and Researcher Presence Through the data analysis process, I arrived at the twenty-seven thematic findings by rereading the transcripts several times, re-listening to the audio recordings of the inquiry conversations, and reflecting on the particular stories and contexts shared by each individual research participant. I considered the broader context of the whole college community, which was familiar to me because of my participation in it, as an educational developer. My own professional experiences influenced the interpretive process, and in some cases allowed me to better understand the nuances and colloquial references made by some participants in their stories. For instance, several participants referred to ‘release,’ which is a short form for ‘faculty release time.4’ I understood that ‘release’ was implicitly an abbreviation for ‘faculty release time,’ and I was able to interpret this part of the data, without having to ask participants for clarification. As a researcher, I was integrated into the context of my study and my analysis of the data has led to findings in which I am present. My presence neither negates nor erases the presence of my research participants; nevertheless, by noticing and assigning greater importance to some themes over others, I influenced the findings.

Thematic Findings Following my data analysis process, I wrote narrative vignettes using the inquiry conversation transcripts. I then distilled the narrative vignettes into statements of phenomena, which became the thematic findings of the study. The thematic findings, written in my own words, and based on the narrative vignettes, address succinctly the overarching research question for this study by describing the phenomenon of learning communities at the Canadian college under inquiry. Concurrently, the narrative vignettes (presented in Chapter Four) respond to the research question in more detail, and in the words of the research participants. In this section I have identified these thematic findings as the following statements. These statements are organized using the twenty-seven themes that emerged from the data, grouped into five

4 In some institutions faculty release time is referred to as ‘teaching reassignment’ or ‘reassigned teaching.’

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categories, as seen in Table 4, namely: 1) nature of a learning community, 2) learning community motivation/goal, 3) participant motivations for joining learning community, 4) unintended outcomes, and 5) constraints and opportunities. These thematic findings statements relate specifically to the context of the Canadian college at the centre of this inquiry. Although they are written in terms of learning communities, they must not be read as generalizations about all learning communities. These findings are specific to this study.

The Nature of a Learning Community 1. Collaboration and Co-design. Learning community members work together, and in so doing create new knowledge that could not have been created by any one individual member on their own. 2. Degrees of Participation. Varying degrees of participation are critical to sustaining a learning community, as participants in the core, periphery, and penumbra help the learning community to achieve its many goals (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Degrees of Participations. This figure illustrates the degrees of participation in a LC with a large, diverse membership. 3. Peer Mentoring. Learning community members learn from each other and support one another in mutual give-and-take relationships. 4. Diversity of Participation. Learning community members extend beyond faculty, to include support staff, educational developers, administrators, and in some cases students.

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5. Interdisciplinarity. The interdisciplinarity of learning communities responds to the complexities of contemporary societal challenges. Effective interdisciplinary learning communities need one or more “translators” to draw connections between disciplines, as well as the willingness of all participants to learn to think extra-disciplinarily - outside the norms and paradigms of their own fields of expertise. 6. Productive and Goal-oriented. In their early stages of development, learning communities are product- and goal-oriented because members are looking for practical results and may feel they need to prove themselves a worthy recipient of support and funding. More established learning communities that have made significant contributions and earned a level of legitimacy or recognition, shift to a more process-oriented approach. The budgetary claw backs in education at the time of data collection also prompted this shift. Leaner resources on the horizon pushed more established learning communities to consider what they could achieve with less. They resolved to shift their focus from productivity to process. These phenomena are not seen in opposition, but some learning communities tend more towards productivity and others tend towards a process-orientation. 7. Shared Values. Learning communities allow shared values to emerge among their participants. Once normative, shared values are identifying features of a learning community. Without being directive or prescriptive, the shared values signal to new members what the learning community cares about and how it functions. The finest of their collective work comes from a learning community that shares foundational values. 8. Research or Evidence-based. Learning communities are sites of inquiry where researchers and practitioners learn from one another to improve practice and to ground research in a particular context. Decolonization theories challenge non-indigenous learning community members’ personal identities and their sense of relationship with indigenous people in Canada. 9. Organic Emergent Process. The establishment of learning communities is hard to engineer or direct. Successful learning communities recognize a gap and respond to it at a time when the broader community is ready for that kind of change. Learning communities bring together a core group of people who create a safe space for exploration and peer-to-peer learning. They use non-linear, organic processes to emerge as a cohesive community. 10. Self-selected Participants. Learning community members choose to join on their own, not through incentives, nor punitive pressures. They are motivated to improve their

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professional practices, and therefore enjoy working in this proactive environment with on another. 11. Sub-culture or Microculture. Learning communities are a point of connection for colleagues within a large institution. Connections formed in learning communities foster a greater sense of connection to and pride in the institution. Over time, learning communities within a large institution become microcultures. Several learning communities within a large institution become a network of microcultures that influences the operational culture and the culture of innovation within the institution, and forges a path for new learning community microcultures to emerge.

Learning Community Motivation/Goal 12. Improving Practices. Learning communities attract people who are interested in and committed to improving teaching practices, in order to improve student learning. 13. Improve Student Experiences, Complementing Classroom Learning, or Learning as Fun. Learning communities that include students are creating learning environments that excite students about learning. Learning communities that do not include students are developing more effective ways to engage students in learning. Learning communities are cultivating a paradigm shift in the way college education is organized and offered. 14. Create/provide Resources, Connect to Information and Networks. Learning community members become knowledge creators and translators. They develop resources for use in their own practices, and they share these resources with broader communities, forming new networks. Learning communities track internal and external access to their resources by sharing them on a website or blog. Learning communities are an investment in educational resources. Learning community members from different disciplinary communities bring together networks that may otherwise not have reason or opportunity to connect. 15. Institutional Culture Change. Learning communities are exploring and developing new educational models that do not necessarily fit into the existing institutional culture. Persuading members from across the college to support these educational initiatives requires support and leadership from the senior administration, in order to change the culture and functioning of the institution. Learning communities did not necessarily set out to influence

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institutional culture, but as several learning communities emerged within the institution around the same time, they gradually influenced a shift in institutional culture. That critical mass of learning communities inspired the college to discuss what kind of institutional changes are possible. 16. Educational Change. Learning communities are committed to educational change. Financial resources supporting learning communities are an investment in transforming education over the long-term. The challenge their success presents is how to institutionalise the learning community model without sacrificing what makes learning communities potent in the education system - their grassroots nature. 17. Systems Change. Learning communities face resistance from areas of the college that are meant to support teaching and learning, the academic mission of the institution. Learning communities challenge the college to create flexible systems (such as course scheduling, physical space, information technology services, etc.) that adapt to and support innovations in teaching and learning. 18. Phase Founding Leaders Out of Key Leadership. Some learning community leaders, focused on institutional, educational, and systems changes, view their roles as temporary, until new policies and practices are established and until professionals are hired to operationalize the learning community’s vision. Non-indigenous IEC leaders plan to phase themselves out of their leadership roles, in order to align the learning community’s mission with its practices, and have indigenous people in the lead roles. Learning communities, interested in changing education, envision a time when the changes will be so established and sustainable that their trail-blazing leadership will no longer be necessary. Others will then be able to step in and continue the innovative programming over the long-term.

Participant Motivations for Joining Learning Community 19. Interest in Topic or Process. Learning community members choose to be involved in a learning community based on a shared interest in a topic and/or process. 20. Belonging, Trusted Colleagues, Group Identity. Learning communities create mutually supportive environments in which members share professional highs and low. Strong collegial connections between learning community members lead to more effective professional learning and development. Learning communities develop a cohesive group identity through

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common language and group norms that emerge over time. Learning communities are a site for deeper connection and a sense of belonging for professionals within a large educational institution.

Unintended Outcomes 21. Professional Development. Although not an initial intention when joining their learning communities, in hindsight, members recognize their learning community experience served as a site for professional growth and development. Learning community participation inspires further professional development pursuits. 22. New Professional Identity. Learning community members bring different identities, perspectives, and practices into their learning community, and, in relationship, influence each other. Some develop new professional identities, becoming boundary-crossers. 23. Gain Self-confidence. Support staff learning community members report gained selfconfidence as a result of participation in a learning community with faculty members and/or administrators. Learning communities that include faculty, support staff, educational developers, and administrators are breaking down the walls between these employment classifications to build authentic collegial relationships across differences in expertise and role.

Constraints and Opportunities 24. Champions of the Work of Learning Communities. Because learning communities’ work and projects push the boundaries and norms of the institution, they need senior leaders to champion their work in word and deed, through policy, advocacy, practices, and funding. 25. Financial Support for Learning Communities. Learning communities are functioning on year-to-year funding from a variety of sources including faculty release time from the college, student success project funding, research grant funds, and project funds from other external sources. To be able to implement multi-year and increasingly complex programs, learning communities need more sustained operational funding. 26. Teachers as Independent. A tension of perspectives between faculty and administrators exists with regards to faculty members in the college. Some administrators report that teachers view themselves as autonomous drivers of change, while administrators assert that

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the change-making would not be possible without both explicit and tacit support from the senior leadership of the institution. Inversely, some teachers are frustrated with the resistance and lack of support they face from various areas of the college, when trying to implement innovative changes that require flexible systems and the willingness of those who implement those organizational systems. 27. Connect Learning Communities to Strategic Plan. To secure sustainable operational funding, learning communities are working to include the goals and vision of their projects in the next iteration of the institutional strategic plan.

Chapter Conclusion In this chapter I have presented the thematic findings statements, which respond succinctly to the overarching research question for this study, namely, ‘what does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada?’. Chapter Four elaborates on these thematic findings through narrative vignettes based on my interpretations of the inquiry conversation transcripts.

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Table 4: Thematic Findings Category 1.

2.

3.

The nature of a learning community

Learning community motivations and goals

Participant motivations for joining learning community

4.

Unintended outcomes

5.

Constraints and opportunities

Theme 1.

Collaboration and co-design

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Degrees of participation Peer mentoring and exchange or give and take Diversity of participation Interdisciplinary Productive and goal-oriented Share similar values Research or evidence-based Organic emergent process Self-selected participants Sub-culture or microculture Improving practices

13. Improving student experience, complementing classroom learning, or learning as fun 14. Create and provide resources or connection to information and networks 15. Institutional cultural change 16. Educational change 17. Systems change 18. Phase founding leaders out of key leadership 19. Interest in topic or process

20. Belonging, having trusted colleagues, or sense of group identity 21. Professional development 22. New professional identity 23. Gain self-confidence 24. Champions of the work of learning communities 25. Financial support to learning communities 26. Teachers as Independent 27. Connect learning communities to strategic plan

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Chapter Four - Discussion Chapter Introduction Continuing the interpretive inquiry process, Chapter Four builds a discussion around the findings presented in Chapter Three. Through composite and individual narrative vignettes based on the themes that emerged from the interview data, and in the context of the scholarly literature on LCs, I explored possible interpretations of the study findings. The primary reason that composite narrative vignettes were used to discuss the thematically classified data, was to bring together similar chunks of data from across the transcripts into cohesive stories that present the phenomena described by multiple participants in this study. The rationale for developing individual vignettes was that some of the phenomena described were unique to particular individual experiences or to particular learning communities. In all cases, every effort was made not to reveal any individual research participant’s identity, and learning communities’ identities were concealed through the use of group pseudonyms. Ultimately, the narrative vignettes were written as sketches of phenomena at the particular points in time when the study participants were recounting their experiences and making meaning of them. The data collected for this inquiry were rich and complex. Because of this rich complexity and the limited scope of a master’s thesis, it was not possible to include all data in the thematic analysis presented here. I made choices based on my interpretations of what the research participants deemed most important as well as what I considered important. These choices occluded data that may be useful for future studies, if the opportunity presents itself to further my work on this data.

The nature of a learning community In his foundational work on learning communities in higher education, Milton Cox (2004) discussed, among other topics, the features of Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs). He defined a FLC as a cross-disciplinary faculty and staff group of six to fifteen members (eight to twelve members is the recommended size) who engage in an active, collaborative, yearlong program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and

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learning and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, the scholarship of teaching, and community building. (p.8) His work goes on to identify several additional FLC features, such as: “an intention of getting things done” (Cox, 2004, p. 9), voluntary membership, regular meetings, engaging in experiential learning, consensus building rather than majority voting to reach decisions, empathy, openness, and trust among members, their own culture as a group, and an emphasis on work that will benefit students (Cox, 2004). The findings in the current study align with most of these features, as seen through the nature of a learning community category. This category of themes begins to answer the research questions: (1) what is going on in learning communities in postsecondary education; and, (2) what do LC members do together? Each of the themes in this category draws part of the picture of what is going on in LCs in this postsecondary educational institution. The data shows that learning communities in this study are sites of collaboration and co-design; that their members participate to varying degrees; that the members become informal peer mentors to one another; that people from a variety of employment classifications join LCs; and that LCs seek to solve complex problems through interdisciplinary engagement. Moreover, LCs in this study are productive and goal-oriented; their members share similar values; and LCs in this study are sites of inquiry where research informs practice and practice informs research. The LCs in this study formed organically through emergent processes; their members self-selected to participate; and over time the LCs in this study emerged as microcultures within the institution. These features surfaced consistently across different LCs within the institution. Given these similarities between the LCs, it may be that these features explain – at least to some extend – the success of the LCs themselves. In the following sub-sections, I have discussed the eleven themes within the category “nature of a learning community.” Collaboration and co-design. All participants in this study described their LCs as collaborative; some referred to this feature in terms of co-design, as demonstrated in the following vignette: Recently we’ve been talking about and living the experience of co-design. When we work together in this way, we have to be willing to reconsider old beliefs and commitments. We need to show up with a willingness to be adaptable and to

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take a new perspective. If this co-design process is going to be productive, if we are going to create something new, then we need conditions for genuine exchange. A third thing emerges only because you and I have both agreed, tacitly, that we are going to work together. Consciously or unconsciously, we make ourselves malleable to each other’s ideas and practices, in order to facilitate this process. Inherent in this description of co-design is dialogue, “from the Greek dialogos – dia meaning through and logos meaning words” (MacPhearson, 2007, p. 3). Through words, these collegial “exchanges of ideas, perceptions and suggestions” form relationships as well as a sense of group cohesion and potential to learn together (MacPhearson, 2007). Drawing from Senge’s theory of the learning organization, MacPhearson (2007) referred to this potential for learning together as “the heart of the learning organization […], where two or more people, pursuing common goals, make meaning together and become aligned through dialogue, critically analyze the systems in which [they] function […] with the intent of realizing a shared vision of a preferred future” (p. 3). The participants in this study and their respective LCs were chosen for this study because they had emerged as influencers in the college, who were working from various positions and angles towards a preferred future for students, teachers, and the educational system that they had envisioned together. They emerged as influencers gradually over time. Initially one LC was formed. In those early stages members did not refer to what they were doing as a ‘learning community’; they were merely coming together around a shared interest and intention towards positive change related to that shared interest. Over the course of approximately five to seven years, other heterogeneous groupings of faculty, support staff, educational developers, and administrators from across the college started to form, around their own, respective, common interests. As these individuals started collaborating together, they brought about changes within their own practices. Often those changes in practices met with institutional or structural resistance, because existing systems were not able to accommodate the kinds of supports that these emerging groups of colleagues were requesting in order to proceed with their changing practices and activities. Over time, some members of these various groups started talking to each other and discovered that all the groups were facing similar structural obstacles to their current work and future goals. The forging of relationships between and across

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members of those initial groups marked the beginning of system-wide reflections on how the college is supporting and hindering pedagogical and organizational innovations. Because key administrators were supporting or involved in some of these groups, and therefore were invested in their success, the conversation about barriers reached the highest administrative levels of the organization and then key members of each of these trail-blazing groups were invited into conversation with the senior administration. By the time I started collecting data for this study into the phenomenon of LCs at this college, the senior administration had established a small working group to look into LCs; and the senior administration along with the LCs working group had begun to refer to the emergent groups of pedagogical and organizational innovators as ‘learning communities’. Through this chain of events, the members of these emergent LCs became key advisors to the college administration and ‘influencers’ within the wider college community. Returning to Cox’s features of a learning community, the LCs in this study go far beyond Cox’s description. Not only did they become learning communities in Cox’s (2004) sense of the term, by forming and developing community relationships within their groups, across disciplines, and across various roles within the institution, by exploring pedagogical issues and challenges, and by developing improved practices, but they continued to collaborate well beyond the ‘yearlong’ duration that Cox identified. Over time, these LCs formed what Roxa and Martensson (2011; 2015) refer to as microcultures, “a unifying term for culturally-formed organisational entities” (2015, p. 194). The data in this study showed and my own experience reinforced that a growing network of connected microcultures - the LCs in this college context and key leaders from within these LCs - started to influence decision-making, resource allocations, policy development, and cross-institutional practices. A key feature of this change-making phenomenon was the collaborative and co-design approach the LCs used to learn and tackle challenges together. Through collaboration and co-design, LC members created new knowledge that could not have been created by any one individual LC member on their own. Their new knowledges supported by repeated evidence that the LCs were succeeding at achieving their goals - became indispensable to the institution. Degrees of participations. Nearly all the participants in this study described the degrees of participation in their respective LCs. As illustrated in Figure 3 in Chapter Three, these degrees of participation tended to radiate outwards from the core members who were most involved in

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the LC, all the way to the outer reaches of the community where members participated very little, but were interested in or supportive of the work of the LC. The following composite vignette explores this phenomenon.

We have a small core group and a larger group around it, with shifting membership in the larger, peripheral group. Consider concentric circles moving towards the centre. As you get closer to the centre, contributions to the learning community become more frequent and more attuned to what one would expect of a practitioner of this community. Towards the centre circle the level of authenticity of contribution increases as well. Our community periodically sends out open invitations to all members of the college community, to attend our meetings, workshops, and events. We have a newsletter to which anyone can subscribe. Some members of our community have only ever attended one event, but they read our newsletter regularly, and consider themselves part of the learning community. There may be 20 to 40 peripheral people who attend our events regularly and they all report they are learning in our community. There may be another 30 to 50 who seldom show up, but consider themselves connected to our community. Some of us were approached by core members, and invited to join the learning community to assume an active leadership role, because of our particular expertise. The concentric circles of participation are essential to our longevity; they give our learning community a breadth and depth of legitimacy in the college, and they each help us to fulfill some part of our purpose. Degrees of participation are critical to sustaining a learning community. This perspective on degrees of participation is not found in Cox’s scholarly work on learning communities. The LCs in this study, by their nature, proposed a departure from the more conventional structure of professional learning communities (PLCs) that tend to have a fixed membership that meets for one academic year (Cox, 2004). In this study, the LCs were not designed as PLCs for the purpose of professional development. The LCs in this study emerged from a shared desire - initially among just a few colleagues - to change the educational system in some way. Such complex goals could not be achieved by a fixed or exclusive membership within

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a one-year time limit. These emergent professional learning communities were seeking to address systemic problems and innovate in order to bring about long-lasting change. Such an undertaken required many hands, hearts, and minds participating to varying degrees over several years. In all cases of the LCs under inquiry, their work was continuing in-definitely, beyond the time of data collection and their membership was consistently open and fluid. Peer mentoring and exchange or give and take. Within the LCs in this study, the theme ‘peer mentoring and exchange or give and take’ was closely related to the theme “collaborative and co-design.” Study participants emphasized the importance of contributing their own knowledge and expertise to their community, often citing this aspect of their LC experience as having been just as important as or more important to them than receiving from their peers. The kind of peer mentoring that was described by participants in this study was often a form of peer support related to the goals and the productive orientations of the LC. The following composite vignette captures experiences of peer mentoring from the data.

Some of the liveliest exchanges we have occur when one of us shares a failure. It’s amazing to see the community rise to the challenge when one of us needs support in our professional practices. We’re here to contribute. Whether in group or one-on-one, we will come up with helpful questions or gentle suggestions for the person seeking support. We use a collaborative, inquiry approach to problem solving, so it’s never judgemental or prescriptive. Of course, it’s not always a response to failure. After a particularly engaging and topically relevant professional development conference, our members may report back or offer a workshop to the learning community, to share professional learning with colleagues. In other instances, we are engaged online, posting reflections, new knowledge, artefacts, and comments on a communal blog, which is a great space to model and learn from each other, and to provide each other with informal feedback. By participating in the learning community, we each have available to us a standing line-up of peer mentors, with diverse, continuously improving skills and expertise. It’s a very rich peer mentoring environment.

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Whether the LCs in this study engaged in peer mentoring on a one-on-one basis, in small groups, online, or as a whole community, the data showed an emphasis on the value of learning from one’s peers within a non-judgemental setting, in the spirit of improving together. Participants in this study described that some LC members explicitly joined the LC in order to learn from their peers, but most LC members joined with a keen interest in sharing their own expertise or knowledge. Importantly, this desire to share expertise and knowledge was expressed as rooted in a genuine wish to contribute, rather than any arrogant sense of knowing better than others. Peer mentoring and peer-support were clearly an important part of the cultures of these LCs. Eric Mazur’s (2009; 1997) work on peer instruction in postsecondary student learning has shown that learning from peers moves science students from rote memorization to making connections with prior knowledge, and developing deeper conceptual understandings. Since the LCs in this study were formed by self-motivated colleagues in the academy who had sophisticated ambitions, it is not surprising that they adopted a peer mentoring and peer support model of learning to endeavour to achieve their goals. Diversity of participation. Interestingly, in Cox’s (2004) definition both faculty and staff are identified as part of a faculty LC, but he names the LCs specifically faculty learning communities, and he does not elaborate on the participation of staff in these FLCs. With the exception of the Faculty Writing Community (FWC), which has been since its beginning, exclusively a faculty learning community, the LCs in the current study enjoy active participation and enriching contributions from non-faculty members of the college community, namely; support staff, educational developers, administrators, and, in some cases, students. In the cases of the Science, Arts, and Culture Collaborating (SACC) community, the Indigenizing Education Community (IEC), the Integrating Pedagogy and Classroom Design (IPaCD) community, and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) community, the term “faculty learning community” cannot be justified. The membership of these four LCs is more inclusive and farther reaching than the faculty employment classification. A vignette was not developed for the theme “diversity of participation” because, in the inquiry conversations for this study, participants simply stated the variety of participants included in their communities, which was then coded thematically as ‘diversity of participation’. In the discussion on the theme “gain self-confidence,” I have revisited and drawn connections to the notion of diversity of participation.

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Interdisciplinary. Tagg (2003) contends that at colleges and universities, while “research has become increasingly interdisciplinary […] for the most part, teaching has been slow to follow the trend” (p. 252). And yet, the LCs in this study demonstrate that teaching and research faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators are intrinsically motivated to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to improve teaching practice and the educational system. A number of research participants discussed the interdisciplinary nature of their respective LCs. In some cases, they argued that if they were going to help students learn to solve complex, interdisciplinary problems and to collaborate across areas of expertise, they would have to do the same themselves. The following composite vignette expresses this sentiment.

The founders of our learning community were from a discipline in which they had grown frustrated that students were learning in a vacuum, with a serious lack of context and connection to the real needs and uses for their subject matter. They were ‘learning to the test’ and ‘succeeding at school,’ in large numbers. But would they ever be able to actually use what they were learning? This disconnection from the world and from other areas of study was to the detriment of our students and our society. We, as a society, have some really big problems that our students are going to have to confront. If we, as an educational institution, are not doing everything possible to equip students to think through the problems and find effective solutions, then we’re doing the wrong thing as educators. These are not the old disciplinary problems; they are complex, messy, and interdisciplinary problems that demand creative thinking, openness to change, and above all, collaboration.

Delving deeper into the interdisciplinary nature of LCs, some participants in the study identified the challenges of interdisciplinarity, as is illustrated in the following vignette. Sometimes the disciplines represented in our community don’t necessarily fit together. When there is nothing to bridge the differences, there is a disconnection in the learning community. We rely heavily on each participant to

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be his or her own translator, to make the leap from a case in one discipline to its usefulness in another discipline. However, not everyone is adept at translation. For example, strategies that are effective for teaching a second language are not always obvious strategies for teaching another discipline, and yet they could be the germ for developing discipline-specific ideas and applications. It’s important to have people in the learning community who can draw those connections, and show others how the germs could develop into healthy plants.

The themes revealed through this study demonstrated a need and value in the LCs for interdisciplinary work. Underlying this value for interdisciplinarity is a practice of community, and a process of developing as a group. The more established LCs in this study impressed me with their smooth functioning across disciplinary differences, reaching what Amey and Brown (2004) referred to as the transformative stage in interdisciplinary, collaborative faculty work, which is characterized by highly effective communication, appropriately distributed leadership, and members who share responsibility for their group (Amey & Brown, 2004). As represented in the following composite vignette, several participants in this study described their respective LCs with qualities similar to Amey and Brown’s transformational stage of group development.

It takes a certain kind of person to participate in our learning community; it takes someone who is open to learning from and contributing to others. You’ll have a teacher from Physical Education contributing knowledge about facilitating experiential learning activities – they are experts at that – and another teacher from Interior Design advising the coordinators on designing a space for active learning, and then a Science teacher or a Humanities teacher will ask a critical question. Everyone is contributing and working to solve problems we can’t solve on our own, in our disciplinary silos. Eventually, we start to understand each others’ language. Some people in the community are better at interpreting the different disciplines than others and some of us think beyond disciplines. The fellows and coordinators are given release for their leadership roles. Fellows report to the coordinators, and coordinators are accountable to the senior administration; we’re all working together across disciplines and roles. It’s not

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hierarchical. There are ultimate decision makers and we have to account for the use of release time funds, but because of everyone’s leadership styles and openness, it doesn’t feel hierarchical. We’re all invested in achieving our goals, and we’ve developed a strong sense of identity and purpose as a group.

The vignette above highlights the importance of interdisciplinary relationships within a LC. According to these data, a community that has clear roles, a variety of disciplinary expertise, some members adept at interpreting and bridging differences, and a culture of openness to learning from one another, is likely to achieve its goals. Productive and goal-oriented. The theme of productivity and goals arose in several research interviews, and in some cases was explicitly tied to the success of LCs. The following narrative vignettes express this feature of the LCs in this study.

Our learning community is very active, very productive. We have a core group of very keen people who are involved for a purpose and they want to see things done. We are taking the scholarly literature, practitioner experiences, community-based knowledge, and various other forms of knowledge, and we’re translating it into this context. From there, we’re creating new knowledge, new understandings, and new tools. We developed and use a set of principles against which we measure our own practices. The principles serve as a resource we share with others, as an orientation for new members of the learning community, and as a set of benchmarks for our own progress. These tangible outcomes of our work are important because we want to improve our own practices, become a resource or a pool of experts upon which others can draw, and we want to bring about change.

We felt the learning community project had to be generative and productive. We couldn’t just invite people to chat about practice. People are so busy. Those informal chats will attract some people, but what comes of those chats? How productive are they in comparison with the kind of creation we can produce in a small community? Given the different ways people can be involved in our

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community, we have different kinds of outputs: new curricula, pedagogical artefacts, programmes, guidelines, etc. – all with tangible impact on instruction.

In contrast, the LC with the greatest longevity of the LCs in this study, raised the theme of productivity and goal-orientation in comparison to a process-orientation, a perspective influenced by the fact that they had been active in the college for several years, and had produced numerous tangible outcomes for the wider college community. Once this LC had made a certain volume of contribution and gained corresponding legitimacy within the institution, when budgetary cutbacks were looming, and resources were already constrained, the core members reflected on the importance of productivity in relation to their process. These reflections are represented in the following vignette. We’ve started to move away from a focus on product towards a focus on process, in order to get back to the grassroots discussions and collaborations that were the genesis of our project. We’ve seen now that impressive creative products will emerge from informal discussion, given the opportunity, environment, and supportive conditions. We’ve made the shift from productfocus to process-focus partly because we know we’re going to have fewer resources next year, which will make it difficult, if not impossible, to produce as much as we have previously. We’ve also made the shift towards process because with the number of faculty now interested in our project, we feel less insecure as a project. We seem to have more recognition as a legitimate initiative, and as a resource to the wider college community. This gives us freedom to take new risks, trusting in our process, and in a less formal, less goal-oriented approach. The data grouped under the theme ‘productive and goal-oriented’ suggests that LC members take different approaches to their group focus and development. Some were convinced that a goal-oriented and outcome-based approach is essential from the start, to ensure a LC’s success. Others described having started with informal discussions and a grassroots project, and then become productive as a way to prove their legitimacy to the wider college community. In

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both cased the relationship between product and process, and the presence of specific goals, were important to their on-going development as successful LCs. Share similar values. The theme of ‘shared or similar values’ arose across the interview data. Sometimes the theme came up through explicit mention of particular values. It was difficult to capture those cases in the narrative vignettes without revealing identifying information. In other cases, research participants alluded to the notion of shared values by talking about how they welcome and integrate new members into their respective LCs and by discussing conditions of shared or similar values that enhance their experience of the LC. These instances are presented in a composite vignette below.

We make sure that people who join our community understand our shared values, which we communicate through our practices. We don’t want to be overly directive; we’re not here to transmit a message, but rather to engage with a process, and create a space where a conversation can happen. New people come in at the periphery, and, if they feel that they too share our values and approaches, or if they find their values and approaches starting to align with ours, then they move towards the centre, at their own pace. If that connection doesn’t happen for them, they go elsewhere, to find what resonates for them. There’s no pressure to be like us, but we are clear on our values. When the work is with like-minded people, who share the same goals and similar values, the energy is excellent. Research or evidence-based. The theme ‘research or evidence-based’, as a feature of LCs, arose in half the interviews in this study. Notably, at least four of these five study participants were also engaged in scholarly research, which may suggest that they experienced their respective LCs through a research lens, rather than suggesting that LCs by their nature are research or evidence-based. In addition to their attention to research within their LCs, these study participants also placed importance on the translation and contextualization of scholarly and evidence-based work within their LCs’ practices, embedding the research in practice, and embedding practices within the research. The following composite vignette presents the place of research within LCs described by participants in this study. In this vignette ‘researcher’ refers to

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both faculty and educational developers whose areas of expertise are the learning sciences, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and/or pedagogical research.

Once we had a little exposure to the scholarship of teaching and learning, we could not ignore that evidence-based approaches lead to good student outcomes. Some theories challenge our teaching practices as well as our sense of identity and authority as educators. But when we know it will benefit the students, we have a responsibility to engage in this transformative work. In order to sensitize teachers to the research, and have the research influenced by teachers, we needed to bring teachers and researchers together in a learning community context. It’s not a question of we researchers telling the practitioners how to do their jobs. We need to be working together. Disciplinary departments and programs don’t talk about pedagogy; they are full of disciplinary experts. They don’t have pedagogical researchers or experts in the scholarship of teaching and learning in their complement of faculty. Our learning community is not trying to indoctrinate a particular approach to teaching; we want to keep research as a central part of our investigations into improving teaching practices, an investigation that requires the participation of both practitioners and researchers.

Particularly poignant in this vignette is the educational development philosophy underlying the description of the LC. Given that disciplinary departments do not have pedagogical experts on faculty, educational developer positions in the college under inquiry were created and situated within a centre for teaching and learning in order to serve this pedagogical advisory function across all disciplines and departments. Nevertheless, faculty participants in this study established or joined LCs in order to engage with educational research alongside teaching faculty, and thus create new pedagogical knowledge to inform teaching practice. None of the LCs in this study were initiated by educational developers. These researcher-practitioner LCs were initiated by faculty members who saw a need for research-based practitioner collaboration and then joined together to fill that need. Once the LCs were established, some educational developers joined. This sequence of events could be interpreted as a failing on the part of the centre for teaching and learning, for not recognizing a faculty development need and filling it

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with the establishment of a LC. However, the data may also indicate that a centre for teaching and learning could not have effectively filled this faculty development need, since the success of the LCs is attributable at least in part to the fact that they were established by grassroots groups of colleagues who recognized their own need for a LC (see discussion of the next two themes ‘organic emergent process’ and ‘self-selected participants’).

In the case of the Indigenizing Education Community (IEC), one research participant described the research or evidence-based work in their LC from a personal perspective of interacting with the field of Indigenous Studies, a field of study in which none of the IEC members was an expert. IEC members had been reading the scholarly work as part of their efforts to learn about indigenous histories, cultures, issues, and pedagogies, so as to improve the services and teaching practices offered to indigenous students at the college. The following vignette is based on data from one research participant’s interview.

Some of the more prominent thinkers in Indigenous Studies and decolonization theories in Canada really challenge me to really question who I am and who I am here. That's been a big part of my learning community experience; and it keeps going deeper. Just when I think I’ve made sense of it, I encounter another way of knowing that causes me to rethink the model in my head. I read something or talk to someone and I feel uneasy again by the lessons. It takes quite a lot for us, non-Native people, to really grasp these issues and knowledges. Are we settlers? Are we visitors? How can we be good allies? What’s our relationship to indigenous peoples in Canada, here and now? The IEC participants’ data that was coded under the ‘research and evidence-based’ theme both includes and challenges conventional understandings of ‘research’ and ‘evidence’. The breadth of ‘knowledge’ that count as legitimate in this data suggests that within this LC, learning itself is a holistic and layered enterprise, which involves not only the exploration of ‘verifiable facts’, but also the evolving narratives of personal and collective memories, histories, identities, emotions, and experiences.

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Organic emergent process. The ‘organic emergent process’ theme appeared in half the interview transcripts for this study, highlighting the fact that LCs at this college were not started as such. After several groups started and successfully established projects or initiatives, a group of administrators, teachers, and educational developers started to talk about the phenomenon of such groups, and to ask themselves what these groups had in common, what the phenomenon might be called, and how it might be pointing the college in a new strategic direction. After inquiring into learning communities some of the senior administrators felt that the phenomenon they observed in these various groups was indeed akin to descriptions of LCs in the scholarly literature and in examples of LCs at other postsecondary institutions. The following vignette was written based on the transcript of the administrator who participated in this study.

Most of the learning communities at the college have not been called learning communities until recently when a group of us senior administrators, one teacher, and one educational developer started looking at learning communities from a systems, college-wide perspective because of what we saw emerging with these learning groups. We see that a small, well-developed, engaged community within the college can enrich the college, and create safer, more inclusive, more engaging, effective, and/or exciting learning experiences for students, which then starts to influence our organizational culture. The learning communities themselves have been using other language to refer to what they are doing. They have not been self-conscious about labels; it hasn’t really mattered what they are called. Small groups of colleagues have found each other around a shared interest, frustration, conundrum, or vision and they’ve gone about pursuing it together. Along the way, they’ve needed to do some learning, in order to achieve their goals. It’s only recently, looking at the network of learning communities that has emerged at the college, that we are starting to make sense of it all by calling each group a learning community.

In the following composite vignette study participants reflect on the organic emergent process in their LCs.

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There’s a large body of literature about communities of practice and learning communities, but they are decidedly hard to engineer or cultivate. We intentionally talk about learning communities in terms of emerging phenomena; they are very organic and we don’t want to overly direct them. Often people who aren’t involved will ask, “So, how do I start a learning community?” There’s no easy answer to that. We know the successful ones have something to do with recognizing gaps and harnessing needed expertise to respond to the gaps. It’s also about finding the right time, when the broader community is ready or open to potential change. It seems to have something or a lot to do with a core group of people, who believe in the goals and intentions of the emergent learning community. And there needs to be a safe space, that is not overly structured, to allow for creative ideas to surface, for people to follow a tangent and see where it leads, and for people to be influenced by each other. The emergent nature of successful learning communities means their members have to be able to live with ambiguity and uncertainty, at least some of the time. It’s helpful for some members to ask periodically, ‘what’s going on,’ to help the group remember its goals and intentions, and to re-orient itself. The process of establishing a learning community is not linear. Self-selected participants. The theme of ‘self-selected participants’ in LCs arose emphatically in two interviews; it was also alluded to in other interviews when participants discussed their practice of openness to new members who want to get involved. While this theme also relates to the category of ‘participant motivations for joining LCs’, it was classified under the ‘nature of a learning community’ category because the data revealed the importance of selfselected participation to the viability and sustainability of LCs. The following narrative vignette expresses the importance of this theme in pointing to the nature of LCs in this study.

How is it that our group came together so well and works together so well? First of all, we’re a group that self-selects to participate. None of us is being forced to participate. We’re all motivated to improve our practices, open to being in the group, and willing to do things differently. Learning communities that work start

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with faculty and staff identifying their own professional learning needs and then seeking out colleagues who can help them learn constructively, without the threat of any potentially punitive evaluation at stake. It’s peers working together to better their practices. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the fact that the community is a self-selecting group of colleagues. That makes it a very interesting and motivated group of people with which to work.

Sub-culture or microculture. Martensson, Roxa, and Stensaker, in their 2014 investigation into strong microcultures in teaching and learning, defined microcultures as “departments or working groups within specific departments or educational programmes, in other words, a group of people working together in an academic endeavour” (p. 535). Not confined to departments and working groups, microcultures in the current inquiry include any grouping of people working within the organization whose identity as a group is recognized by and has influence over the wider organizational community. I propose that the five LCs in this study have each formed a microculture. This theme arose in one interview in which the study participant referred to a learning community as a sub-culture. Preferring the term microculture, I have connected the two terms within this theme. Being involved in a learning community has several benefits for me. I’ve learned a lot about the topic of my learning community, which is very important to me. The other side of my experience is that it is really enriching my professional experience in general. I feel more connected to where I am. I’m part of a subculture in the college. I think that’s important when working in a large institution like this one. It would be great if more colleagues had the opportunity to get involved in a learning community of their choosing, to have that point of closer connection with the college.

In one interview the participant discussed the importance of the system of microcultures as both influencing the larger institution and creating conditions that make it possible for microcultures to have influence. The following narrative vignettes describes this phenomenon.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES We cannot underestimate the culture in which our learning communities are thriving. All these different learning communities are sprouting up in the college, in parallel. They may not be directly influencing each other but they are influencing each other indirectly. We’ve got people who start in one, who happen to come from a particular department, who recognize the place of another learning community because they’ve been sensitized by their experience in the first learning community. That could help to expand both learning communities’ capabilities, their capacities, their understandings, their reach. We always need to consider the system that is creating the right conditions – multiple parallel factors, such as the philosophical and financial support of the senior leadership, and simultaneously the interest and willingness of colleagues to inquire together, – for the success of our learning communities. Without any of those right elements within the system, we may not get the same kind of result. If our system was void of other learning communities that had their own nexuses, we probably wouldn’t have the kind of impact that each community has on its own, or now can have. Our communities are drawing on microcultures of people who are willing to engage in something that is bigger than themselves. If there were just one learning community in the institution, it would not constitute a phenomenon, and it would likely have little impact compared to the impact all these learning communities are now having on the way we operate and innovate at the college. This vignette has concluded the discussion on the “nature of a learning community” category. The eleven themes within this category, and their corresponding narrative vignettes served to describe the qualities of the LCs in this study. These qualities provide some answers to the research questions (1) what is going on in learning communities in postsecondary education; and, (2) what do LC members do together?

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Learning community motivations and goals The category ‘learning community motivations and goals’ includes seven themes. It is a category that emerged from the data, without having been prompted by a guiding question during the inquiry conversations (data collection phase). Improving practices. Nearly all the research participants identified improving practices as an important purpose or motivation of their respective LCs. In the following narrative vignette, their reflections on improving practices are represented in composite.

It starts with noticing a problem. We noticed that none of the faculty wanted to teach a particular course. Students had repeated failures of that course; they weren’t learning. The students and teachers, who had to teach it, were miserable. We wanted to improve the way the course is taught and the way students learn. In another instance, it was about the constraints of formal for-credit courses. We wanted to complement the formal course system with extra-curricular learning opportunities that would allow students to reach beyond the limitations of disciplinary silos. We wanted to improve our work as teachers by re-thinking our role and considering our students’ potential to learn more deeply and more broadly, across disciplines, and in applied contexts. While we were working on this extra-curricular project, we could see that it was re-defining our work within the classroom as well; in some instances we see the improvements on a weekly basis. One of our primary goals is to support teachers who embark on changing their teaching practices. Because of this support, we have become risk takers in the classroom; we’re not afraid to fail. We’re committed to improving our practices. Even our most core people, who have become experts through practice in the learning community, are still here to improve their practice. In this vignette the individual LC member’s intrinsic motivation to improve practice works in concert with their collective goal to improve student learning by supporting the improvement of teaching practices. Tagg (2003) discussed the educational importance of sustaining a college environment that supports individuals to achieve their intrinsically motivated goals. “We will devote ourselves for a short time, […] to tasks that are designed by others and

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serve purposes we care little about. […] For the long term, for tasks that require a genuine investment of self, we need to care about both the process and the outcome” (Tagg, 2003, p. 128). Whether consciously or not, participants in this study prioritized and embodied this value when they formed their respective LCs and began to support each other to achieve their intrinsic goals of improving practices. Improving student experience, complementing classroom learning, or learning as fun. Related to improving practices is the theme ‘improving student experience, complementing classroom learning, or learning as fun’. This theme appeared in nearly all the interviews in this study. The data grouped under this theme reinforces Tagg’s (2003) emphasis on supporting learners’ intrinsic motivations as a key condition for meaningful learning experiences. The following vignettes represent this theme in two LCs. The first vignette is drawn from a single interview. The second is a composite vignette.

In the Indigenizing Education Community we are trying to find our way out of a fog, into a place where a complex of actions will give rise to significant improvements for the young native people who come here and who fail on a dramatically high level.

Learning should be exciting; it is exciting. We want to build more opportunities for students at the college to engage in learning that excites them. Working with a student or faculty member who is excited is really fun. In the Science, Arts, and Culture Collaborating learning community, students who are involved in this way of learning go on to contribute to our society in amazing ways. I don’t credit our learning community for having created the drive and energy in them, but we may have helped them to feel more hopeful, that their ideas and contributions have a place in the world and are worth pursuing. And perhaps we have created the conditions for them to practice this kind of engaged, applied learning.

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Create and provide resources or connection to information and networks. The theme ‘create and provide resources or connections to information and networks’ was an important motivation for nearly all the LCs in this study. The development of resources and networks, with which the LCs in this study engaged, suggested once again they had identified gaps in support to their own professional development needs, and thus, set out to fill those gaps together, for themselves. In so doing, they discovered, created, or translated knowledge that necessitated collective effort. Interestingly, their efforts were not merely self-serving, as they chose to share the resources and networks they developed with the broader college community and, even beyond that, with the postsecondary sector at large. Their motivations and actions are represented in the following composite narrative vignettes.

If we are committed to supporting teachers changing practices, we need to root our learning community work in the scholarly literature and we need to become translators of that knowledge into this context. This translation work is one of the important contributions we’re making. The knowledge and resources we create are valuable to us for our own practices, and we make them openly available to the wider college community and postsecondary network. It’s not inexpensive for the college to provide faculty release funds and project funding. We recognize the investment and our commitment is to give the college bang for the buck. That’s a large part of the motivation for creating pedagogical artefacts and a website to share our artefacts openly. In fact, the website gets a lot of traffic, both internally and externally. So we know the resources we’re providing are responding to a need. Learning communities become an investment in educational resources.

This learning community is a hub for bringing people and ideas together. We bring in speakers, and our own members, with diverse experiences and expertise, to make connections, share ideas, and build knowledge. Being involved exposes us to so many ideas and people we would never have access to or even know about, if we didn’t participate in the learning community. As a result, our circles

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of interest and awareness broaden. It’s highly stimulating. We end up pursuing different leads, incorporating them into what we’re doing in our classrooms, and what we’re learning independently. Learning together has been personally and professionally transformative.

The transformative nature of LCs is further developed in the following three themes that emerged in this study. As Petrone and Ortquist-Ahrens (2004) put it, when referring to faculty learning communities (FLCs), “FLCs are a vehicle for institutional, educational, and personal change” (p. 65). To this list, the current study’s data added systems change. Institutional cultural change. The theme of institutional cultural change was significant in the data for this study. The LCs in this study have explored and developed new educational paradigms with the potential to shift the institutional culture. The following composite vignettes demonstrate the depth and breadth to which the interview participants discussed this theme. I’m always surprised, for such a public profession as teaching, how privately it is treated. Teachers don’t tend to talk readily about what goes on in their classrooms. In our learning community that norm of privacy was broken. We are sensitive to the culture in which we are trying to bring something new forward. It’s not just the culture of privacy among teachers; we’re in a context of public service. I’ve worked for the public service most of my life. It’s fine; you just have to know the world you’re in. You have to understand it so you know what to do. There’s no advantage to hurting people as you move forward. Pain doesn’t go away.

Teachers are bound to get frustrated when administrative decisions and procedures take priority over pedagogy. If we’re committed to inquiry-based education, for instance, it’s pretty hard to fit into a 13-week semester, when students have five to eight other courses. To design that kind of learning well requires re-thinking and re-structuring how we organize courses, schedules, programs, use of space, use of resources, and so on. All those educationalstructure decisions have been made to fit administrative structures, before the

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES teachers even come into the picture. Administrative structures are uncoupled from sound pedagogical approaches. It takes participation and buy-in from across the institution to change that. An institutional learning community, comprised of people from all areas of the college, could work through these challenging questions together, to overcome the territorial departmentalism that prevents this kind of thinking. The college culture is very bottom up, facultydriven. But we could use the institutional learning community model to help the institution learn how to make these kinds of innovations in education happen, to really support the evidence-based pedagogies that we know will give students richer, more impactful learning experiences. Motivation is key. This kind of culture change may need some incentivising. To start, it would help if senior leaders explicitly state these approaches as our priorities. Then, the work of bringing about the necessary changes needs to be built into peoples’ annual work plans. Of course we need some people to just keep the trains running, but we also need some people to build a few new train tracks.

I think the college is being challenged to see what kind of institutional change is possible. I think the inspiration for that discussion to even take place is coming from all the learning communities. We’ve reached a critical mass of learning communities at the college that are now speaking loudly enough that the college is noticing what a positive impact learning communities are having on student learning. Our learning communities are gradually influencing a shift in the institution and its culture.

Previously, we did not have the kind of paradigmatic structure of the learning communities to say, “Oh, that’s how we do things.” We needed to see the structure working to realize it’s not such a crazy way to organize ourselves. Now we have both theoretical knowledge and lived experience proving that learning communities work. We started it on a small scale in many different places, throughout the whole institution. When we look back now, we see at a certain point, there were enough initiatives organizing themselves either consciously or

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unconsciously as learning communities, that they shifted the culture of the institution. Now we’re thinking about innovative initiatives within the framework of learning communities.

These vignettes suggest that the LCs in this study were reflecting on their impact (their choice of term) on the college’s institutional culture and on how their on-going work may influence change to that culture. This data also reveals a critical mass of LCs that have a growing collective influence on the college culture and on the way in which the college is organized. In some cases, the LCs in this study set out with the goal to change institutional culture; in other cases, this goal surfaced as a possibility or a necessity, once the LCs were established and facing obstacles to achieving their educational goals within the culture and organization of the institution. Educational change. Throughout the data in this study, the theme of educational change appeared in relief, as a rugged mountain. Pedagogical innovation and corresponding change were driving forces for most of the LCs in this study; the participants in this study were actively involved in formal and informal work within and beyond the institution to bring about changes to teaching and learning paradigms. Cox (2004) reported that FLC graduates, that is, faculty who have been involved in a faculty learning community, go on to “make more civic contributions than those who have not been in FLCs. For example, a greater percentage serve as members of the University Senate, department chairs, and mentors for pretenure faculty” (Cox, 2004, p. 11). This level of civic engagement was apparent among the LC members who participated in this study, as evidenced in the following three narrative vignettes, which are, respectively,(a) a composite vignette drawn from research participants involved in the Indigenizing Education Community; (b) a composite vignette representing multiple LCs in this study; and (c) a composite vignette representing multiple voices from one LC in this study. There’s so much work to be done to bring about reconciliation between Canada and Indigenous Peoples. It’s very front and centre right now with the closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the legacy of the residential schools system in Canada. We’re a group of professional educators, wanting to learn about indigenous histories, experiences, and realities. This is a part of the

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES education system that is still very undeveloped, that we never had in our formal education. We weren't trained in this knowledge. And it’s a huge gap in the education system. It's really the make it or break it thing for Canada. If we get this right, the country will be much, much healthier; if we don't, we're going to have riots. Our learning community has an activist component and an educational reform component. We are working to elevate what we expect from education and change how we deliver education.

I think the paradigm of the education system is the fundamental challenge that faces our learning community and all the learning communities at the College that don’t fit into the curriculum. Are we trying to change the world one city at a time or one community at a time, or are we really just here to crank out college diplomas efficiently? Everyone I know involved in learning communities really wants to change the world. We’re not here to teach; we’re here to change the world, and teaching is how we do it. It’s so important that we do our teaching right, and we know – from the scholarship and from our own immersion into this way of learning – that the learning communities model works. Then how do we institutionalize learning communities so that they have staying power over the long term, without sacrificing what makes them potent in the educational system? We’ll make it through a lean year or two, if we need to, by getting back to our grassroots and concentrating on fewer projects. It won’t be the end of our work. But we have never seen ourselves as being out on a lark for a few years, and then the funds used on our projects could go to the next group that fancies another idea. From the beginning we have been invested in changing the way college is perceived by students and by faculty. College should not just be about passing students through courses and issuing diplomas. Both students and faculty in our learning community are pushing the learning boundaries; they're not stagnant at all. They're all thinking and learning all the time. I understand where the attitude comes from, when people treat us like a whimsical pet project, especially when resources are tight. People don’t want money to be wasted. But

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we see this as money being invested into transforming education. And we’re in it for the long haul. The passionate convictions of these LC members and their commitment to action on the educational changes they propose offer inspiration to anyone within the academy who has struggled to bring about change in their own institution. The power of the constellation of LCs within the institution under inquiry must not be underestimated. The results of this study suggested that not only is one individual insufficient to effect broad educational change, but even one LC would struggle to bring about change on a significant scale. Rather, it took several years of several LCs springing up and proving themselves as legitimate educational innovators before their potential to influence change as a network of LCs started to come into focus. If that success leads to the establishment of an institutionalized LC model, one challenge may be in replicating the potency of a grassroots LC. Systems change. In addition to institutional culture change and educational change, participants in the study described the need for change to systems within the institution in order to facilitate the work of LCs in the college. These reflections are represented in the following composite narrative vignettes. We have the Plant and Facilities department, the Registrar’s Office, Student Services, the Management of Information Systems department, and all these people in the college with the same purpose - to support the delivery of quality education. But they are not actually connected in a real way to each other or to what is needed to practice delivering quality education. We lose sight of the fact that we’re all a team here when we work separately in our own areas. We say teachers have the freedom to teach however they want to, but actually, the caveat is they must teach within these physical space conditions, under these scheduling policies, with these student services available, and with these kind of technological systems in place. And when teachers face any barriers to implementing high impact pedagogical practices, they have to figure out how to solve those problems by themselves. For example, we could provide a much richer learning experience to students if some classes were scheduled for a few hours, rather than just 75 minutes. Longer class time blocks would allow

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teachers to arrange relevant class excursions. A simple innovation in scheduling and enrolment and a small amount of funding for a bus rental would make this possible. It’s really just a systems question. We need to create flexible and changeable systems that permit innovative ways of teaching and learning to happen.

One of the things that keeps our learning communities so busy is fighting systems to move a little bit closer towards what is needed. Often the same fight is happening from more than one learning community, each one facing the same resistance from people who keep the current systems in place. There’s such a disconnect between our value for sound, scholarly teaching and the systems in which we are expected to teach. We need all the actors in the college to come together to examine and solve these systems barriers as a whole. The value of learning communities is not that they’re comprehensive to respond to all needs, but that they are not just coincidental. They should be given more formal support, because they are so high impact.

Faced with resistance to implementing innovations in teaching and learning, members of the LCs in this study started speaking to each other and discovered they were all up against similar obstacles that could be eliminated with simple systems solutions. A ‘this is the way we’ve always done things’ approach to implementing policies and practices has not served the educational innovators interviewed in this study or the students with which they are engaged in learning. The theme of systems change reveals a need for an institution-wide re-assessment of policies and practices, in order to improve their flexibility, responsiveness, and serviceorientation, to support innovations in teaching and learning, ideally current innovations as well as future, yet-unknown innovations. Phase founding leaders out of key leadership. In four of the transcripts for this study the theme ‘phase founding leaders out of key leadership’ emerged. This theme highlights the purpose-driven quality of LCs, suggesting that founders of LCs are more interested in achieving the goals and purpose of the LC and effecting lasting change, than they are in having the LC serve as a site for their own leadership development or aspirations. The following two composite

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narrative vignettes represent the notion of phasing founding leaders out of 1) the Indigenizing Education Community, and 2) the Sciences, Arts, & Culture Collaborating learning community.

One of the goals of the Indigenizing Education Community is that the founders of this learning community will dissipate at a certain point, once certain services, programs, and policies are in place. We’re here to set up these things, and then leave the running of them to hired professionals. We may continue to be involved as advisors or on sub-committees, but the main leadership roles we hold now won’t be necessary once we achieve our goals of putting certain structures, systems, and services in place. I, for instance, will be gone in a year or so, once we have an Indigenous Council and our initiative is integrated into the college’s strategic plan. Another key leader is here for another semester until her retirement, and she has specific goals to accomplish before her departure. A third key person in our learning community will pass the baton once we hire a coordinator for the Indigenous Centre. We don’t want to continue playing these leadership roles. The goal is to phase the white people out of the leadership roles. That’s one way we will align our mission with our practice. The coordinators of the Sciences, Arts, & Culture Collaborating learning community have long been working towards the day when we could disappear and the community would keep going, someone else would step in, pick it up, and the infrastructure would be there to sustain it. We don’t want the learning community to be dependent on year-to-year funding, or individual leaders. We want the work of SACC to be integrated into the college’s operating budget, because the SACC is what the college does; it’s not just a project, but an educational approach. We’re not there yet, but we’re working towards that kind of stability and integration. The theme ‘phase founding leaders out of key leadership’ has brought the discussion of the ‘learning community motivations and goals’ category to a close. The key motivations of the LCs in this study were to improve practices, improve student experiences, create and share

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resources and networks, bring about institutional, educational, and systems changes, and in some instances, phase out the founding LC leaders.

Participant motivations for joining learning community The category ‘participant motivations for joining learning community’ emerged from the data. The two themes under this category responded indirectly to the inquiry conversation guiding questions (1) how do LC members view their own professional development; and (2) do LC members consider their participation in the LC as a long-term commitment with multiple goals and rewards, or as a short-term project with specific, focussed goals and desired outcomes? Interest in topic or process. A shared interest in the topic or process was a motivation for each of the participants in this study to join a LC. Their stories are unique and personal, and therefore, do not lend themselves well to developing narrative vignettes. Some shared a personal experience that caused frustration and led them to seek out colleagues with the same frustration. Others discussed a personal story from their past that planted a seed, which they are now nurturing many years later in the LC on the topic of that long-ago experience. One participant was looking for a way to bring together seemingly disparate professional identities and found the opportunity to do that within the projects of his chosen LC, because there he found others who were engaged in a similar kind of integration of their multi-faceted selves. For many participants in the study they met colleagues in their respective LCs who shared their interest in a particular pedagogical approach or in filling a particular gap in the curriculum. Some specifically sought colleagues from other programs or departments because they could not find that shared interest with their disciplinary colleagues. Many expressed their belief in the goals of their LC’s project. For some it was a shared value of a particular kind of process, for instance collaboration, consensus decision-making, or inquiry-based learning. This theme of shared interests in a topic or process was prevalent, although particular and personal, throughout the data. Belonging, having trusted colleagues, or sense of group identity. In nearly all the transcripts the theme of belonging, having trusted colleagues, or a sense of group identity arose. The following composite narrative vignette expresses this theme across the LCs in the study.

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It’s possible to just show up, teach your classes, do your job, hold your office hours, and not see any colleagues beyond your office mates. A lot of people do that. In the learning community we develop close collegial relationships; we become friends. It’s more than just superficial relationships with peers. The community is a safe place to share ideas and struggles. We have a mutually supportive dynamic; when one of us has a rough experience at work, the group supports the person through it. We share our professional practices with each other and that can be a vulnerable thing to do. But we all take turns sharing, so it builds a lot of trust and respect between us. Now, if we see each other passing in the hall, it feels good to say ‘hello.’ I definitely feel a strong connection to this group of colleagues and because of that I learn more effectively with them than without them. Our group has strong cohesion. There’s a sense of group identity. We share a common language and group norms that have developed over time and in conversation. We can use humour and teasing to demonstrate belonging. You know you’re one of us when we start teasing you about an idiosyncrasy.

My participation in a learning community has really changed how I feel about working at the college. I feel more connected and grounded here. There was a time when I questioned if this college was the right place for me. Now that I’m involved in the learning community, I feel a great sense of pride being a part of this college. I know I’m where I belong. I wear my college sweatshirt with pride and I let my students know that. It’s important for all of us to get involved and to feel connected.

In this study, what motivated participants to join a LC revealed some uncommonly considered professional development needs of colleagues in the academy. Seldom viewed as professional development, building relationship and a sense of belonging with peers who share common interests may have profound effects on professional learning and improvement. The emotional and social well-being of colleagues in postsecondary education significantly affects our ability to advance our knowledge and professional practices. Extensive studies in the fields of occupational health, medicine, organizational leadership, and psychology have confirmed the

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relationship between social and emotional well-being and job performance (Hamar, Coberley, Pope, & Rula, 2015; Neilson, Hrivnak, & Shaw, 2009; Sparks, Faragher, & Cooper, 2001; Vartia, 2001). In the Hamar et al. (2015) study in which a well-being strategy was implemented and a culture of well-being was supported by the employer, “employees reported decreases in health risks, which included measured biometric values, over [a two year period], whereas productivity and job performance increased” (p. 371). In the current study, the qualitative findings suggested that a sense of belonging in a learning community of peers who share a common interest contributed to a higher quality of professional learning achieved within a LC. And returning to the theme of peer mentoring, we learned that improved professional learning leads to an improved quality of teaching practices and student learning opportunities. This section closes the discussion on the ‘participant motivations for joining learning community’ category.

Unintended outcomes Three themes were classified within the “unintended outcomes” category. The data in this category relates most closely to the inquiry conversation guiding questions: (1) how do LC members view their own professional development; and (2) is the LC a site of professional development (PD) for them? If so, what is the nature of the PD? Do they learn and develop their teaching practice(s) within the LC? If so, how? Professional development. All the participants in the study expressed in some way that their participation in a LC was a form of professional development for them. Although they did not join the LC with that intention, upon reflection, they expressed having learned from the experience in ways that supported their professional growth. The following series of narrative vignettes, some composite, some individual, present various portraits of the professional development theme in the data.

My reflections of my learning community experiences go on in the under-zones, as though my thinking is independent of me. When someone in our group says, “Did you notice this or that?” I reflect and realize that we’re doing something productive; I see shifts in my thinking, and a richness that wasn’t there before.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES Being involved in the learning community has deepened my work as an artist. I now think more deeply about my artwork, what it’s doing to me, and how it’s affecting my life. I’ve learned a way of thinking - critical thinking - from conversations with faculty colleagues in the learning community. I don’t hear anyone use the language of professional development to describe their experience in the learning community, but does it serve that function? Absolutely. Growth and exchange are definitely happening in our group. In my case, participating in this learning community has inspired me to go back to university.

My participation in the learning community is personally, extremely enriching and stimulating for me. Through visiting an indigenous community and attending conferences on indigenizing education, I started to feel that I’m a part of a really big cross-Canada initiative. I have a background in pedagogy, so I haven’t felt the need for general pedagogical learning, but I’m interested in learning indigenous pedagogies and applying them in my own practice. Beyond that, what makes me a better teacher is going to the gym every day, eating well, and having enough rest. Being healthy and having energy to get up there and teach is as important as anything else, because teaching is a really demanding role to play, on all levels, intellectually, physically, emotionally. It wasn’t as if everyone was starting from zero. One of the things we learned in the community is that we were already practising some of these pedagogical approaches without realizing it. By exploring the approaches in the learning community, we were deepening our existing practices, acquiring the language to identify what we were doing, and gaining understanding about the benefits of these approaches for student learning.

Sometimes in the learning community meetings we would engage in pretty vigorous debates, from very different disciplinary perspectives. It took some thinking and re-thinking, but eventually I started to see that my own perspective

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was limited; then I found I was opening myself to a broader view of our role as educators. It helped that when we got into these oppositional discussions we found ways of laughing at our own narrow thinking.

As an educational developer, I find participating in a learning community an extremely valuable professional development model. Yes, I participate because it’s my job, but I would even if it weren’t my job. Most of these vignettes under the theme “professional development” highlight the study participants’ surprise that their LC experiences turned out to offer them meaningful professional development experiences and, in some cases, led to their pursuit of further professional development opportunities. New professional identity. The theme ‘new professional identity’ appeared in half the transcripts in this study, and was interpreted as significant. The following individual narrative vignettes allude to a role that Miller-Young (2016) referred to as ‘boundary crossers.’ She asserted that “we need more boundary crossers – those who straddle multiple communities and can facilitate exchange between them” (Miller-Young, 2016, p. 2).

I know that I definitely have changed through my participation in the learning community. My thinking about myself is now moving between the two worlds of research and practice, and I’m now recognizing that there’s actually a third space. I’m not either a researcher or a practitioner. I move between the two worlds; I fit in that third space more so than I had imagined. I am sitting in this middle space, where I care about understanding how people take research and put it into practice, and I also care about how practitioners inform the questions that researchers should be looking at, and I also care about having those two communities communicate more fluidly and work more closely with each other, which creates the third space. That, to me, is where I’ve changed a lot. I now see a slightly different role for myself. Not in terms of my day-to-day role, but in terms of how I think about what I do. What I do is now evolving into a new goal.

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It’s a new identity. I would not have called it that before, but now that I think of it this way, that’s what it is – a new professional identity. On a personal level, I’ve been teaching for a long time. It’s not that I don’t like teaching; it’s just that I always like being on the learning curve. Moving into what is akin to a faculty development role was a natural step for me. I find this role rewarding because I work with people form across the college, at all levels, and I’m provided with a new and welcome professional challenge. It’s been really satisfying working with and facilitating learning communities.

In these vignettes, different types of leadership roles are highlighted as new professional identities that developed through and because of the individuals’ participation in a LC. While participants in this study did not necessarily intentionally seek out new professional identities, their experiences of emergent professional identities through engagement or leadership in a LC were described as positive. Gain self-confidence. Two research participants in this study discussed gaining selfconfidence as a result of their involvement in a LC. It is significant that these two participants, from two different LCs were also the two support staff participants in the study. Faculty learning communities (FLC), that are exclusive to faculty, serve particular needs for the faculty involved, often creating a safe space for grappling with the challenges of teaching and the professoriate. In a recent study by McGill University researchers, when questioned on group composition, participants responded fairly consistently about their “desire to keep the FLC as a space just for academic teaching staff” (Tovar, Jukier, Ferris, & Cardoso, 2015, p. 329). However, this sentiment seems to have been directed at excluding students in order to limit self-censorship and self-conscious behaviour at FLC meetings (Tovar, et al., 2015). Responses were more varied with respect to non-teaching staff participation in FLCs (Tovar, et al., 2015). The LCs in this study, that are open to a variety of employee classifications, offer the college community the opportunity to melt away the divisions between areas of the college and individual roles. The narrative vignettes that follow, on the theme of ‘gain self-confidence,’ offer compelling reasons to open LCs to all employees of the institution.

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I learn a lot by myself and I learn a lot from the faculty leaders. I learn from listening at our meetings. Now that I’ve been there a while, the leaders invite me to participate too; they want to hear from me. [laughter] I feel genuinely respected by the faculty leaders. I would have been much more uncomfortable speaking up earlier on; I think I've benefited from participating in the learning community meetings and being encouraged to contribute my ideas. At the meetings, the students talk about their project ideas and how they relate to the theme. Then the leaders ask what I'm thinking about, and I either respond to their ideas or I share what I've been thinking about in my own life. It's almost like we're ‘riffing’ off each other, in a very creative way. I really enjoy participating in these meetings. Since joining the learning community, I’ve taken steps towards talking to people that normally I would not have talked to. I find it a little intimidating talking to the Academic Dean or a Professor. That always made me nervous because my level of education is not what theirs is. I've always shied away from formal discussions with people in those positions. Small talk is no problem, but when I was sitting across from the Academic Dean and he would ask me something, well, I definitely had to develop my assertiveness and comfort level talking with him about important things. As we all got to know each other in the learning community, I came to see that we are just people working on a project together. Instead of labeling everybody and putting people into certain categories because how many degrees they have, or what position they have at the college, I started to see everyone as just part of this project. Participating in the learning community has definitely helped me develop my self-confidence. It’s an important aspect of the learning community because we’re breaking down the walls between us. These narrative vignettes under the theme of ‘gain self-confidence’ demonstrate the value of including in LCs colleagues from all employment classifications throughout the organizational chart, but especially encouraging support staff colleagues to participate in LCs with faculty and

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administrators. The absence of educational developers from these vignettes may be a result of the support staff represented in these vignettes having been involved in LCs where educational developers were not in leadership roles. Constraints and opportunities The ‘constraints and opportunities’ category groups together four themes that emerged from the data in this study. This category of themes responds most closely to the following inquiry conversation guiding questions: (1) Do administrators, faculty, educational developers, and support staff collaborate to create and sustain an institutional culture of learning and innovation; (2) How does the formation of emergent interdisciplinary learning communities enable or constrain institutional change; and (3) What are the differences between facultyinitiated learning communities versus learning communities established by mandate from the senior administration? Champions of the work of learning communities. All the transcripts in the study contained some element of the theme ‘champions of the work of learning communities’. Tovar and colleagues (2015) identified support for LCs from senior administrators as one of the ideal conditions and factors contributing to the success of faculty learning communities. In this study, the data shows the importance of both administrators and LC members acting as champions for LCs in the college. The following composite narrative vignettes represent the range of perspectives on the need for these champions.

Faculty and staff identified a need, hatched up the idea of a project to respond to that need, and then presented the idea to the senior administration, who, in turn, offered encouragement and financial support to the project. Later, once the project was established, along with several other projects created in a similar way, the college started referring to these initiatives as learning communities. It took time to earn the recognition of the senior administration; now all these learning communities that sprung up are a phenomenon, and are seen as legitimate.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES Learning communities at the college are pushing the boundaries. They are groupings of creative people who want to do better work and are not afraid to take risks, change themselves, and bring about broader change. But they are often slowed down or stopped altogether by systems that do not respond to changing needs. We need senior administrators to step up as champions to our projects and institute policies or directives that foster more flexible and responsive systems. If that means each department has one staff person responsible for systems change, who has the authority and the workload time allocated to support learning community needs, then that’s the kind of decisionmaking and the kind of leadership we need from our senior administrators. Learning communities are highly effective, but they’re at the margins of the college. We have not yet fully integrated them into the way we provide services at the college. We need to commit to them and maintain them because they are high-quality, pedagogical and faculty enrichment mechanisms.

For learning communities to succeed, they need to be initiated from the bottom, they have to have financial support from the top, and also a clear statement from senior management saying they believe learning communities are important, and then, eventually, the influence of the learning communities will move to the middle ranks. It’s got to be both bottom-up and top-down. The commitment of a learning community’s founding leaders is key. You need deeply passionate people, because no matter how hard it is, they’ll keep going. They believe in it and put themselves wholeheartedly into it. When things get hard, they can keep the less strong ones going. They will motivate and persuade and bring in champions from different areas of the college. They’ll convince a dean or senior administrator to fund the project. They will keep the project going.

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Represented in the following individual narrative vignette is the administrator who participated in the study. He described how he takes on the task of championing the LC, in which he is involved, by using the status of his role in higher education to advance the goals of the LC.

It helps having a senior administrator in the learning community, to use the status of the position to our advantage. Any time a symbol is needed, I put on a suit and tie and I say, “Good afternoon, my name is Dr….” [laughs] I’m invited to speak to politicians and they introduce me with the big title and all my affiliations, and they see how serious this learning community must be to have Dr. such-and-such, in this high position, speaking on its behalf. Absolutely, I’ll play the part. If they have $100,000, I’ll put on two ties! I don’t mind. None of that symbolism is lost on me.

Because the LCs in this study pushed the boundaries and norms within the college, and because they proved themselves through experience and scholarly literature to be sites of high impact learning, LC members need senior administrators to join them in championing the work of LCs through supportive policies, practices, systems, and funding. Financial support to learning communities. Nearly all the transcripts in this study related the importance of financial support to LCs. Most seemed to have gone through a period of time without any funding and then eventually secured funding in the form of faculty release time, student success project funding, research grant funds, and/or other forms of external funding. Some of the LCs in the study were bracing themselves for budgetary cuts for the next year or two, at the time of data collection. The following composite narrative vignettes represent the data on the theme of financial support for LCs.

Senior administrators can support change by supporting these learning communities. The basic way the college has done that has been by funding faculty release time. During this time of budgetary compressions, our learning community may also go outside the college for grants, to try to pay for faculty release time. A few of the learning communities at the college are drawing from

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government research grants as a source of funding and using their learning community as a site for research into the pedagogical approaches they are exploring together. But external grants create additional work. All the time we spend writing grant applications, we’re not doing the core work of our learning community project. But if this project is going to be sustainable, we need to have funding for more than one academic year at a time. We need to be able to offer our staff position more job security than that, and we need the longer-term funding in order to envision, implement, and sustain multi-year programming for our learning community.

The question around funding learning communities is in knowing which ones to fund and for how long. The answer to ‘which ones’ is fairly straightforward. If you have people who are excited and keen, generally speaking, they’ll get stuff done. It’s somewhat risky, but it’s an investment in people; it’s an intellectual, pedagogical, and educational investment. So far, it has paid off. The learning communities we have now are doing great work. There seems to be enough resources and physical space at the college for the current learning communities to grow, without having to compete with each other for the same pool of resources. But how many learning communities can we sustain, and when can the college remove some of the financial resources currently going to learning communities? We need to be assured that sufficient human competencies are present in the learning communities that, even with reduced financial support, they will still be able to thrive and have a life of their own.

Sustainable sources of funding were a growing concern for the LCs in this study at the time of data collection. Based on the interviews for this study, if the college wishes to organize itself us a LC model, the funding for LCs will need to be rooted in the institution’s operational budget, rather than coming from special projects funding that is only available one year at a time, and for which each LC must re-apply annually. Teachers as independent. The theme ‘teachers as independent’ arose in two of the transcripts in this study. Interestingly, a similar but inverse position was expressed under the

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‘systems change’ theme (above). While two research participants, both non-faculty members, raised the challenge of faculty attitudes or assumptions around their own autonomy, another nonfaculty participant in the study raised the concern that service areas of the college need to be reoriented towards collaboration and support to the educational mission and new directions in which faculty-driven LCs are leading the college (see “systems change” theme). The following individual narrative vignettes challenge the notion that teachers are independent and that the learning communities’ success is owed exclusively to the faculty who initiated them. A faculty-initiated learning community does not happen without the support of the administration. At any particular moment the administration could go “pluck,” and the money would stop, the allocation of teaching responsibilities would stop, the use of space for that learning community would no longer be permitted, and it would all be over. So it’s not quite as simple as saying, “Teachers really did this and good for them.” Yes, the teachers were a dramatically driving force behind this or that learning community, but they were encouraged and supported, both overtly and tacitly, by several mid-level and senior administrators. You always have to keep in mind the multiple perspectives on any given entity and try to hold them all at the same time so that you don’t assume that a thing is only what it appears to be on the surface. Things are complex.

The SACC learning community is the brainchild of one faculty member, but if his project didn’t have the infrastructure support, it would be a hundredth of what it is now. Now there are four faculty members in SACC who get faculty release time to lead it, plus three or four retired faculty advisers. In any given semester the faculty leaders might spend 450 hours on SACC; whereas a section of release is 150 hours. They are happy about what they’re doing. They are delirious with what’s going on! And the senior administration is happy to support them.

I wish the faculty union would support a culture of learning and innovation, but maybe that’s not their role. Nevertheless, I think the union works as an antithesis

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to it. The messages they send to their members seem so backwards to the culture we want to nurture at the college. They send out emails that say something like, “If you don’t teach on Fridays, feel absolutely no obligation to come to the faculty pedagogical conference organized by the college.” How about, “Although you may not teach on Fridays, keep in mind the faculty pedagogical conference is a wonderful opportunity to …” The union is saying to its members, “The administration can’t control you.” It’s “us” versus “them.” This mentality doesn’t encourage learning, collaboration, or innovation.

Learning communities are coming out of faculty and professionals identifying needs they have in their own professional learning, and then seeking out colleagues who can help them constructively learn. This does not mean they are acting independently of the administration, or any other area of the institution. It means that the creation stories of the learning communities are grassroots, starting out in the practitioner’s domain. The next step, after coming up with a project at the grassroots, is to rally support around it, from key players in the institution. Some faculty members are exceptionally gifted at this kind of rallying and building of excitement and momentum. They don’t see themselves as autonomous, but they do sometimes experience frustration when they face change-resistant attitudes along the lines of, “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” Through the vignettes grouped under the theme “teachers as independent” assumptions and tensions across roles in the institution were revealed. These differing perspectives between faculty and non-faculty professional members of the college community suggest that those who initiate and drive LC projects and those who fund and support LC projects need each other, but have experienced frustration with one another over issues of autonomy, recognition, support, and control. These issues have been exacerbated by provincial government budgetary cuts to the college sector. Connect learning community to strategic plan. In two of the transcripts in this study the notion of connecting LCs with the institutional strategic plan arose. The following individual

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narrative vignettes offer a portrait from 1) a faculty member and LC leader’s perspective, 2) an administrator’s perspective, respectively.

My goal is for the discussion to start, and for certain mechanisms to be put in place so that the college will be obligated to start responding to the needs we are identifying. We aim to have our goals embedded into the next strategic plan. Once they are in the strategic plan, certain structures and programs will be directly connected to operating funds in the on-going college budget, which will be more sustainable than the piece-meal project funding we currently have.

For a few years, a number of things, which we called strategic initiatives, were moving in different directions and collecting groups of people around them in different ways. We - the senior administration - wanted to figure out a way to stabilize these initiatives, and help them grow, if we could. At the same time, we began to talk about types of communities that were operational within the education system, and that led us into an exploration of learning communities. Now we refer to the strategic initiatives as learning communities and we’re discussing how we can incorporate the work they’re doing into our next institutional strategic plan. It has come full circle. The “constraints and opportunities” category brings together the themes of “champions of the work of learning communities,” “financial support for learning communities,” “teachers as independent,” and “connect learning communities to strategic plan.” All these themes indicated challenges to the relationships between senior administrators and faculty. Educational developers and support staff were not featured in these themes (although “professionals” – a generic term that includes educational developers – was mentioned once in a vignette under the theme “teachers as independent”), perhaps because they have not been viewed as either decisionmakers or as drivers of the LCs. The relationship challenges between administrators and faculty that were revealed in the data can be interpreted as opportunities to improve institutional organization and understandings around how LCs develop, function, and what supports they need to flourish. These conversations between all members of the college community would be

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especially helpful because the college sector was in the process of reconciling significant budgetary claw backs enacted by successive provincial governments, over the three fiscal years preceding the time of data collection.

Chapter Conclusion In this chapter, using an interpretive inquiry methodology to develop narrative vignettes based on the transcripts from inquiry conversations with LC participants, and connecting the discussion to relevant scholarly literature, I have presented my thematic interpretations of my research findings. I grouped the twenty-seven themes that arose in the transcripts into five categories: 1) nature of a learning community, 2) learning community motivations and goals, 3) participant motivations for joining learning community, 4) unintended outcomes, and 5) constraints and opportunities. I engaged in the discussion of data in this chapter understanding that the narrative vignettes are merely portraits capturing phenomena at the time when my research participants met with me to share and make meaning of their LC experiences. I also understand my interpretations discussed in this chapter as limited by my own biases and blind spots. I have presented this discussion of the study through my own eyes and acknowledge that other interpretations may also be useful. In Chapter Five, to close this study, I will explore the implications of the data and my interpretations of it.

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Chapter Five: Implications

Chapter Introduction Chapter Five summarizes and synthesizes the discussion from Chapter Four by returning first to the guiding questions from the inquiry conversations, and more generally to the central research question for this study: What does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada? From my review of these questions and the answers that emerged from the data, I also asked: What are the implications of all these data, narrative vignettes, and interpretations? To set the implications from this study within a framework, I have explored the metaphor of the rhizome and refer to Lather’s work on rhizomatic validity. I have structured my discussion of the implications of this study into three sections, namely, 1) faculty and professional development, 2) educational innovation, and 3) organizational change.

Summary and Synthesis of Discussion What is going on in professional LCs in postsecondary education? The LCs explored in this study emphasize their interdisciplinarity, that their participants self-select to join, bring a diversity of expertise to contribute, and participate to varying degrees depending on each individual’s choice. These LCs are productive and goal-oriented, thrive on collaboration and codesign, and are research or evidence-based. They engage in peer mentorship and collegial exchange. They share similar professional values and interests, often rely on an organic, emergent process, and evolve into an influential microculture within the larger educational institution. What do LC members do together? LC participants in this study are meeting regularly, in many cases on a weekly basis, around a topic of collective interest, to share their practices, advance a project they care deeply about, and learn from colleagues. They are discussing what has not worked for them in their professional practices, and the conditions of work that they need to improve their practices. They are imagining, inventing, and strategizing about changes to their own teaching and professional practices, changes to institutional policies and practices, changes to the institutional culture, changes to the postsecondary educational system, and changes to society in general.

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They are creating and providing resources to the wider institutional community. They are connecting the institution and its members to new information and networks related to their topic of inquiry. They are committed to improving student experiences, and to infusing fun into their own and their students’ learning. And, in some cases, they are focused on developing significant learning experiences for students, outside the for-credit course and classroom framework, in order to complement in-class learning with extra-curricular learning projects. Why are their members motivated to join? And why do they continue to participate? LC participants join for a variety of reasons and they participate to varying degrees. The range of motivations for joining a LC, as evidenced by the participants in this study, includes a shared interest in the topic of or approach to the project on which the LC is focussed, and a need for belonging, in an otherwise large institution where it is easy to feel anonymous beyond one’s own area of work. They are motivated by the experience of building relationships of trust with peers and a sense of group identity. And some are motivated by the respect they feel from their LC colleagues, or the mutual respect they sense throughout the LC. How do LC members view their own professional development? When asked to describe their professional development, most study participants talked about going to disciplinary conferences, workshops, and seminars, reading the literature in their discipline, or reading the literature on a particular topic of interest. None of them made the overt link between their participation in a LC and their professional development, until they were asked to reflect on that connection. Is the LC a site of professional development (PD) for them? If so, what is the nature of the PD? Do they learn and develop their teaching practice(s) within the LC? If so, how? Participants in this study indicated that they did not join the LC with the intention that it serve their professional development needs, but upon reflection and after having been involved in their LC for at least one year, they realized that the LC had been and is a site of professional development for themselves and others. In some cases, they related their professional development experience in the LC as intensive peer-to-peer learning that directly and immediately improved their teaching practices. In other cases, they discussed how they had, over time, developed a new professional identity, as a result of their participation in the LC. Others reported significant gains in self-confidence in their work lives, as a result of relationships they had built and tasks they had taken on in their LC.

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Do LC members consider their participation in the LC as a long-term commitment with multiple goals and rewards, or a short-term project with specific, focussed goals and desired outcomes? On the question of the intended longevity of their LCs, some viewed their involvement as long-term, but that their role in it would evolve over time. In these cases, participants were founding leaders of the LC, with a clear vision and keen desire to see the project advanced and particular goals met. However, they did not see themselves in the key leadership roles over the long-term. In fact, in some cases, they specifically intended to phase themselves out of leadership, once the structures and systems they were working to establish were securely in place. In one instance, a participant mused on the question of longevity from the perspective of financial support, asking how long the senior administration ought to fund a LC and when would it be sufficiently established to be able to continue with fewer or no financial resources from the institution. While this question was posed rhetorically, it raised an important concern about the distribution and management of finite resources available to the college. Many participants in this study indicated an intention to stay involved as long as they continued to work at the institution, because they had initiated the LC, facilitated it through its nascent years, worked hard to secure funding for it, felt the satisfaction of achieving collective goals, helped the group to set new goals, and enabled it to evolve through changing conditions, to better serve its members and the wider college community. One research participant indicated an intention to leave his/her LC after one more year, because it had never been his/her intention to stay long-term, and now that the LC was reaching certain landmarks that it had aimed to achieve, this research participant could see his/her involvement would no longer be needed in order for the LC to continue to thrive. What are the differences between faculty-initiated LCs versus LCs established by mandate from the senior administration? In asking research participants to compare facultyinitiated LCs to LCs established by mandate from the senior administration, the responses were unanimously that LCs have been faculty and staff initiated with the financial support of the senior administration. As far as any participant in this study knew, there have not been any LCs mandated by the senior administration at this college. Some respondents highlighted that the grassroots nature of a LC’s story gives its projects strength and legitimacy. Some emphasized that for a LC to succeed, its goals and outcomes need to be aligned with the strategic plan of the institution, and it is because of this alignment that the senior administration can and will provide

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financial and material support to it. Therefore, the dichotomy presented in the question has been overturned in this inquiry. The success of a LC comes neither from being exclusively facultyinitiated, nor from being mandated by the senior administration. One strength of the LCs in this study is that faculty, educational developers, support staff, and senior administrators are actively involved as champions for their projects and efforts. Without the financial and philosophical support of the senior administration, the LCs would take much longer to establish themselves and achieve their goals. Without the dedicated faculty, support staff, and educational developers dreaming up, bringing to life, and driving the work of the LCs, the senior administration would be searching for strategic initiatives to fund and champion. Do administrators, faculty, educational developers, and support staff collaborate to create and sustain an institutional culture of learning and innovation? Participants in this study, who represent college faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators, described their engagement in a LC as collaborating across roles, across departments, and across the institution. They did not enter into these collaborations specifically with the intention of creating an institutional culture of learning and innovation, but when asked about the effect of their respective LCs on the institutional culture, some indicated that as the number of LCs in the college increased, and gained legitimacy as a collection of LCs, they started to influence the institutional culture of learning and innovation. In particular, the senior administration started to notice the phenomenon of these various groupings of colleagues working on focused projects, outside the structures of classroom teaching and learning. Initially, the college did not have a name for or a way of organizing these groupings of colleagues. One research participant described how the college set about looking into LCs, as a framework for understanding these collegial groupings and their projects. Over time, the college started to name any similar new initiative a LC, and began to draw on the LC scholarly literature to help shape and guide the formation of new projects and initiatives. When considering what is required to establish successful professional learning communities in a postsecondary educational institution, in the case of this institution, the LCs emerged out of innovative educational initiatives started by faculty, educational developers, and staff, who were strategically and financially supported by senior administrators. Ultimately, the collaboration between these four employment classifications gave rise to a framework for initiating and supporting an institutional culture of learning and innovation.

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How does the formation of emergent interdisciplinary LCs enable or constrain institutional change? The formation of emergent, professional, interdisciplinary LCs, in the college under inquiry, has enabled change in educational and professional practices at the classroom (micro) level; at the institutional (meso) level of policy, practices, and culture; and, potentially in some cases, change at the postsecondary education (macro) level. These changes have been possible as a result of several factors, namely; the financial and material support provided for LCs by the institution’s senior administration, the strengths of grassroots projects developed by people who are excited about and engaged in the topic or initiative, the connection that the LCs’ goals and outcomes make to the institutional strategic plan, and the champions from across all job classifications who promote, support, and encourage the work of the LCs. Despite the successful changes that these LCs have facilitated, the success of their initiatives is constrained by various factors and conditions including the precarity of college funding in the form of short-term, annual faculty release time and project funds, which do not permit the LCs to plan their projects more than one year at a time or to offer job security to their staff. The limitations of this funding cycle leave LC leaders wondering each year if and how they will be able to continue their project the next year. The LCs explored in this study have also faced institutional barriers to their success in the form of structures and systems that are not flexible or responsive enough to encompass new ways of organizing learning. Some such structures and systems include the course scheduling system, human resources and collective agreement hiring policies, plant and facilities policies on use of space, furnishings, and renovations, and management of information systems policies on access to and use of technologies. When the hearts and minds of the people working in these service units resist change to or flexibility with established systems, the success of LCs is challenged. In this study, non-faculty respondents identified faculty autonomy and treating the teaching profession as a private enterprise, as another barrier to institutional change. However, the data collected in this study indicated that faculty who are resistant to sharing and changing their teaching practices do not join LCs. A tension between faculty and administrators was revealed in the data, showing that while administrators’ sometimes perceive faculty as overly independent, faculty members who are involved in a LC sometimes perceive a lack of support for their innovative projects because of inflexible or unresponsive systems in the college.

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The respondents in this study who identified the above-mentioned barriers to innovation were also clear to emphasize that the changes their LCs are seeking do not require that all members of the college community agree with or participate in their implementation. Several respondents discussed the importance of champions to promote, support, and advocate for LC projects. These champions are as important as the financial supports provided to keep projects going. The LCs need champions from across roles and areas of the college, from senior and midlevel administrators, faculty members, educational developers, and support staff, in key areas and departments. Many of the respondents actively sought out such champions to support them from the early stages of establishing their LCs. Some invited experienced or retired faculty members to serve as advisors to their projects. Some solicited key disciplinary expertise from particular departments to become leaders and advocates for their LC. Others worked hard to involve key senior administrators and consistently reported to them on the LC’s progress. In one case, a senior administrator joined a LC as an active, core member, and leveraged his/her status and reputation as a trusted leader and decision-maker in order to persuade other senior administrators and government granting agencies to fund the projects of that LC. The sustainability of the learning communities in this study remained a question for all the participants in this study, at the time of data collection. While many could identify key institutional changes needed in order to implement sustainable structures and corresponding resources for the LCs, they also acknowledged that the wider college community may not yet be ready for those conversations. They were attuned to the current institutional climate and culture. They continued to gather their champions and advance their LC projects as best they could, but they recognized that a broader set of institutional changes, as mentioned above, would be needed for the LC framework to be embedded in the institution and to ultimately improve and expand the ways the college achieves its educational mandate.

The Rhizome and Rhizomatic Validity Rhizomes are systems with underground stems and aerial roots, whose fruits are tubers and bulbs. To function rhizomatically is to act via relay, circuit, multiple openings […] There is no trunk, no emergence from a single root […] Rhizomatics are about the move from hierarchies to networks and the complexity of problematics where any concept, when pulled, is recognized as

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‘connected to a mass of tangled ideas, uprooted, as it were, from the epistemological field’ (Pefanis, 1991, p.22). (Lather, 1993, p. 680) In the context of “an antifoundational era characterized by the loss of certainties and absolute frames of reference” (Lather, 1993, p. 673), Patti Lather (1993) wrote from Ohio State University about transgressive forms of validity that set aside positivist paradigms to propose “open-ended and context sensitive” (p. 674) “generative methodologies” (p. 685). “Rhizomatic validity troubles the single rootedness of validities underpinned by positivist assumptions” (Le Grange & Beets, 2005, p. 117). Lather’s (1993) framing of rhizomatic validity activates the metaphor of the rhizome as a counter-balance to the hierarchical metaphor of the tree with its relatively linear formation of roots. When I was first making sense of the complex data collected in this interpretive study, I drew several concept maps to visualize the connections that were described in the data, connections between people, between learning communities, between ideas, and approaches. After several drafts, I settled on the concept map depicted in Figure 2. This image conjured the complex network of a system of rhizome roots and shoots, something akin to the image shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Image of a rhizome from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu While my concept map (Figure 2) used circles, diamonds, lines, and all three shapes overlapped in various places, these shapes were tidier and more uniform than the lived experiences they represented in real life. In the rhizome, nodes, shoots, roots, and stems come together and diverge from one another in messier, more organic shapes and designs, all apt

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metaphors for the emergent professional learning community activities explored in this study. “As a metaphor, rhizomes work against the constraints of authority, regularity, and commonsense, and open thought up to creative constructions” (Lather, 1993, p.680). The narratives of personal and collective memories, histories, identities, challenges, triumphs, emotions, and experiences, shared with me in this study’s inquiry conversations, formed a mass of complex, interconnected data, rooted in a common and specific context – the large urban Canadian college under inquiry. The learning communities in this study were sites where meaning was negotiated among LC members on an ongoing basis and members were continuously growing, learning, contributing, and setting and achieving their goals together. The complex of actions and reflections within each of the five LCs in this study were also interacting between and across LCs, forming what I have referred to in this thesis as a collection or a constellation of LCs within the wider college community. I have envisioned this constellation of LCs in rhizomatic formation, with no centre, or hierarchical ‘top’, a flattened distribution of power and influence, compelling those at the top of the hierarchy in the college organizational chart to re-think and re-imagine how the college is and could be organized, what it means to effectively support faculty and professional development within the college, and what educational approaches and changes will best serve learners and learning within the college.

What are the implications of all these data, narrative vignettes, and interpretations? Clandinin, Pushor, and Orr (2007) identified three types of rationale or justifications to which narrative inquirers can attend: the personal, the practical, and the social. In the personal realm, this interpretive inquiry is needed in order to recognize, document, and draw connection between individual contributions to improving learning environments at the college under inquiry. On a practical level, the LCs involved in this study, the administration of the college under inquiry, and the researcher have sought out better understandings of the phenomenon of emergent professional learning communities in this college context, in order to inform practical decisions about 1) improving the college’s organizing framework and culture, 2) responding to faculty development needs, and 3) projects that engage with educational innovations. This study attempted to build understandings for these practical purposes. On a social level, the study may be important in considering how postsecondary educational experiences are organized, how faculty, educational developers, support staff and administrators are supported to develop

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professionally, and how innovations in teaching and learning are promoted. It is my estimation that the higher education sector can and must improve the services it provides to students and workers within it. The learning community experiences explored in this study may offer insights into how and why higher education could be improved.

Organizational Change. The examples of successful professional learning communities explored in this study demonstrated their growing influence on the senior administration; in particular senior administrators were compelled to consider re-organizing the college using a learning communities model. What would it mean for an institution of higher education to organize itself using a learning communities model? Would such organizational change be plausible and desirable? According to MacKenzie (2015), “a [learning community-] focused college will […] support the creation of organizational learning communities among professionals, support staff, and administrators. […The] community model can align an entire institution toward the goal of learning” (p. 2). As discussed in Chapter One, Senge (2000) proposed a vision for institutions of higher education that shifts them from performing as knowing organizations that impart expert knowledge, to serving as learning organizations that invite all members of the community to learn and build knowledge together. I tentatively theorized, prior to my data collection, that the LCs in this study were influencing the college in Senge’s (2000) envisioned direction, and the data revealed that in fact was happening, at least at the level of discussion and consideration. However, some research participants acknowledged that LCs are not for everyone. The college under inquiry employs between 1,000 and 5,000 people5; only a fraction of them participate in a LC at the college. The findings also emphasized the importance of LCs emerging from among colleagues who share an interest, imagine possibilities, and wish to engage in learning and action together. Hence, the conundrum that was raised in the data: How can the college institutionalize learning communities, in order to better support and sustain their functioning, without compromising the strength of their grassroots, selforganizing nature? According to Wenger (1998b), Communities of practice do not usually require heavy institutional infrastructures, but their members do need time and space to collaborate. 5

This statistical information is intentionally cited in vague terms in order to protect the confidentiality of the participants and the institution involved in this study. The source of the figures is the institution’s LinkedIn description. http://www.linkedin.com

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They do not require much management, but they can use leadership. They self-organize, but they flourish when their learning fits with their organizational environment. The art is to help such communities find resources

and

connections

without

overwhelming

them

with

organizational meddling. (p. 9) The findings in this study align with Wenger’s (1998b) position, suggesting that the organizational changes LCs really need the senior administration to implement, on a collegewide level, are increased flexibility and responsiveness from operational systems and structures, such as physical space, scheduling, information technology, hiring policies, and funding cycles. Applying systems theory to organizational learning, Senge (2006) observed that it is critical for the organizational leadership to recognize that the design, policies, and practices of such systems can improve or hinder an organization’s performance. Barr & Tagg (2004) built on Senge’s critique of institutional leaders for seldom giving sufficient attention to such operational systems, “even though those structures generate the patterns of organizational action and determine which activities and results are possible” (p. 7). Faculty and Professional Development. One of my core motivations for embarking on this study was a desire to better understand the professional development needs of faculty in the college where I was serving as an educational developer. I was impressed with the quality of professional learning I observed among colleagues involved in a LC at the college, and I wondered if there was something in these LCs that educational developers could replicate in our faculty development programs and services. Through this study I discovered that faculty development was too narrow a focus for these LCs; in addition to faculty engaging in professional development through their LC experience, so too were educational developers support staff, administrators, and in some cases, students. Moreover, the professional learning they were achieving was not their main focus or goal, although in hindsight, they realized that the work they were doing in their respective LCs was serving the function of professional development and was resulting in their improved professional knowledge and practices. High quality professional learning was achieved when colleagues were wrapped up in a complex project that required they learn or build new knowledge together. The LC model thus results in faculty and professional development as a bi-product of passionate, project-based, peer engagement.

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So, what are the implications of this discovery for improving faculty development programs and services? Like any rhizomatic system, the data offer many pathways or insights into improving educational development practices. Not all faculty are uniformly interested in the socio-constructivist, self-organized, peer collaboration learning platform that LCs offer. Faculty development needs vary depending on the career stage, years of teaching experience, socioemotional well-being, job security, institutional context, previous educational research experience and knowledge, departmental culture, and so on, of individual faculty members. Recognizing the diverse faculty development needs within the academy, this study has reinforced the importance of supporting faculty- and staff-driven LCs, as significant sites for professional learning across roles, disciplines, and departments. The LCs explored in this study demonstrated to me that change to the way we function in academic institutions is possible, that we can tear down the disciplinary and departmental walls that divide us, and engage in meaningful professional learning while solving complex problems together. Educational Innovation. The LCs in this study were all organized around a pedagogical approach or innovation, whether it was improving the teaching of subject-specific writing, applying principles of universal design for learning, learning indigenous pedagogies, practising the facilitation of active-learning experiences in spaces designed for this purpose, or engaging in real-world cross-disciplinary problem-solving. A focus on educational innovation is not a requirement for the establishment of successful LCs within higher education, but it is a thread that ran through all the stories and experiences shared in this study, and, as such, suggests significance for the implications of this study. Learning communities in this study were powerful sites for pushing the college in new educational directions, influencing decisions about the allocation of special project and faculty release time funds, and gradually shifting the college culture. At the time of data collection, the LCs in this study that had been working together for several years and those that were relatively newly formed (within the previous year) were influencing campus culture. Those LCs with the greatest longevity at the time of data collection had also started to make waves beyond the college community, through participation in or establishment of broader networks in higher education locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. As the findings demonstrated, once educators are informed and knowledgeable about scholarly teaching and high impact pedagogical practices, we have a moral and a social obligation to implement these practices in support of student learning. Critically, references to

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scholarly teaching and high impact practices did not suggest there is one best way to teach and one best way to learn; but the scholarship differentiates high impact practices as proven effective for postsecondary learners (Kuh, 2009; Brownell & Swaner, 2009). If participation in an emergent professional learning community is an effective way for some colleagues to develop proficiency and expertise in scholarly teaching and high impact pedagogies, as was achieved by LC participants in this study, then institutions of higher education can reasonably support emergent professional learning communities as one avenue towards educational innovation.

Chapter Conclusion It has been a pleasure to inquire into the lived experiences of collaborative, self-directed, self-starters leading and participating in emergent professional learning communities in the Canadian higher education context. Using inquiry conversations and research memos as raw data, I developed narrative vignettes, situated in context, to communicate the LC experiences of the faculty, educational developer, support staff, and administrator participants in this interpretive inquiry. I attended to the meaning that LC members made of their own experiences, with particular interest in organizational change, faculty and professional development, and educational innovation. Tuning in to Lather’s (2006) “call for situated methodologies across a […] landscape of ‘a thousand tiny paradigms’ [and in] search for practices that open to the irreducible heterogeneity of the other” (p. 52), this study did not aim to produce generalizable knowledge. Its intent was to generate useful portraits of situated experiences in professional learning communities in higher education. Interpretations of these experiences were made by the research participants through the act of recounting, in conversation, their own experiences, and by the researcher through an interpretive inquiry methodology. I hope that readers of the results of this study will make additional interpretations within their own contexts. May the stories retold and the analysis offered from this research serve not only to document phenomena at a particular college and point in time, but also inspire new understandings of the value, challenges, and potential that emergent professional learning communities can offer to institutions of higher education.

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Appendix A: Participant Recruitment Message - Inquiry Conversations [To be sent by email with Information and Consent Form attached] Dear colleagues, For the past few years, I’ve been enrolled part-time in a Master of Arts program in Educational Leadership, in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. I am now at the thesis research phase of the program. I am writing to invite you to participate in an ‘inquiry conversation,’ to contribute your experiences to my study entitled: Learning Communities in a Quebec College - Experiences of Faculty, Educational Developers, Support Staff, and Administrators. I hope that this study will not only serve in fulfilling a requirement for my master’s degree, but will also offer valuable information and possible recommendations for the College, and possibly the postsecondary education network in Quebec, Canada, or beyond. This invitation is extended to you because of your participation in either a learning community, special project, or extra-curricular initiative at Dawson College. Please take a look at the information and consent form attached for details about the study. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to chat with you in person or by phone in the next few days. I hope to conduct these inquiry conversations in June and July. If you agree to participate, let’s schedule our meeting as soon as possible. Thank you for considering sharing your experiences with me for the purpose of this study. Best regards, Julie

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Appendix B: Information Sheet and Consent Form – Inquiry Conversations Study Title: Learning Communities in a Quebec College - Experiences of Faculty, Educational Developers, Support Staff, and Administrators. Principal Investigator: Julie Mooney, MA Candidate, McGill University / Educational Developer, Dawson College Supervisor: Dr. Lisa Starr, Faculty of Education, McGill University Funding Sources: None Introduction In this study the principal investigator (PI) will inquire into the experiences of members of six learning communities, special projects, or extra-curricular initiatives (LC for short) at Dawson College. You have been invited to participate in this study because of your recent involvement in one such LC. Research Purpose Centres for teaching and learning in postsecondary educational institutions in Canada seek to serve the professional development needs of faculty members throughout the college or university. In the researcher’s experience as an educational developer, participation rates in oneoff workshops and consultation services represent a small proportion of the total number of faculty members. Problematizing the conventional frameworks for faculty development, this qualitative inquiry explores learning communities, as a potential additional framework for serving the professional development needs of a postsecondary institution. Data collected will be used to develop narrative descriptions representing the participants’ experiences of a LC at an English-language college in Quebec. These narrative descriptions will be offered as portraits of the meaning that LC members make of their own experience, with particular focus on their professional development and practices. Conditions of Participation Individuals from six LCs at Dawson College will be invited to participate in this study, including (1) faculty, (2) educational developers/pedagogical counsellors, (3) support staff, and (4) administrators. Participation in this study will involve meeting individually or in a small group with the PI to share your experiences of a LC, to discuss what your participation in the LC means to you, and what influence, if any, it has on your professional practice. This ‘inquiry conversation’ will take approximately 40-60 minutes of your time and will be recorded with a digital audio recorder. The PI will transcribe these recordings. The PI will use the transcripts to write narrative descriptions. Before the narrative description based on your participation is finalized, the PI will send it to you for your review and input. This review process will take approximately 20 minutes of your time. Benefits and Risks of Participation You may benefit from participation in this study by virtue of the self-reflective nature of the

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guiding questions that will be posed to you during the inquiry conversation. If you already engage in a professional reflective practice, you may find value in sharing this practice with others (the PI and/or inquiry conversation group). As this study is not funded, there are no monetary benefits to participation. The PI hopes that this study will not only serve in fulfilling a requirement for a master’s degree, but will also offer valuable information and possible recommendations for Dawson College, and possibly the postsecondary educational network in Quebec, Canada, or beyond. If you choose to participate in an inquiry conversation, you will determine what elements of your experience you share. No known or reasonably foreseeable harms (physical or psychological) are anticipated from participation in this study. Confidentiality The PI is the only person who will have access to identifiable data in this study. Every effort will be made to protect the identity of the individuals participating in this study. Your identity and your institutional affiliations will not be shared publicly. To protect your identity a pseudonym will be assigned to you or you may be chose your own pseudonym if you prefer. All digital data for this study will be stored on the PI’s laptop computer, which is password protected and used exclusively by the PI. Password protected back-ups will be stored on external hard drives. These hard drives and any analog data for this study (paper copies) will be kept at the PI’s office, in a locked filing cabinet to which only she has access. In the event that an in-person meeting is not possible, you will have the option to schedule a meeting by Skype. If Skype is used for data collection, the PI will not have full control over all copies of data, since Skype servers are located outside Canada, and are, therefore, not protected by Canadian law nor exclusively owned by the researcher. Use of Data and Findings The findings arising from this study will be disseminated in the form of a thesis research paper. Following completion of the thesis, the PI intends to share the results of this work through submission to scholarly journals and presentations within her professional networks. Data will be stored securely at all times for a period of five years, at which point the data will be destroyed.

Voluntary Informed Consent & Participant Rights Participation in this study is voluntary. If you choose to participate, as a research participant you have the right to, without penalty, withdraw your participation and your data from this study at any time, up to the point when the PI will have to complete her written thesis for evaluation (fall 2015 – exact date to be determined). The PI will give advanced notice to participants before this time period ends. If you wish to withdraw any of our data or your participation from this study after having consented to participate, simply send an email message with the details of your withdrawal wishes to the PI, Julie Mooney at one of the following email addresses: [email protected] If you have any questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant in this study,

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you may contact the Chair of the Dawson College Research Ethics Board. Sacha Young, Chair [email protected] In the event that you wish to file a formal complaint about this research study, please contact the Academic Dean at Dawson College: Diane Gauvin, Academic Dean [email protected]

Please see Statement of Consent on the next page.

Study Title: Learning Communities in a Quebec College - Experiences of Faculty, Educational Developers, Support Staff, and Administrators. Principal Investigator: Julie Mooney, MA Candidate, McGill University / Educational Developer, Dawson College Supervisor: Dr. Lisa Starr, Faculty of Education, McGill University Funding Sources: None Statement of Consent I certify that I have read the above information, understand the risks, benefits, responsibilities and conditions of participation in this study, as outlined in this document, and I freely consent to participate in the “Learning Communities in a Quebec College - Experiences of Faculty, Educational Developers, Support Staff, and Administrators” study. Name (please print): ________________________________________________

Signature:

________________________________________________

Date:

________________________________________________

For the purpose of protecting my identity in the dissemination of results from this study, (please check one of the following options). ☐

I give the PI permission to assign a pseudonym to my data.



I wish to choose my own pseudonym to assign to my data. Please use this name as my pseudonym ___________________________.

Appendix C: Inquiry Conversations Guiding Questions Central Research Question What does it mean for faculty, educational developers, administrators, and support staff to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada? Related Questions 1. What is going on in professional learning communities (LC) in postsecondary education? 2. What do LC members do together? 3. Why are their members motivated to join? And why do they continue to participate? 4. How do LC members view their own professional development? 5. Is the LC a site of professional development (PD) for them? If so, what is the nature of the PD? Do they learn and develop their teaching practice(s) within the LC? If so, how? 6. Do LC members consider their participation in the LC as a long-term commitment with multiple goals and rewards, or a short-term project with specific, focussed goals and desired outcomes? 7. Do administrators, faculty, educational developers, and support staff collaborate to create and sustain an institutional culture of learning and innovation? 8. How does the formation of emergent interdisciplinary learning communities enable or constrain institutional change? 9. What are the differences between faculty-initiated learning communities versus learning communities established by mandate from the senior administration?