Communities of Practice

Are you passionate about teaching and eager to grow alongside colleagues who share your interests? Join a community of practice (CoP)! At Weber State, our communities of practice are more than discussion groups—they’re incubators for innovation. Together, you’ll reflect on your teaching, try out new strategies, and share both your successes and the lessons learned along the way.

Many participants also use their CoP experience as a springboard into the scholarship of teaching and learning. Whether you’re looking to improve student engagement, rethink assessment, or explore AI, there’s a place for you in a Weber State community of practice.

Ready to connect, experiment, & grow?

Sign up for Communities of Practice (Google Form)

What are communities of practice?

A community of practice is a dynamic, collaborative group of 8-12 faculty and staff who come together regularly to explore a specific topic in teaching and learning. Facilitated by a peer, each CoP provides a space to dive deeper into shared questions, challenges, and ideas—while supporting each other in applying what you learn.

• Participant Expectations

  These expectations help ensure that each CoP makes a lasting impact on both its members and the wider teaching community.

  • Show up and engage: Members will actively prepare for, attend, and participate. Groups meet at least twice a month.
  • Reflect and report: Submit a short executive summary and reflection by May 1.
  • Share your learning: Present work at the Thrive Symposium in the fall.
  • Create a meaningful takeaway: Produce a deliverable (Instructional resources, presentations, or publications).
     

  Each group will produce a deliverable that can be shared with a broader audience—on campus or beyond. Options include:

  • Instructional resources (teaching tools, videos, strategies, annotated bibliographies, etc.)
  • Presentations at external conferences
  • Publications (portfolios, white papers, journal articles, etc.)

• Participant Outcomes

  Participants in learning communities should be able to demonstrate at least two of the following:

  • Integrate research-based, learner-centered, and/or welcoming pedagogies in their teaching. Related activities could include reviewing and revising course materials such as syllabi, learning outcomes, and class activities.
  • Leverage collaborative relationships with colleagues across disciplines on topics related to learning-centered instructional innovation and student success. Related activities could include sharing experiences, successes, and challenges with colleagues in the learning community, as well as providing feedback on observations and/or research design and implementation.
  • Build supportive, collegial, and informal mentoring structures that help support the intellectual, emotional, and mental well-being of faculty members.
  • Disseminate practices and scholarship with the broader teaching community at and beyond WSU. Related activities might include sharing work through presentations, sharing instructional resource materials, and/or presenting findings at a CETL event, an external venue, or through publication.

• Benefits

  • Connect with colleagues who share your interests in teaching and learning at Weber State.
  • Explore and experiment with new teaching strategies, share ideas, reflect on your teaching, and dive into the scholarship of teaching and learning.
  • Enjoy food and conversation—each group receives $200 to use for snacks and meals throughout the year.
  • Earn a stipend—participants who complete the community will receive a modest (and varied) financial award.
  • Strengthen your teaching portfolio—your participation counts as professional development and can be included in tenure, promotion, and annual review materials. If your teaching changes because of your experience, you can document those changes as innovations.

• 2025-2026 Communities of Practice

  AI Praxis and Pedagogy Facilitator: Stephanie Speicher

  AI Praxis and Pedagogy is a CoP for faculty wanting to engage in meaningful conversations and the work of revising current or future curriculum as they explore the role of AI in teaching and learning through a lens of reflective action. Meeting throughout the academic year, we will engage in critical dialogue, share classroom strategies, and examine how AI intersects with pedagogy, critical thinking, and human connection.

  Grounded in the concept of praxis, the integration of theory, reflection, and intentional practice, we will collaboratively investigate not just how to use AI, but when and why, aligning technological choices with our values and teaching philosophies. Central to our work together will be the overarching question: How do we facilitate critical thinking, meaningful practice, and authentic human connection in our courses?

  You will be able to focus on examining your curriculum for one specific course, working to revise one assignment or a series of assignments/signature assignments based on the conversations, insights, and skills gained through this CoP.

  Community Engaged Learning Facilitator: Alexander Lancaster

  The Community Engaged Learning CoP will offer members the opportunity to learn about community-engaged teaching and scholarship best practices, including assignments, activities, and original research and/or creative activity. Community members will learn about integrating community-engaged learning theory and practice into their classes and will be connected to opportunities for collaboration and potential grant funding for scholarly work.

  Critical Thinking in the Classroom Facilitator: Megan Van Deventer

  This CoP explores how to make critical thinking visible in our classrooms. We will examine how to make our own expert thinking accessible to our students, and we will determine teaching practices that spark students' critical thinking within our course content. Grounded in research-based pedagogies and reflective teaching, this CoP offers a collaborative space for faculty to discover classroom strategies that make students’ thinking processes explicit, foster intellectual curiosity, and promote metacognitive routines that lead to student academic success. Together, we will design (and potentially implement!) learning opportunities that make our students' thinking transparent, so we can address misconceptions and celebrate their progress.

  Faculty Writing Group: Academic Writing Facilitator: Sarah Steimel

  This CoP is designed to carve out a dedicated, supportive space for individuals who are striving to complete writing projects and successfully submit them for publication or presentation. Whether you’re working on a journal article, a conference paper, a book chapter, or any other scholarly writing project, this group is here to help you overcome the obstacles that often stand in the way of finishing your work. We understand that academic writing can be a solitary and daunting task, filled with challenges such as procrastination, time management, and self-doubt. Through a combination of best practices in writing group productivity and journal article writing, we aim to create a structured yet flexible environment where participants can set goals, track their progress, and hold themselves accountable.

  Faculty Writing Group: Non-Academic Public Writing Facilitator: Mosiah Gonzalez

  This CoP will focus on public-facing writing. Participants will identify at least one topic that is of interest, draft essays intended for non-academic audiences (op-ed, essay, guest article, etc.), offer and receive feedback from the group, and submit the final piece for publication. The goal of this CoP is to increase the visibility of Weber State faculty and their subject matter expertise. Because publication is not guaranteed, goals and outcomes will be measured by 1) subjective report of writing skill improvement, and 2) pieces submitted for publication.

  Podcasting in Higher Ed Facilitator: Justin Burr

  Our CoP will bring together faculty at various stages of podcasting implementation to support one another and collaborate on strategies to implement, improve, and enhance the use of podcasts in our courses. Together, we’ll explore how faculty can use podcasting to present course material, foster engagement, and encourage collaboration. We’ll also share ideas for how students can create their own podcasts as a form of assessment, promoting creativity, communication skills, and deeper learning. In addition, we aim to study the impact of podcasting on student learning and gather student perceptions to guide best practices and continuous improvement.

  Supporting Hispanic Heritage Language Learners Facilitator: Electra Gamón Fielding

  The focus of this CoP will be supporting Hispanic heritage language learners, understanding this specific student group, brainstorming about best practices and providing resources and strategies to apply in the classroom. I envision this CoP as a collaborative space where we can reflect on our teaching experiences—what has worked and what hasn’t—and engage with current research on heritage language instruction. Last year I received the UCLA National Language Resource Center certificate on teaching heritage languages, and I plan to incorporate aspects from this workshop into this CoP.

  Supporting Student Mental Wellness Facilitator: Maddison Johnston

  This CoP will focus on assisting faculty and staff in supporting student mental wellness. It will include identifying the available mental health resources on campus, available mental health trainings, a discussion on where the “line”/boundary is on support, ways to connect with students to promote belonging and connection, and simple, practical deliverables for faculty and staff to use in order to engage with student wellness.

  Sustainability Across the Curriculum Facilitators: Heather Root, Alice Mulder, and Chris Scheidler

  This CoP will meet twice a month for 50-60 minutes to offer ideas, exploration, reflections, and space to foster pedagogies for sustainability and resilience in a time of polycrisis.

  As a group, we hope to:

  • Explore concepts, terms, and examples related to resilience, sustainability, place-based pedagogy, and climate/eco anxiety. 
  • Recall examples of interdisciplinary approaches to resilience.
  • Describe the role of emotion, affect, reflection, and uncertainty in relation to sustainability teaching.
  • Revise existing course materials to integrate sustainability and resilience.
  • Develop a tolerance for ambiguity. 
  • Cultivate an attunement to new relationships

  Thanks for the Feedback and Crucial Conversations Facilitator: Don Davies

  Communication affects all aspects of our lives, and yet most of us are not particularly good at it. Misunderstanding and conflicts resulting from poor communication are costly to our work productivity and the quality of life we enjoy away from work. This group will focus on giving and receiving feedback. What we can do to increase the clarity on how we see situations will also be discussed. The power of what and how questions, as discussed in the book Never Split the Difference, will be another topic of discussion. Permission to Feel and Shift books will help us know how to manage our emotions, which impact our ability to communicate. Investments in improving communication skills pay exponential dividends in all areas of our lives.

  Why Aren't I/They Reading? Facilitator: Elaine Schnabel

  We are busy people, inundated with technological and familial demands that draw attention away from the stillness or silence necessary for reading. This group is for faculty who want to be reading more and/or for faculty who want their students to be reading more. Together, we'll meet once a month to talk about what we're reading, either in our work lives or our personal lives, and share techniques for motivating students to read. This group is open to faculty who read in any format (audio or visual!), any genres (fiction, nonfiction, research, poetry, etc.), and at any pace (we're here to enjoy reading, not compete for # of pages read in a semester!). This group welcomes people who have had success motivating students to read...and those who are struggling to do so.

  Wildcat Roots: A Community for New Faculty Success Facilitator: Jamie Wankier Randles

  This CoP is a yearlong community of practice designed to help new faculty grow deep roots at Weber State. Together, we’ll explore strategies for faculty, classroom, and course success. This may include navigating the tenure process, launching a research agenda, creating connections with other colleagues across departments, getting involved in committees, or prioritizing wellness. Through shared dialogue, collaborative goal-setting, and peer support, this group offers a space to grow professionally and personally while building lasting connections on campus. This community of practice is open to any new faculty in their first three years of employment as faculty.