Faculty Professional Development for Higher Education

Strengthen your teaching through Lumen Circles, a nine-week virtual faculty professional development fellowship focused on evidence-based teaching practices, collaboration, and reflection.

Designed for college and university educators across disciplines and career stages, Lumen Circles connects faculty through facilitated virtual learning communities. Participants explore effective teaching strategies, collaborate with peers, and apply new approaches in their own classrooms.

Through practical learning experiences and ongoing reflection, faculty develop their teaching skills and discover new ways to support student engagement and success.

Faculty Professional Development Fellowship Programs

Evidence-based Teaching with Generative AI

Explore how generative AI can support evidence-based teaching practices in higher education. This virtual faculty fellowship introduces educators to practical ways to use AI tools for personalized learning, student engagement, and meaningful feedback.

Designed for faculty who are new to teaching with generative AI, the program emphasizes responsible implementation and strategies that support effective instruction.

Advanced Generative AI for Teaching & Learning

Expand your use of generative AI in higher education through advanced teaching applications. Explore prompt engineering, multimedia content creation, custom chatbots, and data analysis while discovering ways to make learning more engaging and streamline administrative tasks.

This fellowship is designed for faculty who already use AI in their teaching and want to develop more advanced skills and instructional strategies.

Fostering Belonging for Student Success

Discover evidence-based teaching strategies that help create inclusive college classrooms where students feel connected and supported.

Through collaboration and reflection within a faculty learning community, participants explore practical approaches to fostering student belonging, strengthening engagement, and creating learning environments that support academic success.

College Course Design for Student Success

Strengthen your course design skills through evidence-based instructional strategies that support inclusive, student-centered learning.

This faculty development fellowship explores backward design, universal design principles, and approaches that align learning objectives with meaningful classroom experiences. Participants discover ways to create courses that encourage student engagement, ownership, and mastery.

Evidence-based Teaching Practices for Higher Education

Explore evidence-based teaching practices that support effective instruction and student learning in higher education.

Faculty participants apply and reflect on instructional strategies such as backward design, learning outcome alignment, differentiated instruction, and assessment design. Through collaborative learning and practical application, educators strengthen their teaching skills and evaluate how different approaches work in their classrooms.

Online Teaching Foundations for College Faculty

Develop the skills needed to create engaging online learning experiences through evidence-based teaching practices.

Designed for faculty who are newer to online instruction, this fellowship explores effective strategies for virtual teaching, student engagement, and course delivery. Participants apply new techniques, collaborate with peers, and reflect on ways to support student success in online classrooms.

Active Learning Strategies for College Teaching

Discover active learning strategies that encourage students to participate, collaborate, and engage more deeply with course materials.

This faculty professional development fellowship explores practical techniques for face-to-face, online, and hybrid classrooms. Participants apply evidence-based teaching approaches, exchange ideas with peers, and develop interactive learning experiences that support student engagement and success.

Teaching With Open Educational Resources (OER)

Explore how open educational resources (OER) and OER-enabled pedagogy can support engaging, student-centered teaching.

Through practical activities and collaboration, faculty learn to use and create openly licensed course materials while applying evidence-based teaching strategies. Participants discover ways to involve students in the learning process and strengthen their teaching through open education.

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How Does Lumen Circles Faculty Professional Development Work?

  • Set professional development goals. Identify the teaching skills and instructional practices you want to strengthen.

  • Build evidence-based teaching skills. Participate in virtual workshops that introduce practical strategies for effective college teaching.

  • Apply and reflect. Bring new teaching approaches into your classroom, evaluate their effectiveness, and identify opportunities for improvement.

  • Collaborate with fellow educators. Connect through facilitated virtual faculty learning communities to exchange ideas, share experiences, and receive feedback.

  • Recognize your professional growth. Track progress toward your teaching goals and reflect on how your instructional practices evolve.

Flexible Faculty Development Programs for Individuals and Institutions

 

Lumen Circles offers flexible faculty professional development opportunities for individual educators, academic departments, and higher education institutions. Choose from fellowship programs with different areas of focus, levels of depth, and durations to support your teaching goals.

  • Faculty fellowships: Build skills in targeted teaching areas, apply new strategies, and collaborate within a facilitated virtual learning community.

  • Individual participation: Join educators from other colleges, universities, and academic departments to exchange ideas and strengthen teaching practices.

  • Institutional and departmental cohorts: Bring faculty together for professional development aligned with shared teaching priorities.

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What’s Your Role?

Your connection with students is paramount to their success, but knowing how to reach them can be challenging. Lumen Circles provide opportunities to expand your teaching repertory in areas you want to grow. You can join colleagues to learn, share ideas, compare experiences, and be part of a thriving community focused on evidence-based teaching for today’s students.

Lumen Circles compliment your center’s resources and priorities. Some centers offer a full menu of programs but struggle to generate meaningful evaluation data. Others cater to new faculty, but they sometimes overlook faculty who are later in their careers. Still others struggle to meet the needs of part-time faculty or graduate students. We can tailor offerings to fit the faculty members you want to reach with skill-building and professional growth focused on teaching practices that impact student success. We also offer flexible options around pricing and scale.

Recognizing student success is a result of faculty success, Lumen Circles can help you provide a broader foundation of faculty support to transform teaching and learning with a focus on evidence-based instructional practices. We can also help you track alignment and measure progress towards institutional and faculty goals for improving teaching practice.