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Explore Impactful Teaching

Lumen Circles Fellowships: Learning Communities for Effective Teaching

SUNY Point of Contact: Chris Price (Chris.Price@suny.edu)

Lumen Circles Fellowships provide opportunities to connect with other faculty members as you explore effective instructional practices that support student success and apply them in your own teaching. Through the fellowship you can learn, share ideas, and develop professionally in the areas you want to grow.

Lumen Circles Fellowships are available at NO COST to SUNY faculty and campuses.

Lumen Circles work well for any faculty member, in any discipline, at any stage of career. You do NOT need to use courseware to be eligible for this program.

Read on to learn more and apply for a Lumen Circles Fellowship, offered in partnership with the SUNY Center for Professional Development, SUNY OER Services, and Lumen Learning.

This fellowship helps you grow as a teacher, with a supportive community around you.

Lumen Circles Fellowships invite you to collaborate with fellow faculty members through virtual learning circles. Together you explore evidence-based practices, reflect on your teaching experiences, and share ideas and feedback.

Fellowships include:

9-week community of practice with faculty from multiple institutions
Weekly activities to explore, apply, and reflect on effective teaching practices (~2 hours/week)
Build on your strengths and develop skills to expand your teaching repertory
Set goals and track progress expanding your teaching practice profile
Work asynchronously in a virtual platform (website) to fit your own schedule
Earn a Lumen Circles Fellowship Certificate in Effective Teaching Practice

Choose a Theme: How would you like to develop as a teacher?

Lumen Circles Fellowships connect you with faculty members interested in growing professionally in the same direction you want to grow. Upcoming themes include:

New! Evidence-based Teaching with Generative AI: Learn how AI tools can help you personalize learning, enhance engagement, and provide students with valuable feedback, all while learning about and following evidence-based teaching practices.
Active Learning: Explore evidence-based teaching practices to engage students more actively in the learning process, whether teaching face-to-face, online, or hybrid classes. Learning by doing and experience-sharing will also enrich your understanding of how to make learning more interactive to support students’ success.
Belonging & Inclusive Teaching Fundamentals: Explore evidence-based practices that support student success by shaping the learning environment to recognize and build on all students’ diverse experiences and strengths. Develop your ability to engage students and help them to feel seen, respected, and included as capable partners in the learning process.
Course Design for Student Success: Learn how to effectively design or redesign a course with proven methods and techniques that support student belonging, learning, and success. Build skills and knowledge around how evidence-based teaching practices help us to create an accessible learning environment for all students, how backward design aligns learning objectives and assessments, and how universal design principles build on student strengths, backgrounds, and ways of learning.
Evidence-based Teaching: Learn how to build a body of evidence in your classroom about how well your teaching and learning activities support student success. Explore backward design, learning outcome alignment, differentiated instruction, assessment design, and other evidence-based practices contributing to effective learning and teaching.
Online Teaching Foundation: Designed for faculty newer to teaching online, this circle focuses expressly on the online modality and provides opportunities to explore and apply best evidence-based practices for teaching online, engaging students, and supporting their success. (Note: You should be scheduled to teach a fully online class during this fellowship.)
Teaching with OER & OER-enabled Pedagogy: Explore evidence-based teaching strategies in the context of using OER and OER-enabled pedagogy. Develop your teaching capabilities with techniques that apply the principles of open education to engage students and strengthen their success using openly licensed content. (Note: Prior to the fellowship, you should identify OER content you plan to use with students during your fellowship term.)