We are endeavoring to build an international community of educators interested in multi-campus instruction or distributed learning. This model of education is challenging to implement successfully despite growing international interest.
Here are some excerpts from our Community Charter:
Why does our Community exist?
Multi-campus instruction is a deceptively difficult instructional and learning format that benefits from instructional training and scholarship. The purpose of this CoP is to:
- Facilitate a free form exchange of ideas related to multi-campus instruction,
- Build a repository of resources and training materials
- Participate in scholarship and support Community members in research
- Share experiences and learned best practices
- Support adaptation of curriculum into a multi-campus structure
- Provide guidance to administrators advocating on behalf of multi-campus instructors reflecting the unconventional challenges (work load) associated with teaching in a multi-campus environment
- Facilitate a small conference or institute annually, and advocate for MCI as a theme or special call in educational conferences
What is the desired impact and how would you know it’s been achieved?
The Community should promote research and scholarship into multi-campus instruction, dissemination of best practices through publications and training, support members and multi-campus instructors in advocating for better adoption of best practices in teaching and management, and ultimately yield an improvement in quality of learning experiences for students in multi-campus courses.
People
Who is our Community for?
The Community is for post-secondary educators actively engaged in the teaching, research, and/or scholarship of multi-campus instruction. There are no regional or institutional restrictions on participation.
- Primary focus is on Canada during early formation while open to all regions
- Open to other regions to capture niche interests, good consistency in problems in other parts of the world
Why are these people the right people to be part of the Community?
Facilitating successful research, training, and dissemination of findings requires those practiced in teaching and research methods related to pedagogy, curriculum, and multi-campus instruction. Improving the quality of learning experiences in multi-campus courses requires participants engaged in teaching courses in this format. Engagement of primarily Canadian practitioners will help to accommodate regular meetings considering timezone constraints and limit language and cultural barriers during early growth of the CoP.
Practice
What happens in our Community on a recurring basis that helps us achieve our goals and impact?
Meetings are held regularly to share new resources, projects, research endeavours, and findings. Meetings serve to promote collaborations leading to publications, grants, training, outreach, and improved teaching practices.
We continue to seek new members at all levels and meet regularly to share ideas, projects, and create opportunities for collaboration. Please feel free to reach out to us via our contact form.
Cheers,
Christoph Sielmann
Multi-campus CoP Chair