NISOD 2008 - Getting To The Collaboration Zone - Professional Development That Results In Action...

The last breakout session that I attended was presented by two colleagues of mine from NSCC, Shelley Zwicker and Todd Verge. There presentation was about a faculty self-developed and self-directed professional development programme known as the Faculty Learning College Portfolio or FLCP. the FLCP is a five-year plan with significant reviews built in that upon successful completion adds $5,000.00 to the faculty member's salary.

The began by reviewing the FLCP which is a self-defined and self-determining PD programme. It is based upon the idea of Significant Learning espoused by Dee Fink. One of the big issue of developing the FLCP is determining what is needed - what is significant learning? I know that when I developed my own FLCP plan that I spent a lot of time figuring this out only to realize that a lot of my significant learning, being IT faculty (at the time) was simply staying current in my field, so that became one of the learning activities of my plan.

Another key element of the FLCP is aligning it with NSCC's strategic plan, mission and vision. there are four currencies that need to be addressed in the plan as well:

• Teaching/Facilitating Learning - Includes activities that support faculty efforts to acquire, enhance, and continuously update and demonstrate understanding of learning theories and innovative practices.
• Occupational/Professional - Includes activities that support faculty efforts to maintain and continually update the relevancy of their occupational and professional skills and knowledge
• Organizational - includes activities that support faculty efforts to sustain awareness, support, and promote the strategic directions of the College and its values.
• Portfolio - Incorporates all the learning achieved throughout the Faculty Learning College Portfolio experience.

Each learning activity developed for your FLC must address each of these currencies.

The presentation ended with some of the issues that occurred while going through the FLCP planning process. Creating an appropriate scope and depth is important to the success of your FLCP as is managing the scope through the life of the plan. Several challenges were also pointed out by Todd and Shelley:

• Getting buy-in - believing in the value of the FLCP is important
  
• Midway changes in direction - not a bad thing s many fields will change significantly over a five year period, but one that needs to be addressed
  
• Intellectual property - needs to be clarified to the satisfaction of all
  
• Culture of trust and sharing - a big part of the FLCP is the portfolio - the sharing of what you have learned with your colleagues and the body of knowledge of the college.

The FLCP is a great PD opportunity that wold work at any college focussed on being learning centred...