Advancing a New General Education Curriculum Through a Faculty Community of Practice

Many institutions of higher education are reimagining their general education curriculum or adding new, innovative programs to their course offerings. Faculty driving such innovation, while experts in their disciplines, often lack experience with instructional design and the benefits it subsequently brings to these types of programs. At the same time, process-driven, traditional approaches to instructional design may not feel relevant to some faculty. In this chapter, the authors describe the Learning Design Collaborative, a new model for instructional design built on the principles of intentional learning, authentic learning, and student engagement. Placed within the context of a faculty learning community, this experience has been used with faculty developing courses for the first-year signature experience of a new general education curriculum. Implications of this initiative suggest the importance of continually evaluating instructional design models, opportunities for implementing the model in other programs, and a relationship with other emerging instructional design models.