“The book is effervescent with potential to transform our work in everything from our relations with students to our role in developing teaching cultures on campus.” —from the Foreword by Margy MacMillan

Teaching and learning communities are communities of practice in which a group of faculty and staff from across disciplines regularly meet to discuss topics of common interest and to learn together how to enhance teaching and learning. Since these teaching and learning communities can bring together members who might not have otherwise interacted, new ideas, practices, and synergies can arise.

The role of librarians in teaching and learning has been reexamined and reinvigorated by the introduction of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which offers a conceptual approach and theoretical foundations that are new and challenging. Building Teaching and Learning Communities: Creating Shared Meaning and Purpose goes beyond the library profession for inspiration and insights from leading experts in higher education pedagogy and educational development across North America to open a window on the wider world of teaching and learning, and includes discussion of pedagogical theories and practices including threshold concepts and stuck places; the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL); disciplinary approaches to pedagogy; the role of signature pedagogies; inclusion of student voices; metaliteracy; reflective practice; affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of learning; liminal spaces; and faculty as learners. This unique collection asks each of the authors to address this question: What do we as educators need to learn (or unlearn) and experience so we can create teaching and learning communities across disciplines and learning levels based on shared meaning and purpose? Six fascinating chapters explore this question in different ways:

Building a Culture of Teaching and Learning, Pat Hutchings and Mary Deane Sorcinelli
Sit a Spell: Embracing the Liminality of Pedagogical Change through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Linda Hodges
The Crossroads of SoTL and Signature Pedagogies, Nancy L. Chick
Bottlenecks of Information Literacy, Joan Middendorf and Andrea Baer
Developing Learning Partnerships: Navigating Troublesome and Transformational Relationships, Peter Felten, Kristina Meinking, Shannon Tennant, and Katherine Westover
When Teachers Talk to Teachers: Shared Traits between Writing Across the Curriculum and Faculty Learning Communities, Kateryna A. R. Schray

Building Teaching and Learning Communities is an entry into some of the most interesting conversations in higher education and offers ways for librarians to socialize in learning theory and begin “thinking together” with faculty. It proposes questions, challenges assumptions, provides examples to be used and adapted, and can help you better prepare as teachers and pursue the essential role of conversation and collaboration with faculty and students.