Building and Empowering Professional Learning Communities in Higher Education: case Embrace

The construction and empowerment of learning communities in higher education are essential for fostering collaboration and innovation and enhancing institutional transformation. This article explores the experiences of building professional learning communities (PLCs) within the EMBRACE, Erasmus+ Capacity Building project funded by the European Union.

The project is coordinated by Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) from Finland, and the partners are Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Federal Institute of Espírito Santo (IFES), and Federal Institute of São Paulo (IFSP) from Brazil, Technological University of Pereira (UTP), and University Foundation of the Andean Area (Areandina) from Colombia, and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB) from Portugal.

The article showcases how the project activities facilitate synergistic collaboration both within individual institutions and across the consortium and their communities. It highlights the creation of an international learning community to support the transformation of teaching practices, address the challenges of the digital era, and increase collaboration between academia and the world of work. By fostering collaboration and co-creation, the project aims to empower educators and institutions to enhance teachers’ digital competences, innovate pedagogical approaches, and create new kinds of learning ecosystems that integrate the needs of the industry and society into education, thus driving meaningful change in higher education.

The article presents the EMBRACE project as a PLC with various types of actors and different levels of engagement leading to the results achieved in the project, as well as discusses the challenges and highlights recommendations for a successful PLC stemming from the experiences of the EMBRACE.

Contextualization of Professional Learning Communities and the EMBRACE project

Transnational cooperation projects between higher education institutions (HEIs), such as the EMBRACE project (n.d.), create platforms to connect global trends and discussions to local considerations, enhance knowledge translation (Graham et al., 2006), and enable intercultural integration in education (Jones et al., 2016; Knight, 2015). From the start, the EMBRACE project has functioned as a professional learning community (PLC) between the participating HEIs from Latin America and Europe, focusing on student-centered approaches, digitalization and modernization of higher education pedagogy with improved connections to the world of work. The project emphasizes teachers’ professional development through a cascading training model where teachers are provided not only knowledge and skills on pedagogy but also receive mentoring for becoming institutional developers and tutors. These teachers (appr. 100) form a ”core task force” for pedagogical development within the HEIs. Moreover, the project engages managers from each HEI to support the development and to ensure the sustainability of the changes. All project actors established the PLC to implement pedagogical transformation within partner HEIs by exchanging knowledge and experiences, co-creating practices, disseminating results, and initiating wider educational discussion through their platforms and networks. The development tasks in the EMBRACE help build a collective pedagogical understanding of the PLC, contributing to a more systematic transformation of educational structures, processes and practices within the partner HEIs.

Achieving sustainable change in higher education institutions is a complex task that demands overcoming institutional inertia, resource constraints, and the need for deep cultural transformation toward student-centered, digital, and quality learning. Research by Mompoint Gaillard (2022) and Park (2024) highlight that HEIs often resist change due to entrenched practices and insufficient incentives for innovation. This resistance can be particularly challenging when implementing new educational strategies aimed at fostering deep learning, digital pedagogy, and quality teaching. The scarcity of financial and human resources further complicates the advancement of these practices, underlining the need for strategic planning that aligns initiatives with institutional goals (Park, 2024).

To embed student-centered and digital pedagogy across disciplines, institutions must shift their cultures and address structural barriers. Sustainable educational change calls for fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and designing curricula that engage students and educators in a collaborative, critical, and innovative learning process (Park, 2024; Mulà et al., 2017). In this context, PLCs are essential in fostering sustainable educational transformation by promoting collaboration, innovation, and continuous professional growth among educators. Through PLCs, educators can exchange best practices and engage in reflective dialogue and collective work. Whether in-person or online, PLCs create spaces where educators share strategies contributing to improved teaching quality and resilience against change resistance (Vičič Krabonja et al., 2024).

At the core of PLCs is the concept of collaborative learning within the frameworks like “Research-Practice Partnerships” and “Scholarship of Teaching and Practitioner Research”. Teachers work together to engage in shared inquiry, reflecting on their practices to improve teaching strategies (Eylon et al., 2020). Further, PLCs emphasize democratic engagement where teachers not only collaborate but also actively participate in decision-making processes, respecting diverse perspectives and having a shared commitment to collective goals (Acheampong et al., 2022). Additionally, reflective practice encourages teachers to critically assess their teaching methods and student outcomes, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation, where educators are always looking for ways to enhance their skills and their students’ learning experiences (Feldman, 2016). PLCs also serve as platforms for social justice-oriented pedagogical learning, which helps teachers develop inclusive and responsive teaching strategies drawing on students’ diverse cultural and experiential knowledge to enrich the curriculum and promote equity in the learning environment (Feldman, 2016).

Despite these strong theoretical foundations, implementing PLCs effectively can present challenges. Factors such as institutional constraints, varying levels of teacher engagement, and limited resources can hinder the success of these initiatives. To overcome these challenges, ongoing support and flexibility are essential. By addressing these issues, PLCs can genuinely fulfill their potential as transformative educational spaces.

Understanding how the EMBRACE is building a Professional Learning Community

This research explores how the EMBRACE project is forming a PLC by focusing on three aspects: 1) initial assessment of competences and development areas of partner HEIs; 2) activities conducted and results achieved so far; and 3) understanding of strategies and opportunities for interaction, both within the institutions, between them and their communities, as well as the construction of the community at various levels—individual, institutional, and inter-institutional. To investigate these aspects, two project reports serve as the primary data source: the first quality report and the interim report approved by the European Union.

The quality report was written after an analysis of the data from the project actors: project staff and experts, as well as involved teachers and managers from each partner HEI (N=34). The data was collected with an online questionnaire and analyzed by the quality evaluation team led by the UFABC authors of this article. The findings were validated first by the project manager, then by the project partners and then by the external evaluator. In the analysis, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed. The qualitative approach includes content analysis and Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, aimed at uncovering underlying themes and power structures within the discourse of the institutions. The quantitative analysis involved statistical techniques to assess and quantify the status and development of competences across the institutions. This mixed-methods approach provides a comprehensive understanding of the current state of each institution and offers insight into how the institutions engage with and develop within the broader professional learning community.

The interim report, written by the project manager of the EMBRACE (the first author of this article), based on the overall achievements of the project and the biannual progress reports from the partners, provides an overview of the success of the project with qualitative descriptions of the activities supported with quantitative data of, e.g., the number of participants in various project activities. While summarizing ongoing progress, the interim report provides further context for understanding the activities carried out to date and highlights the opportunities for interaction between institutions and their communities built by the EMBRACE. Through a comparative analysis of both reports, this study gains insights into how the project has facilitated growth, collaboration, and creation of synergies across the PLC. Furthermore, the methodology helps to identify the challenges the PLC is facing.

Diverse maturity levels of partners in the Professional Learning Community – A challenge or an opportunity?

The analysis of the first quality report revealed that the EMBRACE project, as a PLC, includes institutions that have very different situations and varying levels of maturity regarding the educational themes of the project: student-centered approach, digitalization, and collaboration with the world of work. This diversity enables valuable learning opportunities through the sharing of best practices and co-creation or co-development that fosters common understanding, as well as the development of individual and institutional competences.

Further, for the quality report, the institutions were evaluated in three areas: initiatives for developing teachers’ digital and pedagogical competences; initiatives focused on manager training aiming at supporting the transformation of HEIs; and initiatives to support collaboration between academia and world of work.

Regarding teacher development, the institutions exhibit a range of approaches from well-structured training programs to more isolated initiatives. Areandina offers semester-based training focused on pedagogical and digital skills. IFES and UTP have dedicated departments with varied actions, while HAMK showcases comprehensive institutional strategies for teacher and manager development. IFSP’s professional development committee lacks practical alignment, with training often theoretical. Although UFABC has a department for professional development, initiatives remain rare, highlighting the need for a stronger institutional commitment to teacher training. IPB shows limited engagement in the report but demonstrates aptitude in fostering partnerships impacting pedagogical practices. Initiatives like ICT training, workshops, and strategic inclusion highlight the emphasis on advancing pedagogical and digital competences across institutions.

It is more an individual drive than institutional encouragement. Even though Brazilian educational policies have determined that such activities should be part of the curricula, it is up to the teacher to develop them. There is no effect in pedagogical practices – only in teacher training courses, but still a bit timid.

(Quality Report Data, 2024)

Secondly, all institutions acknowledge the importance of managers’ development. However, some lack initiatives in this regard.  HAMK and UTP stand out for having specific guidelines and strategies, but UFABC lacks strategies for developing both teachers and managers. IFES, IFSP, and Areandina have support frameworks but with varying levels of effectiveness. IPB’s lack of response highlights the need for more integrated approaches. HAMK offers extensive support for teachers and managers, from training to strategic actions, fostering a culture of cooperation and continuous improvement, and showcasing a comprehensive approach to competence development.

We have an internal committee for professional development but they action is not very effective. The themes of the trainings are often disconnected with the real life demands and the use to be more theoretical than practical.

(Quality Report Data, 2024)

Regarding the third aspect, the report highlights a variety of strategies employed by the institutions to foster partnerships with industry and society. UFABC emphasizes graduate employability through interdisciplinary education, while UTP integrates society into healthcare and teacher training courses. IPB promotes co-creative extracurricular courses, and Areandina focuses on research for contemporary issues. IFES has dedicated spaces for institutional agreements, and HAMK integrates collaboration into its educational mission, involving students in externally demanded projects. Despite these efforts, the lack of concrete examples of how these partnerships influence pedagogical practices calls for deeper integration and a more detailed evaluation of their impact.

The quality report reveals that the diversity of the partners promotes mutual growth, where more advanced institutions can support others to develop through innovation and co-creation, tailored to the specific context of each institution. The report highlights that the partners view digital tools as essential for collaboration, academic engagement, and research dissemination. However, institutional approaches to digitalization vary, with some institutions excelling in innovation while others face challenges. Key areas to improve the PLC of the EMBRACE include strengthening inter-institutional partnerships, enhancing knowledge dissemination, and ensuring the sustainability of the results. This underscores the need for a robust communication strategy to foster deeper collaboration and maximize the impact.

From individual institutional initiatives to collaborative community engagement

The EMBRACE project is fostering a PLC by engaging educators in a process that starts at the individual level and grows into inter-institutional collaboration. This community is grounded in encouraging reflective practices driving continuous improvement and adaptation. Despite challenges such as institutional constraints, varying teacher engagement, and limited resources, the PLC promotes opportunities for development professionally and institutionally by creating a dynamic, evolving learning environment across institutions.

The interim report affirmed that the EMBRACE project has made significant progress in several activities, and as a PLC, it has enabled key achievements at different levels: individual, institutional, inter-institutional, and international. At the individual level, a professional development program was implemented for five Institutional Developers from each partner HEIs (in total 25 teachers) to build competences in pedagogy and to coach them for institutional change agency. Further, these teachers developed three MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) focusing on digital technologies, active pedagogies that promote student autonomy and innovative learning, and ways to bridge education with the world of work and society needs.

At the institutional level, the MOOCs have been piloted at all Latin American partner institutions and through a cascading training model, the institutions have involved appr. 75 Tutor teachers to become digital pedagogy mentors. Further, managers’ workshops have been held to raise awareness of the importance of institutional support, leading towards institutional guidelines for teachers’ professional development and HEI transformation. Moreover, the partner HEIs have begun to build five learning ecosystems to enhance the collaboration with the world of work and society.

As for inter-institutional level, the EMBRACE project is building a network of learning communities within and across institutions to ensure equitable institutional strategies. The strategy employed to foster reflection, interaction, and knowledge sharing involved a combination of digital and in-person meetings. Digital platforms like Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams were used, complemented by face-to-face meetings in locations such as Vitória (BR), Hämeenlinna (FI), and Pereira (CO) promoted interaction and reflection at individual, institutional, and inter-institutional levels. The exchange of experiences between educators and administrators from diverse institutions significantly impacted pedagogical and digital training while also contributing to the creation of new learning ecosystems. Further, collaboration and sharing best practices are crucial for enhancing the impact and sustainability of change.

Meetings with the work package (WP) teams are excellent for dividing responsibilities between all project participants and making the project move forward and achieve its results. This strategy also allows partner universities to contribute to project management by engaging and committing more. In addition to feeling heard and being able to align tasks with the real needs of the institutions at the moment. WPs meetings work very well, as do coordination meetings, ensuring that coordinators from partner universities understand the entire process.

(Quality Report Data, 2024)

Also, the EMBRACE builds an international PLC by creating effective dissemination plans utilizing the tools, channels and networks of its partners. It is contributing to the global discussion on technological integration and transformation in higher education, providing tools for teachers’ professional development, and establishing partnerships among professionals. So far, the PLC of the EMBRACE project has reached approximately 1000 people with its outreach activities across the partner HEIs, and beyond them.

Challenges and achievements towards building the international Professional Learning Community

The EMBRACE project has revealed several challenges affecting sustainable educational change in HEIs. In addition to cultural barriers, these include resistance to change driven by entrenched practices and insufficient incentives for innovation. The heterogeneity in institutional commitment and resource availability further complicates efforts to achieve consistent implementation across all participating HEIs. This emphasizes the necessity for stronger institutional frameworks and policies that prioritize innovation and provide adequate support for educators and managers alike. The disparity in engagement levels among institutions underscores the importance of fostering a sense of shared responsibility and ownership among all stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of the project outcomes.

However, the operational concept of the project, the professional learning community (PLC), has been indicated to be a meaningful framework for fostering collaboration and reflective practice among educators. By creating spaces in which educators and managers exchange ideas, share experiences, and co-create innovative practices, the project has laid the groundwork for sustainable pedagogical transformation. The cascading training model seems to be an effective strategy for ensuring the scalability and dissemination of new pedagogical practices across institutions. Furthermore, the training model illustrates the project’s capacity to cater to institutions’ varied requirements while fostering shared learning objectives.

The project achievements demonstrate the potential of PLCs to act as catalysts for educational change, as evidenced by the development and pilot implementation of MOOCs, as well as the establishment of collaborative networks and learning ecosystems. These efforts have shown the project’s growing capacity to integrate digital tools and active pedagogies into institutional practices, enhancing teaching and learning experiences and aligning education with the needs of society and the workforce. Furthermore, the emphasis on managerial development has reinforced the importance of institutional leadership in driving and sustaining transformative initiatives.

Recommendations for successful Professional Learning Communities

The experiences from the EMBRACE project show that strong institutional commitment ensures continued engagement and development within the professional learning community, securing long-term outcomes. This can be enhanced by fostering the participation of all relevant actors (students, teachers, managers, local communities, industry and society partners). Further, multi-stakeholder involvement ensures that educational innovation is aligned with the needs of both learners and society. Moreover, scaled models to involve participants (e.g., training of trainers) may increase engagement and institutional impact.

In practice, a well-functioning PLC requires a strong communication strategy, as well as tools and platforms, both physical and virtual, for discussion and sharing. Having both more unstructured and more facilitated ways of collaboration, as well as shared responsibilities, can improve the effectiveness of PLCs, whereas co-creation and co-development activities increase innovativeness and form change agency mindset among the participants.

However, one pivotal step is to expand research efforts in gathering evidence of the long-term impact of PLCs on teaching quality, student success, and institutional transformation. Conducting longitudinal studies and impact assessments provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of PLCs in higher education.

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Acknowledgment

Acknowledgments to the European Union, the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) for funding and support of the EMBRACE project (embrace.edu.co) within the context of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education. The project partners include: the Coordinator Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Federal Institute of Espírito Santo (IFES), Federal Institute of São Paulo, Technological University of Pereira (UTP), University Foundation of the Andean Area (AREANDINA), and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança.