A Teaching Commons for CSU Business Programs Ron Purser

What’s a Teaching Commons? A concept advanced by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching A community space for: –Faculty sharing of knowledge and expertise across the CSU – Accessing teaching and learning resources and strategies that work for CSU Business faculty and students –Faculty leaders organizing and disseminating best practices so they become common practices –Networking around campus and system-level initiatives in timely and effective ways

CSU College of Business Needs Sharing best practices using online resources Developing and adopting instructional innovations cost-effectively Creating a community of practice to address common pedagogical problems Support AACSB accreditation –Quality curriculum (content + pedagogy) –Scholarship of teaching business

Requirements for Putting Innovations into Practice Disciplinary context for content Institutional context for curriculum Community context for peer advocacy and recognition Usable Services –Effective, Easy to learn, Easy to Use, Motivating

The CSU Teaching Commons Teaching Commons is a workspace for CSU faculty within disciplines to share projects, expertise, and resources across our campuses –Puts the control of the content in faculty hands –Gets the technology behind the scenes –Bridges the individual efforts to the larger CSU, national, and international endeavors We’ve built a prototype to illustrate what a Teaching Commons might do and to get feedback for the faculty

Teaching Commons Basics Use Adobe Contribute to enable faculty to manage the content without IT Staff Support CSU CO will host the Teaching Commons Faculty Driven Rapid Prototyping and Experimentation

Current Status Version 1.0 Introduced to all CSU/COB Deans Formation of Teaching Commons Faculty Steering Committee From CSU Campuses –Initial strategy meeting with 6 faculty held August 2 nd –Recruitment of additional faculty to Steering Committee Content and Features Enhancements –Blogging and Discussion Forums –Departmental Collections Version 2.0 to be launched by Dec 1, 2007