Collaborative Learning Among Faculty: Using Course Management Systems to Support Faculty Development

Abstract

In higher education today, faculty members are faced with ever-increasing expectations for their teaching, scholarship, and service. Faculty in the 21st century college and university must teach with technology, incorporate student research opportunities into the curriculum, employ active learning strategies while accommodating learners with disabilities, engage in scholarship at the edges of the traditional disciplines, demonstrate multiple forms of scholarship in a professional portfolio, implement classroom and departmental assessment strategies, and provide service to the discipline and community in addition to the college. These complex roles frequently require faculty to collaborate with staff, administrators, students, and peers for the most effective engagement in these new modes of scholarship, service, and teaching. Faculty development professionals are faced with the challenges of supporting faculty in this new environment, and in particular with finding ways to facilitate the sharing, interacting, discussing, questioning, and brainstorming necessary for success in a highly-demanding work environment. Given the time constraints that are endemic in today’s academy, creative solutions that will facilitate collaboration are necessary.