Developing Curriculum -- 2hr / 4hr semester courses

May 15, 1996

Dr. George Baldwin says that his university is well connected -- even the janitors have fiber optic drops in the janitorial closets. In his presentation Baldwin discussed the unique curriculum at CSU-Monterey Bay. Students at CSU-MB follow the competency based education approach. Students do not graduate until they pass certain competencies, regardless of grades or credit hours. One of the competency components is a service learning component. One of the courses that Baldwin teaches helps his students reach this competency. The students in his course on community networking first choose a non-profit organization from the local community and build a web page for the organization. Students must gather, sift, and organize the organization's information on their web pages. The students show technology competencies through the design of their web pages. Initially, students were concerned that they would not be able to find clients for their web page projects. This was no problem. In the past semester, many students have had five or six client organizations. Baldwin expects to have over 100 clients in his next course.

Students in Baldwin's civic networking course are not given syllabi in hard copy form. Instead, students are given a URL address that contains syllabus information. The syllabi not only contain references to books and articles, but links to useful and appropriate web sites. For example, in the section of the syllabus on civic networking and telecommunity building, Baldwin included a link to the La Plaza Telecommunity. The La Plaza Telecommunity website has served has a helpful model to his students.

George Baldwin can be reached via e-mail at: george_baldwin@monterey.edu.

Reported by William Hart