AI Community of Practice
Adoption · Case study
Adoption by example: thirty early adopters from faculty, staff and administration show colleagues what works. The only practitioner community of practice in the district, advising the campus and the district on AI.
Goal
People across campus were already using AI, each on their own, with no place to compare notes. The goal is that good practice spreads by example. Colleagues who are unsure about AI get to watch practitioners work, which persuades in a way an argument or a policy does not.
The community exists so that the people furthest along are visible, connected to each other, and available to the rest of the college.
Audience
Every member already uses AI in teaching, student support or design, and each brings a different expertise.
The wider audience is everyone who draws on what the group learns: colleagues deciding whether and how to use AI, and the campus and district bodies the group advises.
Process
Michelle Blomberg founded the community through the Center for Teaching, Learning and Engagement and has led its meetings so far. Leadership is shared by design: there is no single chair, and roles are distributed across the members.
The group meets once a month. Members share out the AI work each of them is doing, so everyone knows who to go to in each area, and they help each other on projects. It is not a training program and not a governance body. It is practitioners working together, and passing what they learn to the people who need it.
Its current lines of work:
- Authentic assessment. The first line of collaborative work: what still counts as evidence of learning in the age of generative AI.
- AI ethics. Testing, and input to the campus technology committee on its work on AI ethics.
- Emerging AI. Presenting new AI content to the college with the Center for Teaching, Learning and Engagement.
- District input. Advising the district AI Resource Center’s steering committee from a practitioner’s point of view.
Technology
- Monthly meetings, with a group chat for the work in between.
Outcomes
Active. The group already gives input in three directions: to the campus technology committee, to the teaching and learning center, and to the district AI Resource Center’s steering committee.