Steve's Introduction

Hi. I am Stephen Morris and I am a fourth year doctoral student here in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco. I am an Assistant Professor at USF in the School of Business and Management and have been teaching at USF for 16 years.

Professional Life
I teach Quantitative Business Analysis (analyzing problems using spreadsheets) and a course called Systems in Organizations (a cross between Operations Management and Information Systems). I have recently been given new responsibilities: my dean has asked me to bring the other business faculty (kicking and screaming if necessary) into the 21st century in terms of using technology in the classroom. Examples include having professors use web 2.0 tools such as Facebook for creating community for our freshmen and and having faculty learn how to effectively use wikis and blogs for their students. I am also in charge of the business school's website.

Why a Doctorate
I have been interested in improving my teaching and seeing better student learning outcomes for many years. I introduced active learning as well as technology into all of my courses many years ago, and I usually overhaul my courses every two years. Several years ago I attended a faculty workshop on campus that included Professor Bob Burns of the School of Education. After a number of discussions with Bob, I realized that getting an EdD in Learning & Instruction was incredibly appealing and just what I was looking for in terms of improving my teaching. Having been recently divorced and with both of my children out of the house and off to college, I decided to enroll into the doctoral program - and I am glad I did. No regrets!

Potential Project Topics
I am being selfish here: my first choice for a project topic is Cognitive Apprenticeship. I have read some articles about this topic as it relates directly to my dissertation topic.

a definition of Cognitive Apprenticeship

I am also interested in Learner-Centered Design, Collaborative Learning, Problem-Based Learning, and Project-Based Learning.