For Instructors: About Common Ground Subjects

Overview

The Common Ground for computing and AI education is a cross-cutting initiative spanning all five schools and the college at MIT to bring together multi-department teaching to develop classes and curricula that blend computing with other disciplines. Its focus is on broadening computing and AI education by supporting collaborations between departments and programs. The core objectives of these collaborations are to address the need for computing education across many disciplines—not only as a tool for one’s research, but conceptually — and to educate “computing bilinguals,” students who are fluent in both the “language” of computing and that of their discipline.

The Common Ground provides limited seed funding to assist in the design, development, and staffing of new, broadly-applicable computing subjects and revision of existing subjects to meet these criteria. The courses should involve multi-department collaborations to develop computing classes useful across a range of areas and should support the educational mission of the individual departments. (Course 6 participation is not required.) Not all computing classes at MIT will fit this model; for example, individual departments already provide discipline-specific computing education that is top-notch. Common Ground looks explicitly to facilitate those opportunities in which two or more departments would benefit from coordinated teaching.

The Common Ground also supports the development of multi-class curricula that integrates computing and AI across MIT. These efforts align with three strategic pillars of SCC: AI and Discovery, Computing and Creativity, and Ethical Computing and AI. It builds on blended degrees with EECS and includes “with computing” majors—majors include new integrated classes and capstones, based on Common Ground—as well as the expansion of collaborations across MIT schools to embed AI and computing content into core curricula and degree programs.

The Common Ground for computing and AI education is overseen by the Common Ground Steering Committee, a large group of faculty experts in various computing areas, from departments in each of MIT’s five Schools. Members review proposals and approve individual classes for inclusion in the Common Ground. They also guide the development of collaborative computing and AI programs across MIT, including “with computing” majors.
Class proposals are considered in areas of Fundamentals of Computational Science and Engineering; Fundamentals of Programming/Computating Thinking; and Machine Learning, Data Science and Algorithms.

Focus areas are intentionally broad. The Common Ground is still relatively new, and it is expected that foci and their definitions will change with time. Pilot subjects do not need to fit neatly within any of the present areas. Instructors are encouraged to be creative and think about what would best meet the needs of their majors. The definitions and examples below provide context to help you think about developing any Common Ground pilot, regardless of its computing focus. Anyone considering proposing a Common Ground subject is encouraged to reach out to the Steering Committee early on to discuss ideas and for help identifying potential co-instructors and partnering departments. Please contact commongroundproposals@mit.edu.

Criteria

Common Ground subjects:

  • Have core computational content that is broadly applicable, cross-fertilized across disciplines, and blended with discipline-specific material. The computing content and discipline-specific content should be combined conceptually, enabling students to frame disciplinary problems using a richly computational approach.
  • Involve collaboration by two or more departments in the form of co-development and teaching or as part of a co-requisite structure developed and staffed by collaborating departments. Course 6 does not need to be part of the collaboration.
  • Are new subjects or new versions of existing subjects revised in consonance with the criteria noted above.
  • Have written support from the heads of the collaborating departments. Faculty and lecturers should coordinate with their department heads to obtain support for the pilot and to discuss how the class, in a steady state, will add value to the department’s curriculum.

Funding

The amount and length of funding for Common Ground pilots vary depending on situations specific to each subject. Typically, support is provided during the development phase and/or the first year that a class is taught, in the form of TAs and/or instructor summer salary. For subsequent, steady-state offerings of the class, Common Ground can provide some TA support, depending on enrollment and available funds.

Instructors are encouraged to identify additional sources of funding (departmental or other offices, such as the Office of the Vice Chancellor through d’Arbeloff and Alumni Class Funds) to round out support for the class.

Call for Proposals

Proposals for the Fall 2026 grant process are due on or before November 4. Anyone considering proposing a Common Ground subject should contact commongroundproposals@mit.edu early on (prior to the deadline) to discuss ideas and for help identifying potential co-instructors and partnering departments.

Proposal instructions and forms can be found here:

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