Faculty Initiative with Technology
for Summer 2008
To encourage the use of technology in the classroom, and to increase student engagement, Hunter College will support 15-20 faculty members over the summer of 2008 to re-tool one of their courses with technology. Each selected faculty member will receive a $2000 stipend, several sessions of expert consultation, and up to 60 hours of development assistance from a Technology Fellow. These Fellows are Hunter faculty, staff, and advanced students with particular technology skills that match the faculty members' needs.
Why?
Many of the new digital information and communication technologies enable new forms of teaching and learning that deepen subject matter, engage students, and help overcome pedagogical challenges. The Faculty Initiative is designed to provide support for faculty work and technology assistance over the summer for implementation in the fall semester.
Who?
Faculty from all parts of Hunter College are encouraged to consider a summer technology project. Arts and Sciences, Education, Health Professions, Social Work, all are eligible to seek assistance in preparing their proposals. Groups of faculty teaching large or multi-section courses, and faculty interested in developing blended courses, where a portion of in-class time is replaced by online or distance learning, are particularly encouraged to apply. A team of expert consultants is ready right now to work with faculty at their convenience.
What?
We encourage faculty to design projects that increase student engagement in learning, and that take advantage of new digital tools for content creation, simulation, animation, video, online collaboration, distance learning, and incorporation of mobile media devices. And whatever else faculty members might have in mind to improve teaching and learning with technology. Faculty at Hunter and other colleges with similar initiatives have produced projects as those described below.
When?
Faculty proposals will be due on May 20. Interested faculty should call on FIT consultants to assist them in drawing up their proposals. Email to fit@hunter.cuny.edu, or call Carol Katzman at 212-650-3182 to speak with the project staff.
A faculty and staff team will select the 15 -20 plans that are likely to show the largest increase in student engagement, and that represent a wide range of technologies. Selections will be announced on May 27. ICIT staff will conduct informational sessions in the Faculty Dining Room over the next few weeks. Here you'll be able to see examples of the kinds of technology applications that college faculty have built in a variety of subject areas.
On Monday, May 12, at 11:00 AM, Hunter faculty members and a visitor from Harvard University will show some of the technology projects produced recently.
Information on the Initiative will also be available at the May 14 Faculty Senate technology workshop.
How?
Your proposal should answer these three questions in a single page of narrative text:
- Describe what you propose to accomplish. Include the course number and title, and the number of students generally enrolled.
- Describe the help you need to get this done over the summer.
- Explain how this work will increase student engagement.
Project staff are waiting to assist you in thinking through the elements of your proposal. Proposals should be sent by email to fit@hunter.cuny.edu before May 20, 2008.
Successful FIT project faculty will convene for a mandatory kick-off session on June 2, 2008, and for a colloquium to share their summer work in September. During the 2008-2009 academic year, FIT staff will provide continuing support to faculty, and convene them periodically to help build a community of practice.
Near the end of the fall semester, participants will share their accomplishments and insights with fellow faculty.
Examples:
- Online Course Materials
Students prepare for weekly class meetings more efficiently and with a larger set of resources, thanks to the capabilities of the Blackboard course management software. The team of faculty members teaching the course posted all of the required readings, assignments, and examples, as well as a detailed (and often updated) course syllabus and schedule. Students submit their assignments through the same system, and support material for each week' s class session is also available online.
- Vodcasting in American Sign Language
Students in American Sign Language class are asked to subscribe to and periodically view vodcast (video-podcast) episodes of fluent signers before class. Students then go to class prepared to ask questions and discuss features of American Sign Language, such as use of non-manual markers, word sign choice, word order, and tone. Vodcasting allows students to have repeated exposure to a variety of signers, an important component of the learning process. In addition, students create their own vodcasts for practice, self-review, peer review and as graded class assignments.
- Blackboard Course Makeover
To achieve more clarity, consistency, uniqueness, and effectiveness, a professor did a makeover of her Blackboard course site. She had been teaching the same course for many years and found that following the default format on Blackboard was ineffective and confused her students. She redesigned and streamlined her course site by renaming navigation items with language that was meaningful to her and her students, hid unused tools, deleted redundant items, added module overviews, described the contents of folders and resources, and added content areas that reflected the themes in her course. She also learned to use additional tools that allowed her to use time more efficiently and stay organized. She now has a course site that truly enhances her classroom teaching.
- Social Issues Wiki
In a children’s literature course in the school of education, teachers worked on group wiki projects that presented a genre of children's literature that dealt with social issues relevant to children in today's classrooms. The groups located children's literature that explored their chosen theme, explained on the wiki why their social issue was important, and described the core ideas of their theme. They also compiled online an annotated list of children's books and created lesson plans for the unit, and so the wiki became a shared curriculum resource that drew upon the class’ collective knowledge of children’s literature, curriculum development, and real classroom needs.
- Blog connects theory to practice
As part of the Teaching Fellows Practicum seminar course participants engage in online asynchronous dialogue journal writing about course readings, using Blackboard. Teachers are assigned a colleague as their dialogue partner and create 4 "exchanges" for each blog entry. The blog entry consists of two parts: an analysis of the chapter reading, and its connection to salient themes. This provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect on the reading and its relevance to their students and curriculum. In the second part each teacher responds to their dialogue partner's entry, adding additional insight and application of ideas or asking for clarification.
- Le roi des oies
In French, this means the king of the geese. It's not easy for a non-Frenchman to pronounce. A faculty member in French produced over the summer an online archive of interactive aural and oral lessons for practicing the most difficult pronunciation tasks in the French language. Selecting the key problem phrases, recording a range of native speakers, and arranging these into lessons that can be accessed by computer or downloaded to an iPod, were all part of the project. The collection of lessons is being used in the primary French language course.
- Video analysis of counseling
Four pairs of counselors-in-training retire to four small rooms where they carry on a mock counseling session focusing on a particular issue in the clinical counseling course. The rest of the class monitors the four sessions in the adjacent classroom over digital internet video. The teacher selects one of the sessions for closer analysis, expanding it to fill the screen, and all engage in a directed discussion of the key points. The software permits the eight practice counselors to post their sessions on the web immediately for closer analysis later.
- Physics Predictions
At the beginning of each weekly lecture in beginning physics, a class of hundreds, the faculty sets up a simulation or demonstration of a seemingly commonplace experiment. Before operating the apparatus, the teacher asks the class to predict what will happen, and projects on the screen four choices. Students, without speaking to each other, indicate their choice on their clicker or laptop or cellphone. Class totals are immediately projected. (The choices are carefully planned all to be feasible, so as to distribute evenly among the class.) Discussion follows. More predictions are made. The demonstration proceeds. Aha!
- Medieval France
The team of faculty from the departments of foreign languages, history, art, and music worked over the summer to create an online library of cultural resources on medieval France. Included were recordings of contemporary music, digital reproductions of works of art and architecture, readings, poetry oral and written, interactive timelines that linked all aspects. The team also developed 14 weekly assignments for student that sent them into this rich trove to answer key questions and discover key concepts.
- Podcasts for History
Students in the U.S. History survey course moved far beyond simple reporting to a consideration of the deeper meaning and implications their research. In groups of four or five, the students create podcasts focusing on the content of their findings. Faculty select the best six podcasts based on historical accuracy, interest, and clarity of text and presentation. In the last class meeting of the semester, the students hear the best podcasts and vote on the best using clickers. The process of creating podcasts helps students focus their topics and write more thoughtful research papers.