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Volume 8, Number 3: December 6, 2001

More from Bill Cerbin on Technology and Student Learning

Afterthoughts on how to support experimentation and implementation of technologies to improve students' learning.
  • Many instructors, especially untenured ones, say they choose not to experiment with new teaching approaches because they fear their student evaluations will drop. Can't we develop campus policies that support risk-taking and experimentation in the name of better teaching and learning?

  • Include improvement of teaching and learning with technology as a criterion in the tenure and promotion process.

  • Align the use of technology in teaching with the scholarship of teaching and learning. Urge faculty to take their work to the next level: present it publicly and seek peer review. There are a number of high profile projects engaged in this kind of work. See the Merlot Project (http://www.merlot.org/Home.po) and the Visible Knowledge Project (http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp/).

  • Establish a stronger collaboration between the staff who do instructional technology training and those who work with instructional/faculty development. One of the best examples of this collaboration is the work by Barbara Walvoord and Kevin Barry at Notre Dame who have presented at Faculty College and on several UW campuses. Their approach engages faculty in a course design process and helps them helps them choose technologies that will facilitate good learning and good use of faculty and student time (See http://twut.nd.edu/fw/).

  • Support faculty collaboration. Departments and programs are key units in which larger numbers of faculty can participate in improvement of teaching and learning projects. These are likely to reach some faculty who never participate in campus-wide teaching workshops and seminars. More importantly, they can organize faculty around shared learning goals for students in a program and department. At UW-La Crosse, for example, we have been modestly successful in working with departments to develop students' writing abilities and ability to learn through writing. Something similar might be done with technology (See http://www.uwlax.edu/wimp/)

  • Public support from key administrators. It is true that faculty will resist things foisted upon them by administration. But many faculty take their cues from the Chancellor and from the Provost/Vice Chancellor. The Chancellor and Provost have the ability to set the tone and bigger picture about student learning on campus. Moreover, this would resonate with the preponderance of faculty who do care about student learning.

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