Instructional Technologies and Learners

The meaning of "student" is evolving at Duke University in response to many institutional and faculty outreach efforts. This trend is mirrored at many of Duke’s peer institutions. We see the concept of "learners" expanding beyond traditionally enrolled college students to include community participants, youth enrolled in talent programs, and continuing education students. At the same time, the realm of academic services faculty use for teaching has grown beyond traditional institutionally provided services such as Blackboard to encompass Flickr, blogs, Twitter, and any new technology available to faculty for free. How can we address the expansion in student population and in resources? How do you extend your institution’s computing resources to people outside your campus? How do you extend your local service concepts and policies to the end-user commodity-driven applications that are within any faculty’s reach? Lynne O'Brien and Klara Jelinkova will discuss the issues, concepts, and solutions surrounding identity management proposed and implemented at Duke University.

This research bulletin examines what the literature refers to as “new learners” or “critically engaged learners.” It explores the responsibilities our institutions have to create opportunities for these learners to actively engage in creative discovery, problem definition, and appropriate use of information technologies. It is based on a literature review and accompanying conceptualizations that begin to answer important questions about institutional development for a technologically sophisticated age.

Citation for this work : Moore, Anne H., Shelli B. Fowler, Brent K. Jesiek, John F. Moore, and C. Edward Watson. “Learners 2.0? IT and 21st-Century Learners in Higher Education” (Research Bulletin, Issue 7). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

This session will demonstrate how a redesign in overhead slides can create presentations that foster a more learner-centric rather than teacher-centric model. A change in emphasis from verbal to visual promotes active learning and increases comprehension, encourages deductive reasoning, and improves retention.

Podcasts solve some leaner-centered problems typical of adult learners. We will describe how we designed several types of podcasts to deliver portable audio and video content to aid nursing students in learning procedural and conceptual knowledge using mobile devices as well as in more static contexts.

Current theories suggest that learning is facilitated when embedded in the context in which it will be used, but the constraints of the traditional classroom make implementing this difficult to impossible. This session will focus on exploring how new technologies such as virtual environments can situate learning in a "real" virtual context, motivate students while helping them develop scientific habits of mind, and support teachers in leading complex scientific inquiries.

An online virtual case-based management system was developed to provide an interactive learning portal using simulated case scenarios, collaborative learning, decision support, and real-time assessment of student motivation and decision skills. Learn how to dynamically create and implement online case scenarios using virtual characters, speech, and other media-rich content.

How do you actively engage students when they all have laptops in class? Among other techniques, engagement is achieved through focused activities by using collaborative note-taking, student response tools, and content replay. This poster will illustrate uses of DyKnow to help students and faculty achieve this goal.

Digital storytelling assignments involve students in firsthand multimedia authorship. But what does the story-making experience feel like from the learner's perspective? What can students tell us about the impact of these types of assignments on their learning? Student interviews about their story-making experiences provide insight into the gestalt of digital storytelling.

Engineering Informatics for Bio-Inspired Robots is an NSF-funded project trying to break down barriers to collaboration between engineering and computer science departments. Faculty members participating in the project are teaching the next generation of engineers and computer scientists to produce intelligent design by reaching across disciplines. The goal is to ensure that students are better prepared to tackle the multidisciplinary demands of the engineering and computing industries. As part of the project, participating institutions are leveraging cyberinfrastructure to share expertise, store research results, and advocate for multidisciplinary instruction, demonstrating the power of inter-institutional cooperation for teaching and learning.