Electronic Classrooms

The Miami University English department and Academic Technology Services developed new laptop classrooms, digital writing curricula, and instructor training programs. Currently 30 percent of all required first-year writing courses are taught in networked laptop classrooms. We will focus on English/IT collaborations, instructor preparation, and the impact on student learning. Qualitative and quantitative data, including video interview clips with students, will be shared.

Today's millennial Hispanics are part of a generational wave of young students likely to be more disengaged in traditional learning environments. Discover how a new generation of learning classrooms can increase millennial students' engagement at your college and learn about faculty's perceptions of this new environment.

Our Team Learning Classroom was designed to support a variety of teaching approaches, including team-based learning. This presentation will review the design challenges, methods, and support models for creating a successful, flexible, technology-enabled classroom that encourages faculty to explore innovative teaching and learning modalities.

Contemporary learning theory emphasizes the importance of student engagement during class. For example, the National Research Council encourages educators to provide "active learning environments for all students, even in large section, lecture dominated courses." Contrast this with the traditional classroom where a teacher writes copiously on a blackboard while each student's energy is devoted to mechanically copying the instructor's board work. Students are often so busy copying that they only occasionally find time to listen to the teacher, engage with the material, and exchange ideas with others in the class. Even when teachers use technology such as PowerPoint to enhance their presentations, students are rarely engaged in interactive learning activities. In this context, PowerPoint is being used as a presentation system to direct a message to the students; however, providing the active learning environments urged by the National Research Council requires moving beyond the old concept of a presentation system to a new concept called an interaction system.