IT Integration and Teaching

Launched in January 2006, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at the University of South Carolina is located in the heart of campus in the Thomas Cooper Library. Enabling the wise use of new technologies to enhance student learning and providing synergy to campus teaching support activities through a systems approach are two of the CTE's five stated goals. To achieve these goals, the CTE created a new associate director position for teaching technology excellence.

A new studio classroom inspired excitement and motivated productive feedback from early faculty and student users.

How can we bring authentic learning, with real-world outcomes and assessments, into the history/social science classroom? This session will discuss the presenter's efforts to design and teach digital history seminars in partnership with museum professionals at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Monticello.

This presentation focuses on a collaborative local history project between Duke University undergraduates and Durham eighth graders. Through their research seminar, Duke students conduct original research in local archives and then mentor eighth graders in how to use technology, particularly the Digital Durham website http://digitaldurham.duke.edu

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.

As a takeoff on the popular reality TV series Project Runway, Project Technology follows six faculty during a school year as they attempt to effectively integrate technology into their teaching to enhance student learning. Session attendees will learn and see firsthand how faculty members struggled with and mastered new technologies.

Successful higher education e-learning environments exemplify clear alignment among seven factors: objectives, content, instructional design, learner tasks, instructor roles, technological affordances, and assessment. Objectives and assessment are commonly misaligned, but misalignments can be addressed using instructional designs focused on authentic tasks and assessments.

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.

Transformational faculty-development efforts must involve systematic, goal-directed, sustained activities that are integral to the daily work of academic community members.

As faculty members confront the expanding impact that technology is having on their scholarship, research, teaching, and students, IT organizations must assess their role in shaping, implementing, and supporting the assimilation of IT into the teaching and learning process.