Faculty Development and Presentations/Speeches

Course management systems provide many features that enhance teaching and learning. Choosing one from among the many systems available is a major decision and commitment for any institution. The best way to evaluate a CMS is a semester-long test to ensure that both instructors and students gain a deep understanding of its features and limitations. Currently we are conducting a CMS project in which three platforms are running simultaneously: Blackboard, Moodle, and Sakai. The project will evaluate the usability/management for each. This presentation will discuss the challenges and lessons learned during our project.

This session will describe lessons learned from the perspective of a public institution's creation of a "new" academic technologist role. The process included the willingness of IT leadership to innovate to improve teaching and learning, paying attention to best practices, promoting assessment to inform decision making, and nourishing a collaborative culture in support of faculty development. We will share our early experiences with defining and implementing the directorship.

Using technology to improve teaching and learning is of interest to every faculty member. Faculty have many questions: How do I enhance interaction through visuals and media? How do I build community online? How do I engage the students online? How do I ensure the integrity of student work? What are the best approaches to providing feedback? How do I manage the workload? This presentation will review a collaborative approach to identifying and addressing the needs of faculty in using technology in a blended and online format.

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.

University at Buffalo has formed a new unit within our central IT organization with a focus on research coordination and advocacy. This talk describes our motivation, progress, challenges, and next steps as we continue to develop the unit and address multidisciplinary research needs.

A new "action research" model for fostering the use of videoconferencing for faculty collaboration will be demonstrated and described. The project team provided behavior models that engaged the faculty directly rather than focusing on training and techniques. Evaluating the project's success using survey and interview data will also be presented.

CSU has over 10,000 students with disabilities, with a significant year-to-year increase. Efforts are currently under way to address how to better serve students with disabilities, while meeting or exceeding federal and state mandates. This presentation will share system-wide progress in terms of faculty and staff development and student impact.

Turn high tech into "my tech" with a free Gmail account to access and use Google's free power tools! You don't need to be a web developer to manage your classroom, committee, and department digital files online. Learn how to apply Google's free tools to your everyday needs.

What do faculty really want from faculty development efforts designed to help them teach with technology? How can institutions best meet faculty needs in this area? This presentation will share results from longitudinal studies of faculty, students, and technology at the University of Minnesota and will discuss the impact of these results on our faculty development efforts.

Faculty Innovators, a 24-month professional development program in the use of emergent technologies, was designed to meet increasing student skills and expectations for technology integration in higher education instruction. This session will highlight the program's seven-year evolution and impact on the teaching, learning, and research process.