I recently returned from the annual POD conference in Louisville, Kentucky where I gained more ideas and perspectives to support DMU initiatives. One notable experience was touring the new Teaching Innovation Learning Lab (TILL) at University of Louisville. They designed and constructed a new space for “faculty-driven exploration and testing of innovative teaching methods that will drive success for the 21st century student”. It looked very much like a page directly out of the Steelcase catalog! Their CTL and faculty were very proud and excited about the space, much as we are about our own Munroe space. It has already been a full year since we completed the Munroe renovation. It seems like a good time to celebrate somehow. Any ideas? My “active learning mannequin challenge” idea wasn’t received as strongly as I’d hoped today in CTL. The gifts of educational technology is the theme of this newsletter. We are fortunate to have a large and varied amount of educational technology available for our use for our own productivity and to integrate into our teaching and learning. Our students are completely comfortable with technology and expect that we integrate it effectively to enhance student learning. In the most recent Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, 70% of faculty believe technology in the classroom leads to improved student outcomes. Although those numbers are down from the previous year, possibly due to this year being an election year, the clear majority of faculty value the gift of technology for teaching. We can consider any class meeting taking place in a virtual computer lab since students bring their laptops with them, and all laptops have the same software image so we don’t have to plan ahead to make sure all have access to certain applications. We know the network connections work all the time and can take advantage of that connectivity at any time during class time. We can share multimedia material on the fly and instantly poll our students to check for understanding. Our teaching limits seem to only be our time and imagination! Jose Bowen, in his book Teaching Naked: How moving technology out of your classroom will improve student learning, provides a wonderful way to look at technology when he says, “Application and integration of knowledge are about making connections, and technology hands us a connecting tool” (p. 136). His book discusses how technology allows us to guide students to information available online and for us to integrate it as course material. Students can view the information independently allowing us to maximize class time for application of and interaction with the content, providing you the opportunity to guide their processing accurately and effectively. (CTL has this book available for checkout.) This is complementary to flipping the classroom where students are guided to materials to prepare for the class interactions. The preparatory material can be created by you or chosen from the immense array of information publicly available online. One maxim I have heard shared is “Do what you do best and link to the rest.” If there is already a well-produced learning object that meets one of your needs for basic content, plan to use that and spend your time planning for how you will get students interacting and applying it to the course objectives. It might be helpful to think about what is the best use of your time in preparation and in class with the students. What a gift to yourself that would be to free up your time spent creating basic informational materials so you can focus on developing impactful learning experiences for your students to make solid learning connections! As you consider your educational technology “Santa list”, you might be interested in the following article discussing Campus Technology’s 2016 Teaching with Technology survey: Top 10 Education Technologies that Will Be Dead and Gone in the Next Decade. It provides lists of technologies that are seen as decreasing in importance over the next several years, although it notes that no instructional technology will become obsolete, just unavailable. In contrast to the Inside Higher Ed survey cited above, it has an optimistic view of technology in education and shares that 97% of higher education faculty believe technology’s role will be positive in the future. From 3D and touch technology to augmented reality and gaming, there will be so many more technology gifts to come. As you work to become more innovative in your curricula, remember that we in CTL are here to assist you in that process, including educational technology. We have and will continue collaborating with ITS and the Library to develop programming and services to help you give the gift of learning to your students. There are a couple remaining openings for faculty to enroll in the Magna Publications Principles of Effective College Teaching online course. As a cohort, we will meet for discussion after completing each of the 3 units online. The meetings will take place in January and February, but I have enrolled some faculty already who are getting started on the course. There are some more interesting and relevant articles in the SoTL Corner for you. As always, I welcome your input and feedback regarding CTL services. Thank you for all your support and involvement in our activities! Continued success, Kerry Dr. Kerry Gregoryk, CTL Director Upcoming Workshops
![]()
SoTL CornerEach month, CTL will share links to articles and multimedia items of interest that fit current DMU activities. These will be archived with each newsletter for your future reference.
Ellaway, R., & Masters, K. (2009, Jul 3). AMEE Guide 32: e-Learning in medical education Part 1: Learning, teaching and assessment. Medical Teacher, 455-473. Magna Publications. (n.d.). Making Multiple-Choice Exams Better. Masters, K. (2016, Mar 24). Mobile technologies in medical education: AMEE Guide No. 105. Medical Teacher. Motola, I., Devine, L., Chung, H., Sullivan, J., & Issenberg, B. (2013, Aug 13). Simulation in healthcare education: A best evidence practical guide. AMEE Guide No. 82. Medical Teacher, e1511-e1530. Orlando, J. (n.d.). Top Online Course Design Mistakes. Magna Publications. Ramani, S. (2009, Jul 3). AMEE Guide no. 34: teaching in the clinical environment. Medical Teacher, 347-364. Sanders, J. (2009, Sep 9). The use of reflection in medical education: AMEE Guide No. 44. Medical Teacher, 685-695. Schallhauser, D., & Kelly, R. (2016, Nov 2). Campus Technology. Top 10 Education Technologies that Will Be Dead and Gone in the Next Decade. Straumsheim, C. (2016, Oct 24). Inside Higher Ed. Doubts About Data: 2016 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology. Taylor, D., & Hamdy, H. (2013, Sep 4). Adult learning theories: Implications for learning and teaching in medical education: AMEE Guide No. 83. Medical Teacher, e1561-e1572. Yardley, S., Teunissen, P., & Dornan, T. (2012, Jan 30). Experiential learning: AMEE Guide No. 63. Medical Teacher, e102-e115. Young, J., Van Merrienboer, J., Durning, S., & Cate, O. T. (2014, Mar 4). Cognitive Load Theory: Implications for medical education: AMEE Guide No. 86. Medical Teacher, 372-384.
0 Comments
|