Throughout the month of February, Instructional Design and eTeaching Services at Boston College is asking students to nominate distinguished faculty for a Teaching with New Media (TWIN) Award in recognition of their use of innovative technology in the classroom.
"We work so closely with faculty, but we really don't have the student perspective. Faculty members like to try out new technology, but it doesn't always work. This is a way to hear from the students," said Jeanne Po, associate director of Instructional Design and eTeaching at BC. The Instructional Design and eTeaching office oversees all the technological support for WebCT, manages five computer classes, and works with faculty on large projects relating to classroom technology.
Po notes that the TWIN award program is growing steadily. "The first year, we had less than 100 nominations, and last year we had around 300. This year, we have between 160 to 170 nominations so far," she said. Students are encouraged to fill out a short nomination form on www.bc.edu/twin and comment freely on how one of their professors uses recently developed technology to assist student learning through a variety of media. This kind of new technology could include PowerPoint, blogging, e-mail, WebCT, other "virtual spaces," and gaming technology, to name a few.
The nominations are then processed and former recipients of the award are taken out of the running. Once the semifinalists have been named, a selection committee comprised of faculty, staff, and students reviews all the course material of each instructor, including any Web sites, and selects the group of finalists. Each recipient garners special recognition from the Provost and is also awarded a prize, which, in the past two years has been an iPod. "The use of technology by faculty is not acknowledged in the tenure-track program, so these awards give faculty some recognition," said Po.
Bonnie Jefferson, a professor in the communication department and a former recipient of the TWIN award, is one of those noted faculty members in the field of innovative technology. Her class, Rhetorical Tradition, was part of the pilot program for WebCT at BC four years ago. WebCT technology was primarily used in the sciences at that time, but Dale Herbeck, the chair of the communication department, proposed the idea of incorporating it into their discipline, which has the largest number of student majors.
"We figured out that about one-ninth of the undergraduate population has to take this class, so that justified sinking some money into it," said Jefferson. The proposal was drafted in the spring of 2003 and the site was developed during the summer. Jefferson knew she wanted to put supplementary video clips onto the site, so she began creating a list. Fortunately, copyright protection costs were not a problem, as WebCT was a closed system intended for educational purposes.
Jefferson worked with a designer to create the look of the site, a media librarian to obtain better copies of the video clips, some of which she had taped herself, a digitizer to digitize all the clips, a manager from Instructional Design and eTeaching to manage the project, and a graduate assistant. By the fall of 2003, the site was up and running. And despite a few small problems, the Web site has been extremely successful since. Jefferson has also made presentations on WebCT at various conferences and eLearning days.
Having taught Rhetorical Tradition for 10 years, Jefferson has seen the evolution of technology in action. She remembers a time when her class was broken up into smaller sections and held in McGuinn 121 before it was renovated. "We had to wheel the VCR in on a cart, and many days it just wouldn't work," she said. Outside of class, she didn't have the ability to hold online discussions or require more viewing of video clips. Homework consisted of reading assignments only, which did not comprise a representative sample of all the mediums used in studying communication. Today, with WebCT and well-equipped rooms like Devlin 008, new technology can be easily incorporated into her lectures.
Clare O'Connor, a professor in the biology department, is also involved in another classroom technology pilot program at BC. Her large classes, Survey of Biology and Genetics, use Personal Response System (PRS) clickers to answer questions during her lectures. On a projection screen, the question is displayed, and students are asked to choose one of the answers within a set time limit. The percentage of students who selected each option as their answer is displayed on the screen as well as the number of people who answered each question.
"It's important to know if students understand what you just did, but it's often intimidating for a student to raise his or her hand in a large class," said O'Connor. By looking at how students answered the question, she can see what areas are problematic for the majority of the class and better address them. O'Connor also notes that using the PRS can help change the pace of a lecture class because it allows for periodic student interaction. Students become more engaged and often discuss the question with a friend next to them to confirm their reasoning. O'Connor notes that, from what she's heard, students are divided on the success of the PRS. "Some like it a lot, but others don't like waiting for the answers to come up," she said.
In addition to the PRS technology, O'Connor also utilizes WebCT and PowerPoint in her classes. She was one of the first at BC to use PowerPoint technology, which is now an accepted norm but still valued greatly in her field. "Biology is a pictorial discipline," she said. PowerPoint is a definite upgrade from slide projection, as the pictures and diagrams are clearer and students can now print out the slides for each lecture before class. On WebCT, O'Connor uses the discussion boards as a forum for students to ask questions, as well as the online quiz tool which automatically grades online quizzes for her.
These are just two members of BC's accomplished faculty whose classrooms have pioneered new technology for the University at large. There are many others, and it is up to the students to give them the recognition they deserve by nominating them for a TWIN award.
Be the first to comment on this article!