Portfolio of Strategies for Improving Teaching and Learning with Technology

The questions derive from my colleague Steve Gilbert's suggestion that an institution needs a balanced portfolio of strategies in order to make wide and deep improvements in teaching and learning with technology. 

• The improvements ought to generally relate to the institution's mission and character. 
• Some specific improvements ought to affect many people (although perhaps not dramatically). 
• Others ought to produce major improvements in outcome or efficiency (but not necessarily affect many people yet). 
• Both types of improvement need a reliable foundation of technology and skill that can support them. 
• And all of this - improvements, foundation, and services ought to be guided by the feedback of assessment. 

When answering these questions, please focus on your own college or school within USC (unless, if your position is USC-wide; if so, please answer this question in terms of the whole University). When you've finished answering these questions, please click "submit" at the bottom of the form.

1.

When considering how technology might be better used to improve learning here, what are two or three important elements of the University's or your college's educational mission, history and/or character? They might relate to what you need to achieve, what you want to conserve, why it's hard to do some things, etc. (Just a phrase or sentence for each one.)

[The College of Ed vision is to be "responsive, engaged, collaborative". In a state with a high poverty rate and many rural schools, it is essential that we model learning through technology so that our school leaders can learn to use technology to enhance learning throughout K-12 in our state.] [1)Increasing size of undergraduate classes 2) need to create a "seamless" university" 3)lack of coordinated approach to faculty development for technology-based teaching and learning 4)emphasis on research may overshadow the need for improvement in teaching] [1. "support the growth of aspiring and practicing educators" 2. "developing and sharing our expertise and leadership"] [Access to technology seems to be improving, but is still on a departmental basis. So, for example, I have been using a smart classroom to teach a large introductory class beginning with the first enhanced classroom on campus. But I have never gotten to use the computer aspects to such a classroom because I don't personally own a notebook. I've heard rumors that our department has one, but it has not been readily accessible to all of us. Then there are still university-wide problems with using technology. I've been posting Blackboard sites on my courses since the university got the license. But the university has never cleared up their server capacity regarding Blackboard -- this past week, for example, I spent one hour one night trying to get on my Blackboard site and never could. ] [1. Reach beyond Columbia campus - USC is a system 2. Professional development for faculty - use of instructional technologies 3. Get beyond the "not invented here" syndrome to eliminate redundancy]

2.

One important component of a portfolio of change strategies are those "wide" improvements in educational uses of technology  that affect many people at an institution. Of course, a "wide" improvement in teaching and learning with technology is often "shallow" but that often lowers its costs.  Example of a wide, shallow practice: "many faculty in our college read and respond to student e-mail." Such improvements can sometimes be informal and incremental -- gradual changes in the way many people teach, learn, and support learning. Please briefly describe one or two recent or current "wide" improvements at your college.

[I use Blackboard for Discussion groups in a class that is provided via television, statewide. We conduct discussions on assigned readings (sometimes with the author participating), use discussion groups for students to develop monitored feedback skills with each other, etc.] [widespread use of Blackboard to supplement instruction] [Blackboard is good example. Don't have a lot of power users but a good number of faculty use the software. Listservs are another example.] [I think the use of Blackboard, which also increases email communication between student and professor, is on the increase even in my department -- now perhaps 1/4 or even 1/3 of us use it. Having overhead projectors and VCRs placed permanently in classrooms has been a tremendous help for us, who are so visually oriented. ] [1. Movement toward consolidation of multiple email systems 2. Improvements in networking - redundancy and reliability]

3.

"Deep" improvements use technology to help make major, meaningful, visible progress in education: what people learn, how well they learn, who can learn, and/or what it costs. Such improvements are sometimes "narrow," affecting only a course or two. In your college, what are one or two such recent or current "deep" improvements?

[I think we have MUCh to do in learning AND using strategies to assess learning and, more importantly, from my perspective to change HOW we effect learning in our programs.] [Individual faculty are interested in web pedagogy and course development Examples: Nursing J410, Lomicka's key pal project with France, COMD J700 interactive lab] [Total distance education delivery of a complete degree program (e.g., Masters Degree in Educational Administration). Another example is the South Carolina Reading Initiative (SCRI) and certain web-based classes in educational psychology.] [The beginning of the New Media Group may have this effect -- I couldn't attend their conference(s) due to time conflicts. The recent Blackboard Institute may have helped, but again it was scheduled at times that were impossible for me to attend even though I wanted to. DEIS has been offering seminars that could help people devise technological courses (e.g., long distance) -- if one can get to the scheduled times. ] [1. Thorough integration of Blackboard into instruction by some faculty. 2. Recognition by many faculty with research interests of the primacy of access to computational resources.]

The next two questions ask you to rate two important supports for teaching and learning with technology: the information technology foundation and your unit's capacity to get feedback that can guide practice (assessment).
Please rate the following supports.			Choose from the following options
			Distinctive strength	2	3	4	Serious roadblock	No Opinion
4.	A college's "IT foundation" includes those elements of its IT infrastructure and support that work for almost everyone (e.g., e-mail access) and those elements of information literacy skill that virtually everyone has (e.g., the ability to send and receive e-mail).  Please assess your IT foundation's effectiveness in helping the college or University make educational progress.		[0]	[4]	[1]	[0]	[0]	[0]
5.	In order to make educational progress relatively swiftly and safely, a college and its staff need to be able to see whether educational uses of technology are changing, to see if educational outcomes are improving (or deteriorating), and analyze the costs of new practices before growth results in broken budgets or demoralized staff. Let's call those kinds of guiding feedback "assessment."  Please rate assessment in terms of its contribution to educational progress here.		[0]	[0]	[1]	[4]	[0]	[0]

6.

Any other comments or questions about education and technology at USC that you'd like us to talk about in our session?

[I rated # 5 a "4" only because we have NOT done it - I don't think it's an unwillingness to learn from technology or to use technology for learning. I think we just have NOT done it. I'm trying to change that! ;-) Thank you for coming and I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday. Fly safely. Peace, Jacque Jacobs] [Although the University offers a wide variety of faculty development events through DEIS, CS, HR, libraries, FCID, etc., the program is very fragmented. From your experience in working with other universities, can you recommend a "best practice"/model for a more effective approach?] [Lack of unified way of handling technology in teaching. Too many people going off in their own directions. Non-existence of a university Center for Technology, Teaching, and Learning.] [Uneven access or abilities depending on investment by departments (although there are some university-wide or college-wide funding sources available). ] [No matter how intellectually rigorous and creative our approaches to education and technology, some improvements absolutely require money. USC has not dealt with that fundamental issue satisfactorily.]

This survey was created with Flashlight Online. USC has a site license for Flashlight Online, which means that you can create an unlimited number of free authoring accounts for your staff, faculty and students to do research or evaluation.  For more information on Flashlight at USC, please contact Ruth Patterson, DEIS, Instructional Development Group (ruthp@gwm.sc.edu).

Steve Ehrmann, Director, The Flashlight Program

End of Survey