Academic Transformation :: Educational Technologies at Missouri, Mizzou

Series on Academic Transformation

Have you identified challenges in one or more courses that, if you could overcome them, would improve teaching and learning? Do you have ideas for how to improve teaching and learning through technology innovation, but could use help implementing those ideas? Academic Transformation can help you redesign your course(s) to improve teaching and learning through the use of educational technologies.

GOALS

Sponsored by Educational Technologies at Missouri (ET@MO), Academic Transformation is for MU teams committed to redesigning one or more key courses for teaching and learning improvement. For this project, "transformative change” involves sustainable technologies coupled with pedagogical practices which improve teaching and learning by addressing one or more of these goals:

Increasing student-faculty interactions
Meeting the needs of unique student populations
Establishing interdisciplinary teaching collaborations
Articulating learning outcomes and improving assessment
Advancing the scholarship of using technology in teaching
Meeting enrollment pressure and/or addressing staffing issues
Improving retention and reducing the retake and/or withdraw rate
Integrating diversity and/or international components within the curriculum

HOW ACADEMIC TRANSFORMATION WORKS

Request for Proposals – Email the information requested below by July 1st to Danna Vessell, Interim Director of ET@MO, at etatmo@missouri.edu.

Contact Information: name, department affiliation, and email address for each team member (designate a leader)
Course(s): identify the course(s) which stand to benefit from the project
Rationale: describe the current "challenge" with the course(s) and any possible solutions you might have already thought about. Indicate how your plan relates to one or more of the transformation goals listed above
Outcomes: identify the anticipated outcomes of your finished project
Evaluation: indicate how you will know if your project is successful and how you plan to assess the improvement in teaching and learning
Budget: include a draft budget of how funds will be used (examples: teaching assistant, release time, materials, equipment, professional development)
Departmental Commitment: please secure a statement of support from the department chair addressing the value of this project to the department

Fall Welcome & Workshop – In the fall term, Academic Transformation kicks off with a welcome orientation and demonstrations hosted by previous Academic Transformation teams. A followup half-day workshop led by ET@MO staff helps fine-tune participants’ projects by identifying campus resources, integrating instructional design strategies, and generating team momentum.

Throughout the Year – Faculty teams begin implementing their project plans according to a timeline and budget co-developed with an ET@MO liaison. Teams will meet regularly with their ET@MO liaison and also be expected to participate in a sampling of technology demonstrations or other official Academic Transformation events. In the spring, faculty teams will demonstrate their accomplishments to all current Academic Transformation participants and to their home department.

Teams are eligible for funding assistance to “seed” the beginnings of their transformation plan. Because transformation is more successful as a team process rather than an individual one, departmental endorsement of the project and collaboration with peers is required. A departmental match (or a partial match) is encouraged but not essential.

SOME PREVIOUS PROJECTS

Agricultural Economics - Jan Dauve increased student engagement in his economics course by integrating student response systems (“clickers”) into his lectures. In addition to his pedagogical revisions, Jan’s subsequent research on the experience has advanced the scholarship of teaching by demonstrating best practices in using the response system.

Mathematics - Using several educational technologies, including Camtasia Studio and a tablet PC, Jason Aubrey produced narrated animation tutorials which provide a review of basic algebra concepts as well as introduce new material such as finite mathematics and calculus. These tutorials give students an opportunity outside of class to improve their understanding through enhanced explanations, follow along with narrated practice problems, and take knowledge-check quizzes.

Nursing - Kristen Metcalf-Wilson and a team of nursing faculty replaced traditional paper-based professional nursing portfolios, a capstone requirement, with e-portfolios. Students now may store and comment on exemplary course work, professional logs, and demonstrated competencies. Nursing faculty as well as outside adjudicators review and evaluate student performance via this system, which streamlines the evaluation process and allows students to be more active and reflective in their learning.

Art History & Archaeology - With increased enrollment pressure, the need for consistency among discussion sections, and the effective delivery of course materials, Anne Stanton and a team of faculty and graduate students, who recognized their challenges. Their solution was to develop a digital image repository for use in lectures, discussion sections, and online. Student engagement outside the lectures and section meetings increased through the use of quizzes with embedded terminology and images.

Textile & Apparel Management – Jana Hawley and colleagues initiated a virtual version of the Missouri Textile and Apparel Collection. When fully implemented, the project will give students online access to over 5,000 museum pieces – something otherwise impossible with delicate, damaged, and rare items. Currently, students are building the virtual collection as a part of their coursework; when complete, access to the collection will enable a variety of unique new assignment possibilities throughout the entire department.

Journalism – Technology resources and redesigned assignments were integrated into J2100, a foundation course in the School of Journalism. The basics of interviewing, previously covered in a paper and pencil-style assignment now involves students using digital audio-video equipment and software to produce interviews that demonstrate their skills and competencies. These video interviews provide a more authentic, "real world" demonstration of student understanding.

Biology - Bethany Stone and a team of colleagues designed interactive animations of complex biological systems to help students visualize processes and relationships between biological substances and sub-cellular processes. Deployable across several courses, from General Biology to Genetics, these animations were storyboarded, planned, and created by the team using multimedia authoring software.

Physical Therapy - Using a customized digital media station, Connie Blow created multimedia artifacts (e.g., digital video, audio) that were integrated into physical therapy and interdisciplinary case studies enriching the existing curriculum and encouraging more integrated approaches at teaching between physical, occupational, and speech therapies. Connie also serves as an in-house expert to other members of the department by orienting and supporting their efforts to produce and incorporate such artifacts into their curriculum.