As part of an ongoing effort to integrate technology and education, the University has launched an initiative to help graduate students use technology to improve their teaching.
The major component of this goal is a new course, GS301 Instructional Uses of Technology, sponsored by the Center for Instructional Technology. Free, noncredit and open to all university graduate students, the course--being taught regularly throughout the year--consists of four workshops: Introduction to Using Technology in Graduate Teaching, Developing and Using Course Web Pages, Using Technology to Enhance Class Presentations and Interactivity and Class Communication.
In the workshops, graduate students learn to use programs like Blackboard, Microsoft PowerPoint and Dreamweaver, as well as general, technology-based methods for improving communication and presentation skills. CIT offers the course in three variations geared toward the humanities, social sciences or natural sciences.
"We look at what aspects of technology can augment teaching..., how to more effectively or more interactively present information in the classroom," said Patrick Murphy, Instructional Technology specialist with CIT and teacher of the course.
The Graduate School is considering requiring the course in an expanded format that would include research methods instruction for all incoming Ph.D. students, said Leigh DeNeef, associate dean of the Graduate School. DeNeef said the current plan is to try out GS301 for one year, analyze its effectiveness and then consider broadening the course beyond teaching skills.
"It's clear there's an explosion of instructional technologies out there; it's not clear how effective the use of them is," DeNeef said. "What's clear is that students familiar with these technologies are going to do better."
Murphy emphasized the importance of introducing graduate students, in particular, to new technologies because they are closer to the digital generation. "We look to [graduate students] for bridging the gap between technology and faculty.... They're more amenable to adopting these things," Murphy said. He added that many resources besides GS301 are available at CIT for graduate students, including one-on-one training workshops of various kinds and specialized equipment.
Several graduate students said they were not aware of GS301, which currently averages about 10 students per workshop, and did not see the benefit of emphasizing technology in the classroom, especially for the basic classes they teach. Some expressed reservations that students could become alienated by a professor's over-reliance on technology.
Carol Chancey, a fourth-year biomedical engineering graduate student, who has completed three of the four workshops, said she is taking the course in preparation for teaching as a professor.
"[Technology] provides a different look on the same material," Chancey said. "Using technology basically improves learning." She emphasized the benefit of using video, three-dimensional images and course web pages to improve communication between students and professors.
"A class like this and this type of instruction is long overdue, and it's too bad it's not more widespread," Chancey said.
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