Projects and Involvement

NERCOMP SIG Featuring TD On December 1, 2009
Ron Frattura and Stephanie Cheney presented a session for “Steal This Workshop” (link to: http://www.nercomp.org/events/event_single.aspx?id=5882) sponsored by NERCOMP at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Attendees of this SIG went home with access to lesson plans, scripts, handouts, slides, and exercises from colleagues at other institutions. Presenters walked us through a streamlined version of their workshop and best practices for using their material. Workshops focused on areas that translate well to many campuses; the menu includes web 2.0 tools, managing personal digital resources and using multimedia in teaching and learning.

MyMathLab
A team of AMS faculty has been working together over the spring and summer to create and implement a new placement test using the MyMath Lab system for in coming freshman. The students received notification of their placement test in June and were required to complete their first math placement test before orientation. The MyMath Lab system enabled students to take on line math prep tests. Based on their test results, The MyMath lab system prescribed practice exercises in the area(s) of each student’s deficiencies to ensure better results in retaking the test in the fall. To enhance students success rates, AMS included facilitated study groups and tutoring from the Center for Teaching and Learning.

SITE Conference - March 2010
Stephanie Cheney is serving on the SITE Program Committee. The Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). SITE is unique as the only organization which has as its sole focus the integration of instructional technologies into teacher education programs. SITE promotes the development and dissemination of theoretical knowledge, conceptual research, and professional practice knowledge through conferences, books, projects, and the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (JTATE). The focus of this year’s conference will be Teaching with Technology: Engaging Students through 21st Century Learning. The conference will be held in San Diego, California on March 26-April 2, 2010. For more information on this event, please see http://site.aace.org/conf/.

ED-MEDIA Conference - June 2009
Monique Fuchs is serving for the third year on the ED-Media Program Committee. The World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). This annual conference serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the discussion and exchange of information on the research, development, and applications on all topics related to multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications/distance education. This year's conference will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii on June 22-26. For more information on this event, please see http://www.aace.org/CONF/EDMEDIA/.

Book Chapter to be Published in 2009
Monique Fuchs and Stephanie Cheney have had their proposal accepted to write a book chapter on Positioning the Learning Organization for a Successful Distance Education Strategy in the upcoming book Distance Learning Technology, Current Instruction, and the Future of Education: Applications of Today, Practices of Tomorrow edited by Dr. Holim Song (Texas Southern University) due to be published in 2009 by IGI Globa

NELIG Panel on Strategic Collaborations to Promote Information Literacy
Monique Fuchs and Stephanie Cheney from DTS TD were invited to participate in the New England Library Instruction Group (NELIG) regional panel on Strategic Collaborations to Promote Information Literacy Across Your Campus on December 5, 2008. They were joined by Bridget McNamee, Disability Outreach Services; Karen Britton, Center for Teaching and Learning, and Rachel Zyirek, Library, on the Wentworth campus to discuss the formation of the Wentworth CONNECT collaborative joining DTS Training and Development, Counseling Services, Center for Teaching and Learning and the Alumni Library. The event was held simultaneously at Franklin Pierce University, Yale University, and Wentworth Institute of Technology. The CONNECT learning initiative combines faculty development offerings from all constituents including workshops, lectures, activities, and events relevant to faculty in a single web-based calendar and also sponsors a guest lecture series during the academic year. In addition to the CONNECT collaborative, Monique and Stephanie also explained the WIT Faculty Technology Mentoring Program that is the result of a collaboration between DTS Training and Development and the Division of Academic Affairs/Office of the Provost to provide an opportunity for Wentworth faculty to share their expertise and experience with their peers. Video recordings of the event is available here.

Student Assessments
To assure quality instruction and the achievement of the desired learning outcomes, TD designs and develops evaluation tools and assessments on all levels of the course. TD works with the instructor to determine desired assessment outcomes and either executes the assessment independently or in collaboration with the faculty member. The results are visualized within a report to assure accessibility and integrity of the data.

Online Communication Tools
Wikis, Blogs, Instant Messenger, Chats and Discussion Forums are taking off at Wentworth. The students are already well accustomed with any of those technologies and the challenge is now for instructors to make it as interesting to use within a class setting and with clear learning objectives. Many projects have been centered around the effective use of online communication tools within a face-to-face classroom offering the opportunity to bridge the gap between time and distance and allowing external experts in different locations around the world to become integral part of the course. TD explores constantly new ideas on how to utilize those online tools for sound communication and collaboration practices and developed many best practices in this field.

Podcasting
Over the course of the last semesters Podcasting has become a buzz word in the educational world. TD started to create an initiative called A3M – Art and Architecture on the Move. Participating faculty members receive individualized consultation and guidance on how to create podcasts for their students and how to integrate them effectively into the classroom.

Online Journals
A number of faculty members have already successfully utilized Online Journals in their classes and report that students are not only more engaged in their assignments, but actually create higher quality work. The reason is that the created contents are publicly accessible to everyone within the class. TD developed together with faculty members an implementation plan outlining the different stages the students have to go through - from web development to instructional design – and mentored the faculty members through this process.

Curriculum Development
TD provides extensive curriculum development consulting to all departments on campus. Each department is being assessed based on current faculty competencies, envisioned competencies discussed with the department heads and a customized curriculum developed to meet those projected needs. The TD team conducted many individual and group consultations and coaching to facilitate the changing teaching and learning landscape. More importantly than the integration of learning technology, however, is the changing face of instructional design, teaching strategies and the determination of meaningful learning objectives. TD has embraced this aspect in all departmental initiatives and built faculty competencies that support this goal.

Eportfolio Integration
In 2004 the Architecture Department started the implementation of an E-Portfolio initiative, which required all students to develop online portfolios to showcase their work and to serve as a marketing tool to apply for coop positions, internships or the first job after college. TD was instrumental in the implementation of a train-the-trainer process for faculty members enabling them to teach the creation of eportfolios to their students.

During the following years many other faculty members from various departments have started to implement e-portfolios as integral part of the firs-year education. Assessments of students confirmed that they are extremely excited about this opportunity and view it as a critical tool on their job search. TD continues to be an educational partner that offers guidance and consulting on faculty members’ competencies and implementation strategies.

Research
Training & Development is constantly researching new theories, methods and strategies in the field of teaching and learning. We also strive to keep current with the latest developments in the field of emerging technologies as they apply to the classroom.

Virtual Classroom Spring Pilot - Expanding Learning Beyond Classroom Walls
The profile of today’s college student increasingly falls outside the bounds of the “traditional” student. When faculty can get students to work together to help each other, learning is greatly enhanced. To extend learning beyond the classroom walls, faculty can use a number of tools and techniques to encourage students to build teams.

One way is through collaboration using virtual classroom tools. Two of the most popular virtual classroom /web conferencing tools on campuses today are Wimba and Elluminate which bring students and teachers together with a combination of interactive technologies such as voice, video, podcasting, instant messaging, application sharing, polling, and whiteboarding.

Wentworth will be participating in a pilot sponsored by the Colleges of the Fenway (COF) during spring semester 2009 using Wimba and Elluminte. The T&D team will evaluate both of these tools to determine their effectiveness and appropriateness to the Wentworth community based on feedback from faculty and students taking part in the pilot. The pilot will conclude in May, at which time T&D will present its findings in a report made available to all faculty.

Ready - Set - Click!
Clickers, also known as classroom response systems, student response systems and audience response systems, have been around since the 1960s, initially as hard-wired systems which were very expensive and rather limited in functionality. The systems have evolved to virtual clicker systems that are web-based and can be run from laptops or delivered to cell phones and PDAs without additional hardware. Many institutions have adopted clicker technology as a quick and easy way of engaging students, assessing understanding and increasing student success, particularly in lecture classes. Faculty can easily build in a few question slides to their PowerPoint presentations, writing questions on the fly on a text screen, or even ask questions verbally and then give students a minute to click in their answers. When all students have responded, a graph is displayed that shows how the students answered. Based on this visual feedback, a faculty member can continue on or stop and go back over the latest concept to foster better understanding. Clickers can even be used to take attendance, which is especially valuable in large lecture classes.  The Academic Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) has recommended a pilot of clicker systems be conducted at WIT this spring.  If you’re interested in trying out this technology for your class, contact the TD team for more information.