Introduction
At the request of Information Technology Leadership Council (ITLC), key administrators and thought leaders across the campuses were asked to identify 3-4 challenges and opportunities facing each campus with respect to teaching and learning. The intent was to not focus so directly on the technologies deployed but, instead, to broaden the conversation and establish lines of communication.
After an initial analysis done in 2010-11 (see section entitled Initial Year Analysis 2010-11 below), the ETLG is embarking on this effort again for our current academic year.
Through these campus conversations, the ETLG hopes to surface faculty needs, analyze the information gathered, and share our results with the ITLC and various stakeholders.
Current Year Analysis (2011-12)
Goals:
- To maintain an awareness of how faculty needs are unfolding
- To improve communications between those concerned with pedagogy on our campuses and local IT Divisions
Objectives:
- To facilitate the process of gathering 3-4 top pedagogical challenges / issues from our campuses
- To aggregate those individual campus responses into a report to be delivered to ITLC
- Based on this report, to determine an action plan and establish a list of ITLC approved objectives that can inform the work of the ETLG in the near future
Thought Questions
- How do we merge technology and pedagogy so that those who know pedagogical issues together with those who know technology? See Educause Review - seeking evidence of impact article - Learning Analytics (Phil Long) Malcolm Brown article too - this frames up what we should we be struggling with - a better way to frame pedagogical needs and translate into tech world academia - whose probs are we solving and are we actually solving them? This is a local issue primarily - but aggregating it is worthy - Larry Pitts - or other
- What are you biggest probs? What are you trying to solve? LEcture capture to enhance enrollments - doesn't do any harm to do lect capture.
- How did we get to the room design that we currently have? We should be able to state why (based on usage statistics) - the evidenced based approach.
eP for a particular class (with multiple sections / multiple syllabi / different courses taught by different instructors over a number of years - syllabus creep) and Learning Objectives - how do you distill objectives across multiple section courses?
Disruptive tech - ETLG Reading List - disrupting class by Michael Horn - how disruptive innovation will change the world
Timeline:
Task: In an effort to begin our information gathering process, please list below any ideas you feel are essential or ideas that have been expressed to you by a thought leader on your campus. Please also designate your campus.
- Paradigm shift from on-the-ground to online teaching.
- Paradigm shift from lecture to more active types of instructional design.
- Aligning course curriculum with instructional design, assessment strategies, and Learning Objectives.
Initial Year Analysis (2010-11)
In our inaugural year, the most common grouping of issues reported were:
- Faculty workload
- Insufficient faculty support, and
- Funding to meet faculty instructional technology needs
All of these top tier concerns stem primarily from a general lack of funding for support for teaching and learning.
After budget/funding issues, the second most pressing issue noted in our pedagogical issues discussion came from senate faculty concerned about the prospects of online courses.
Finally, the following group of issues are tied in third place and are each listed by five campuses :
- Time to Degree
- Lack of assessment of learning outcomes, and general evaluation
- Lack of rewards to faculty for teaching excellence