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:
- Maintain an awareness of how faculty needs are unfolding
- Improve communications between those concerned with pedagogy on our campuses and local IT Divisions
- Share our findings with the broader community of stakeholders systemwide
Objectives:
- Facilitate the process of gathering 3-4 top pedagogical challenges / issues from each of our campuses
- Aggregate those individual campus responses into a report to be delivered to ITLC
- Based on this report, 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
The following questions may be used to stimulate discussions on your campus (please add others if you wish):
- How do we merge technology and pedagogy so that those who know about pedagogy can frame their needs in a way that can be understood by those who know technology?
- Whose problems are we (currently) solving... and are we actually solving them?
- What are your biggest pedagogical challenges? What are you trying to solve right now?
- For example, we can observe that lecture capture can enhance enrollments - and that it doesn't do any harm to instruction. Is this something we should pursue? to improve instructional effectiveness? to reduce the need for large classrooms?
- What are the processes that have led to the development of classroom design standards and decisions on each of our campuses?
- Has the process included consultation with faculty on how they use classroom spaces, or would like to use them?
- Are there mechanisms in place to gather data on actual classroom usage practices?
- Can that data be incorporated in the planning, specification, and budgeting process for appropriately equipping and maintain classroom spaces?
- How do you distill objectives across multiple section courses? How will we define our learning objectives (with multiple sections / multiple syllabi / different courses taught by different instructors over a number of years ... "syllabus creep")
Timeline:
- Campus discussions - on going
- Aggregation of campus needs in May, 2012
- Draft of Report to ITLC in early June, 2012
- Report to ITLC at the end of August, 2012
Your Responses:
In an effort to begin our information gathering process, please list below any ideas you feel should be included in the report (observed by you or expressed to you by a thought leader on your campus).
- The shift from on-the-ground to online teaching
- The shift from lecture to more active types of instructional design (shift from "instruction" to "learning")
- 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
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