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Web-accessible digital image collections, such as the above home page from the History of Art course taught by Professors Wood and Crow, are used during and outside of class to facilitate discussion and make materials readily accessible to students.
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Instructional Methods Enhanced by Information Technology Philip Long, Director, Academic Media & Technology |
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Information technology is amplifying a set of instructional methods which have long been used in teaching. IT also offers twists or makes a set of things possible (e.g., simulation of population growth) that would not be practical without electronic tools. IT enhanced instructional methods which faculty at Yale are using include: Distribution of course materials and collection of student work is made easy using electronic tools. The web site at www.yale.edu/syllabi provides a view of over 600 course syllabi posted electronically before shopping period in this Fall 1999 semester. The tools available in the classes.yale.edu course web system make it easy for instructors to share materials in MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint and specialty applications as well as to provide web pages. Classes.yale.edu also provides easy mechanisms for students to securely and authentically submit course work to the instructor. Direct access to course materials has always been a critical model for teaching, for example via course packets and museum or library visits. Electronic methods allow the direct delivery of digital materials to students at a location and time convenient to them. Further, electronic materials can easily include audio, image or video as well as text. For example, the Music Departments Virtual Concert hall is this Fall delivering course reserve listening for twelve courses via the network. Classroom presentation of lectures and access to course materials is part of every class whether spoken, via blackboard or other forms. Electronic tools allow instructors to organize their lecture and classroom materials to facilitate their own presentation and also to make them available at the instructors option to students outside of class. Digital class presentations can include quotes, bibliography, slides, recordings, video or more. Students report posting of class presentations and materials allows them to focus their attention in class on the materials (rather than a frenzy of note taking) and to review these materials repeatedly. For example, Professor Richard Bribiescas is posting class notes in PowerPoint form for Introduction to Physical Anthropology. Interactive Classroom Discussion is one of the most powerful instructional methods, allowing students and instructor together to engage in material and explore methods. Information Technology tools create new opportunities to engage students and pursue interactive analysis in the classroom. Statistical tools, for example, allow Professor Joe Chang in the Unified Statistics course to present datasets and work with students in the classroom to analyze that data together. Students can propose approaches or ask questions which can be explored on the spot. This interactivity is a possibility in any field where an electronic tool is available and can also often be used with digital materials such as images, where questions about details of a slide can be quickly examined through enlargement or comparison between two images arranged on the spot on the screen. The Extended Classroom Over 200 classes this Fall semester are using the tools in Classes.yale.edu to create automatic class email lists or newsgroups. Such electronic communication allows students and faculty to maintain communication beyond classroom hours to identify problem areas, provide peer support among students and allow instructors to inform students of logistical or course issues (e.g. the date of the midterm has changed; an error in Problem Set #2 is corrected). Private electronic mail is another widely used tool to improve direct communication between and among students and instructor on specific questions. Simulation of complex processes can greatly assist students in understanding processes which involve a series of changes over time or highly complex interactions. Professor Doug Kankel has long used animations of biological processes, e.g., cell mitosis, to illustrate the complex changes using dynamic diagrams. He reports that such animations allow him to cover this material using less class time and with better student understanding. Professor Paul Bracken has built a gaming environment for his course on Strategy, Technology and War in which student teams assume the role of nations and make decisions about issues such as economic and military tradeoffs, research and development, and military deployments, which are then communicated (via the Web) to other teams. Professor Bracken indicates this simulation forces students to understand and make decisions on resource allocations, international partnerships and so on - the core issues of the course. Peer review of student work draws on one of Yale's great instructional strengths: its own students. Faculty at Yale are using the ease of electronic publication to engage students to write for a wider audience than just the instructor. Professor Todd Little (Adolescence, Spring 1999 ) required his students to publish their course papers on a web site. In addition, he required that they all read critically ten other students papers and rate them against a set of criteria. Professor Little compiled those student ratings into ten percent of the student's grade. Professor Little comments that not only does student publishing and review broaden the audience for whom the student is writing, but it exposes each student in depth to ten topics beyond the one he or she authored. In a few cases, information technology has made new things possible, for example, simulation of fluid mechanics or computational chemistry, but for instruction, much of the impact of IT is based on its ability to amplify longstanding, proven pedagogic techniques. If you would like to explore one of these methods in your course, please contact Ed Kairiss in the AM&T Instructional Technology Group.
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Web Sites referenced in this article:
o Music Department's Virtual Concert Hall
o Prof. Richard Bribiescas' Introduction to Physical Anthropology
http://classes.yale.edu/anth116a/
o Professor Doug Kankel's Biology animations
http://www.biology.yale.edu/animationDemo.html
o Professor Paul Bracken's Strategy, Technology, and War site
http://www.yale.edu/strattech/
o Professor Todd Little's Adolescence course (from Spring 99)
http://classes.yale.edu/98-99/psyc156b/
o Professor Christopher Wood and Thomos Crow: History of Western Art
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