Launching the SATN TLT Working Group: Collaboration and Technology by Dr Steve Ehrmann

Launching the Launching the SATN TLT Working Group: SATN TLT Working Group:

Collaboration and TechnologyCollaboration and Technology

Stephen C. Ehrmann

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Thanks!Thanks!

• 130+ institutional subscribers to TLT Group services

• AAC&U, ACRL, EDUCAUSE, HBCU Faculty Development Network, League for Innovation, MERLOT, NISOD, POD, SCUP

• Annenberg/CPB and AAHE

• TLT Group Founding Sponsors: Blackboard, Compaq, Microsoft, SCT, WebCT

• Washington State Univ. (Flashlight Online), • Brigham Young (student course evaluation)• Bucks County CC (hybrid workshops), • Butler University (train the trainer) • Central Michigan U (5 minute workshops), • IUPUI (e-portfolios); • George Washington U (faculty development

strategies)• Old Dominion U (Podcasting), hybrid pro

development)• Gannon U (seven principles)• Hamline U, NC State (TLTRs)• Johnson C. Smith (ARQ)• Mesa CC (Diversity)• MIT (adoption of innovation)• U of Nebraska (LTAs), • Oregon State (evaluation of CMS)• U of Nevada, Reno (ARQ)• U Tennessee Memphis Health Sciences

(large courses)

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OutlineOutline

I. The Needs, old and new

II. The Roadblock– islands of innovation and experience

– Findings from our study of the MIT/Microsoft iCampus initiative

III. Using IT to support collaboration among academics

IV. Possible agenda for SATN

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I. NeedsI. Needs

• “Old” needs: problems with education in the US

– http://www.learner.org and then look up “A Private Universe” and “Minds of our Own”

• “New” needs

– Global recession; poverty and inequality across, and within, nations

– Climate change

• Business as usual? Not today

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II. If We Only Had More Money…II. If We Only Had More Money…

• iCampus: 7 year project - MIT and Microsoft

– $25,000,000 collaborative effort

– Over 7 years

• 70 faculty projects (mode: ~ $500K; iLabs over $7M);

• 30 student projects (mode: ~$55,000/grant)• Software open source, free

– 10% for outreach: software, services, ideas being given away

– In the final year, we were asked to study factors affecting wide use of iCampus ideas, products

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iCampus StudyiCampus Study

• Five iCampus projects were studied http://icampus.mit.edu/

– iLabs (remote laboratories, infrastructure for sharing)

– iMOAT (writing assessment)

– TEAL (studio physics)

– XMAS (annotation of video)

– xTutor (enhanced study in computer science)

• 150+ interviews and study of project documents

• Findings: Factors that inhibited and fostered adoption

• Recommendations: how accelerate the development and spread of innovations like these

iCampus: MIT FacultyiCampus: MIT Faculty

• Research

– Preparation at postdoctoral level

– Sharing of ideas and techniques is vital, day-to-day priority. To be a pioneer, you always need to know the cutting edge problems and strategies, worldwide

• Teaching

– Little formal preparation to teach

– Practice of teaching is carried out largely in isolation.

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Findings: CommunicationsFindings: Communications

• Under what circumstances did other faculty learn about these iCampus projects?

• The importance of habits of communication and trust

– Peter Donaldson’s work on using film to teach Shakespeare in performance

– Teaching cadres for multi-section courses

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1. Improve education widely so that it becomes more authentic, active, collaborative, and feedback-rich.

2. Create demand for adoption of new ideas by rewarding faculty members for continually and cumulatively improving teaching in their programs.

3. Nurture coalitions for instructional improvement, within and across institutions, in order to create better channels for sharing and improving innovations.

4. Create more higher education-corporate alliances in order to support the development and dissemination of new educational technology materials and practices.

5. Supply faculty innovators with central services in educational design, software development, assessment methods, formative evaluation, and/or in sharing ideas with others who teach comparable courses.

Overall RecommendationsOverall Recommendations

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Read the ReportRead the Report

• http://www.tltgroup.org/icampus/

– Read the case studies before reading the recommendations

– Warning: no easy answers

III. IT Enabling CollaborationIII. IT Enabling Collaboration

• Contrast traditional library with World Wide Web

• Networks of live reference support for libraries

• Matrix surveys: online surveys that send different questions to different people

– ePortfolio prototype

• Chat rooms for students in different parts of the country, as part of a strategy for teaching persuasive writing (c. 1992)

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OneMBA.orgOneMBA.org

• 1-year exec MBA in global management

• 5 institutions on 4 continents

• Half courses shared (online) with team teaching, students studying in virtual teams

• Four research trips for students and faculty to do work on site, together

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LessonsLessons

• Program design: desirable, but virtually impossible without IT,

• …Or without collaboration

• Collaboration and IT used only as necessary

• Innovations like this are hard to create, but leads like this are hard to overtake

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Web 2.0Web 2.0

• More often free, easy to use, multi-purpose

• Example: University of Queensland workshop on ePortfolios

– Importance of ePortfolios for assessment, improvement of learning: performance, flexibility

– Challenge: failure of the old paradigm: find the platform, buy it, and train academic staff to use it

– Task: organize a half-day workshop to accelerate institutional progress

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UQ ResponseUQ Response

• 6 person planning team – half not at UQ

• Weekly planning meetings using Skype

• Speakers online; audience local

• Using Google spreadsheet to facilitate small group work quickly

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TLT Group: “Frugal Innovation”TLT Group: “Frugal Innovation”

• Using Flip Video cameras to film poster presentations on teaching, post online

• Using web based conferencing systems in an interactive way (polling module; microphones; chat windows)

• Pausing events to allow participants to email, post and Twitter about what they’ve learned

– http://twitter.com/tltgroup

– http://twitter.com/steveehrmann

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Possible Priorities for Possible Priorities for SATN’s TLT Working GroupSATN’s TLT Working Group

• Goal: accelerate the importation, creation, and sharing of TLT improvements

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What TLT Change Is NotWhat TLT Change Is Not

• Big changes in TLT outcomes for programs and universities are not usually caused by:

– Hot new technology, or

– Temporary injections of $$$$$

• Changing a program’s outcomes takes many years; hot new tech doesn’t retain either newness or attention that long

• What is born in a rich environment often dies in a normal environment

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Potential Strategies for SATNPotential Strategies for SATN

1. Select patterns of activity

– Just in time teaching; learning communities; portfolios; co-operative learning…

– Responding to climate crisis; CDIO; discrete math…

2. Harvest ‘low threshold’ incremental advances in those activities from everyone

3. Increase incentives & support for improving the selected activities and their outcomes

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Strategies (2)Strategies (2)

4. Nurture routine sharing of materials, experiences, problems, ideas among staff who teach similar courses (e.g. meeting scheduling; Twitter filters; …)

5. Choose open technologies that will last

– Painless upgrades

– Open communications so no one need be ‘outsider’

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Strategies (3)Strategies (3)

6 Educate and equip staff to use feedback to troubleshoot, improve their initiatives

– Pride in achievement

– Problems as assets that can attract resources

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Remember:Remember:

• Stakes are high

• Your problems are your assets

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