Teaching: Best Practices in Teaching and Learning through Technology
Below is a table listing the presentations given during the conference for this track with presentation downloads and videos where available.
Name
Institution
Title
Summary
Nathan Lents
John Jay College (CUNY),Department: Sciences
Asst. Professor
Presentation Attendees can expect to learn about three simple and proven effective internet-based technologies that can enhance classroom instruction and student-teacher communication, and facilitate distance or blended learning: instant messaging/online office hours, voice over PowerPoint video lectures, and modular course content on Visionlearning.com.
Michele Cuomo
and Joan Dupre
Queensborough Community College, Department: Office of Academic Affairs
Assistant Dean Office of Academic Affairs, Associate Professor of English
“Culture and Family: The Digital Storytelling Project” The Digital Storytelling Project creates a virtual learning community and a student-centered learning space through the technology of EPortfolio and Epsilen groups. Three classes, one each from Basic Educational Skills, English and Speech Communications and Theatre Arts will all collaborate on a Wiki in the creation of multi-media digital stories which incorporate images, film, music, voice and text, and which will be created through Power Point and Camptasia. The Basic Education and English classes focus on the development of writing skills, while the Theatre Arts class will create performance pieces from the writings, in the form of video logs, or vlogs. An important component will be the dialogue that will be held as writing students present drafts to the community. Performance students interview writing students to learn more about how to make their choices as actors, while the writers are given opportunity to clarify their ideas. The interdisciplinary nature of the virtual community assists students to strengthen general educational objectives such as developing effective reading, writing, speaking skills, and honing critical thinking while they are making connections both across disciplines, and in a social network which creates a sense of belonging and meaning. The use of social networking and the format of the vlog meets the students using what, for many of them, is on their native digital language.
Marvi Teixeira
Polytechnic Universitiy of Puerto Rico, Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science
Professor
Engineering education has special needs such as the delivery of mathematical and scientific content and the demonstration of software packages to the student. These requirements led us to the incorporation of different forms of Video and Audio in our Smart Classrooms and online courses. Remote students, as well as in campus students, can benefit from the integration of Screen Recording, Tablet PCs, Smart Boards and Videoconference technologies in the classroom. Participants will learn how to inexpensively incorporate some of these technologies to their distance education efforts. Participants will see a summary of our efforts in implementing these technologies that will be useful to their own future or continued efforts in this area. We will share any assessment efforts that we are carrying out.
Dr. Juan Mejías Ortiz and Prof. José M. Cruz Maura
Bayamon Central University, Department: Office of Academic Affairs
Curricular Activities Director and Teaching and Learning Specialist, Curriculum Specialist in Nursing
Presentation
The Clinical Simulation Experience Room and Nursing Virtual Lab, is the more complete and modern academic Laboratory for teaching clinical skills in Puerto Rico, and its primary focus is directed exclusively for nursing students. The project benefits the University in the institutional promotion and recruitment of nursing students and experienced faculty. It also helps the faculty in the incorporation of new student centered strategies through the use of high tech, such as the patient simulations and virtualization of clinical processes.
Anthony Carpi
John Jay College, Department: Science
Professor
“Building an Online Resource that Focuses on Teaching” Frustrated with the inadequacies of textbooks in supporting innovative teaching, we launched, in 2000, a novel online learning environment, Visionlearning (http://www.visionlearning.com). The site provides high-quality, peer-reviewed science learning resources in both English and Spanish, specifically designed to be used in the classroom. The materials are housed within an environment that provides communication tools and mechanisms for instructors to customize the resources. Both in-classroom and public use of these materials has grown considerably: there are over 40,000 registered users for the site, and the materials receive almost half a million visits per month. International traffic has grown extensively, with Mexico, India, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia ranking as primary users behind the United States. The materials have been evaluated in relation to traditional textbook resources and have shown considerable advantages – student performance was significantly higher among groups using these resources than control groups (J. College Science Teaching 23(1):12). The site continues to expand and has recently launched learning content for portable electronic devices.
Assistant Dean for Non Tradional Learning, Web Master of Computer Systems
Class Capture: A Three Step Approach In this session, we will present the steps taken to implement a course-capturing and podcasting project using Tegrity technologies at Huertas Junior College. Academic programs included in the project include associate degrees in instrumentation, respiratory care therapy, computer aided drafting, dental assistant, graphic design, and informatics.
Associate Professor, Professor and Chair of the Academic Advising Center
“Using Classroom Clicker Technology to Enhance Student Engagement” Workshop participants will learn how Kutztown University faculty uses clicker technology to enhance classroom engagement with students. Clicker technology has proven especially effective in our large classroom settings and auditorium-type lecture halls. Discover how lecture sessions incorporating “clicker aware” PowerPoint presentations enable professors to reach all students in class while empowering shy or reluctant students who might be otherwise uncomfortable participating in classroom interactions. Attend this hands-on session to experience clicker technology in a mock lecture session, learn how faculty and management developed a viable clicker program at Kutztown University, and see how easy it would be to adopt this technology for use in your classroom.
Roxanna Pietri and Luis Zayas
Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez, Department: VP for United States and Latin American Affairs
Executive Assistant to the VP, Vice President for United States and Latin American Affairs
This presentation will include a description of the elements of the online Discipline-Based Dual Language Model®, its benefits for the Hispanic population and an interactive demo of an actual course in the Blackboard® learning platform.
Nitza M. Hernandez
University of Puerto Rico, Department: Graduate School of Information Sciences & Technology
Professor
“The Use of Web 2.0 Tools to Enhance the Teaching and Learning of a Graduate Blended Course” Production and use of a blog, a wiki and a site course to share information and knowledge beyond the classroom experience in the graduate course on “Introduction to Information Technology”. Students were authorized as content developers for the blog together with the professor. Quality standards, timeliness and relevance were emphasized as major criteria for content development. In another course, a Seminar on Knowledge Management, videoconferencing and a content management system were part of a dual collaboration strategy used to create the virtual learning environment.
Beth Counihan
QCC-CUNY, Department: English
Associate Professor
“Using Eportfolio Wikis for Interdisciplinary and Intercampus Collaboration” In this presentation, we will describe and show student work from interdisciplinary assignments in which we used the wiki feature on Epsilen EPortofolio for students in three courses–one non-credit, one intro and one upper-level –to collaborate on revising and adapting a traditional essay into an illustrated essay or digital story. We seek faculty members from HETS member institutions to join our wiki groups and expand the collaboration from being situated on one campus to being an intercampus project.
Susan Madera
and Alexandra Tarasko
Queensborough Community College, Department: Office of Academic Affairs
Acting Coordinator of High Impact Strategies for the Freshman Academies, Professor of Nursing
This presentation will focus on the Health Related Science Academy, and the various ways in which technology has served to disseminate information, strengthen community and form processes to demonstrate student learning through its Epsilen Academy Groups; EPortfolio/Cornerstone classroom experiences, and Clickers in the Classroom.
Yla Eason and Porsha Childs
Medgar Evers College, Department: The School of Business
Lecturer, The School of Business, Predominantly Black Institutions Program Coordinator
The presentation will simulate the actual experience the students had using the Google tools. The process of working on the same document and communicating with each other using chat, email and the Google Calendar will be demonstrated. The two presenters will each operate online using different laptops with one computer connected to the video output to be shown on the screen to the audience. The audience will see how both users can contribute to the same document in real time and the audience will be able to witness the collaboration in updating a document as it occurs. The PowerPoint will then be uploaded to share with the audience. This Google account will be available following the conference so that audience members can experiment with these tools on their own and an audio and video tutorial will be created to assist them. The idea is to have the presentation serve as a practical how-to for the audience so that they can easily adapt the technology for use in their classrooms.
Angela Henderson and Lizzette Richardson
City Colleges of Chicago, Department: District Office
This presentation describes the work of the City Colleges of ChicagoÂ’s Center for Distance Learning in incorporating group work into two sections of an online social science course. Students in the course thought it was impossible to conduct group-work on line. As a result of the training offered by the presenter, the students learned to work in online groups.
Manuel Correa and Marjorie Silverman
Berkeley College, Department: Management
Professor, Management, Professor
“Transitioning from On-site to On-line Teaching: The Jump is Not as Big as You Imagine” This presentation will explore specific best practices currently used in the on-line teaching environment. It will further examine how traditional on-site techniques can be adapted to the on-line environment through the use of technology. Specific reference will be made to how these techniques can be used to advance the educational opportunities of the Hispanic, non-traditional student. The presentation will address and demonstrate techniques used by the presenters to enhance online learning and capitalize on onsite teaching experience. These methods will include the use of: adapted communication techniques; modified and enhanced assignment formats; the use of multi-media tools; and links to valuable professional and industry specific sites.
Ana Milena Lucummi and Bessie Rivera
Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez, Department: Distance Education Program,
Instructional Designer
The Distance Education Program (DEP) develops distance education using a variety of technologies and media as television and Internet. Our goal is to make accessible and inclusive education to enhance student learning. To achieve this goal we use multimedia tools and computer programs such as: Captivate, Engage, Articulate, Elluminate, Wimba Voice among others. These programs and tools make possible the creation of tutorials, simulations, diagrams, and animated presentations which integrate audio and video.