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Faculty grants support 20 new projects focused on teaching with technology

By Beth Goelzer Lyons

Build community and increase interaction in large-enrollment courses. Make one-of-a-kind resources available anytime to an entire class. Enable students to extensively explore how different choices or inputs affect the outcome. Improve comprehension of concepts that cannot be easily grasped through written text.

To help Cornell faculty evaluate and apply creative technological solutions to teaching and learning challenges like these, the Faculty Innovation in Teaching Grants Program was created in 2001 with substantial support from the Provost's Office.

Through a competitive process, 16 grants are awarded annually by the college and school deans and four by the Faculty Advisory Board on Information Technologies (FABIT). The grants provide support to take the projects from the proposal stage through several stages of development and implementation, depending on their scale. To date, 40 grants have been awarded.

Grant winners receive assistance with project planning, instructional design, Web programming, video production and other services from Cornell Information Technologies' Academic Technology Center, which serves as the overall project coordinator, as well as from CIT's Classroom Technologies group, Cornell University Library, the Center for Learning and Teaching, Media and Technology Services' Web Production Group and Educational Television Center, and the Human Computer Interaction Group.

More information can be found at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/atc/innovation/.

Here are the 2003 grant winners and their colleges:

Agriculture and Life Sciences:

  • Charles Walcott, Thomas Owens and Jon Glase will add interactive animations and tutorials to introductory, large-enrollment biology courses.
  • Susan Merkel and William Ghiorse will develop research-based case studies in molecular microscopy.
  • Charles Smith will develop the Spatial Data Exploration System (SPADES) for undergraduate instruction in natural resources.

    Architecture, Art and Planning:

  • Neema Kudva and William Goldsmith will create Web-based virtual explorations of cities.

    Arts and Sciences:

  • Slava Paperno and Richard Feldman will build Web-based tools for audio practice in language learning.
  • Michael W. Macy will modernize his Microcomputer Integrated Data Analysis System (MIDAS) application for use in sociology and other courses.
  • Maria Terrell will use Web technology to support just-in-time-teaching and peer instruction in teaching calculus.

    Computing and Information Science:

  • Hod Lipson will focus on electronic workflow in engineering synthesis courses.

    Engineering:

  • Alison Shull, Shefford Baker, Raffaello D'Andrea and Albert George will create a digital memory archive and video case studies for several student engineering projects.
  • Sally A. McKee will use technologies common in industry to teach collaboration, communication and presentation skills to engineers.

    Hotel Administration:

  • Judy Siguaw will develop an interactive sales management simulation.

    Human Ecology:

  • Sheila Danko and Jason Meneely will develop a curriculum to facilitate the art of graphic thinking in the digital age.

    Industrial and Labor Relations:

  • Michael Gold will develop nontraditional methods for teaching case law in support of ILRCB 201/501 (Labor and Employment Law).

    Johnson Graduate School of Management:

  • Robert Bloomfield will develop ways to look at information in the firm.

    Law School:

  • Claire Germain will extend borders in teaching international law by creating video and Web-based resources for a French law course. Theodore Eisenberg and Kevin Clermont will expand the Empirical Research in the Law Web resources.

    College of Veterinary Medicine:

  • Jodi Korich will promote the use of advanced media technologies to expand the Veterinary Procedures Collection Web site.

    Universitywide (FABIT):

  • James E. Blankenship and Peter Hinkle will use computer-based modules to improve student learning and instruction in BIOBM 330 (Principles of Biochemistry, Individualized Instruction) and BIOBM 334 (Computer Graphics and Molecular Biology).
  • Susan P. Ashdown and Richard E. MacPike will develop technological solutions to teaching three-dimensional concepts in apparel and costume pattern-making and fit.
  • Barbara Lust and María Blume will integrate digital multimedia resources in two interdisciplinary language development courses.
  • Buzz Spector, Timothy Murray and Thomas Hickerson will support international new media art.

    March 13, 2003

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