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18 new faculty grants support innovative teaching with technology

By Beth Goelzer Lyons

Cornell's Faculty Innovation in Teaching Grants Program has awarded 18 new grants to help Cornell faculty members use technology to implement creative teaching and learning activities.

Grant recipients are supported with project planning, instructional design, web programming, video production and other services from Cornell Information Technologies' Distributed Learning Services group, which serves as the overall project coordinator, as well as through partnerships with Cornell University Library, the Center for Learning and Teaching and technical staff within the colleges and schools.

The program was created in 2001 with substantial support from the Office of the Provost. 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, 58 grants have been awarded.

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

The 2004 grant winners from their respective colleges are as follows:

Agriculture and Life Sciences

  • Philippe Baveye, Johannes Lehmann and Astrid Jacobson will strengthen undergraduates' understanding of the connection between soils and civilizations by creating virtual field trips.

  • Quirine M. Ketterings, Michael VanAmburgh and Greg Albrecht will improve undergraduates' understanding of and experience with whole farm nutrient management by employing virtual field trips, conferencing and other technologies.

  • Tyson Sacco and Anne Plescia will enhance autotutorial introductory biology courses with new tools to better suit different learning styles and improve course administration.

    Architecture, Art and Planning

  • Paul Andersen will incorporate digitally based fabrication technologies in several architecture courses, with a focus on full-scale construction applications.

    Arts and Sciences

  • Paul Chirik and Melissa A. Hines will improve interactive learning in large-enrollment introductory chemistry courses by adding in-class polling.

  • Dick Feldman, Stephanie Hoare, Zulma Iguina, Elbern H. Alkire and Slava Paperno will enrich Chinese, Spanish and French language courses by expanding a tool currently used in Russian language courses for out-of-class speaking practice.

  • Robert E. Thorne will improve undergraduates' understanding of introductory physics by developing interactive evaluation tools and tutorials for elementary scientific mathematics.

    Computing and Information Science

  • Phoebe Sengers will add more technical and social support to an introductory Web design and programming course that serves many students who have little technical background.

    Engineering

  • Christine Shoemaker, Jery Stedinger, John Abel and Bill Philpot will improve discussion and conceptual integration in an engineering computation course by adding in-class polling and developing group projects.

  • Matt Ulinski will help build students' skill in basic machining operations by creating an online tutorial and a shop floor information center.

    Human Ecology

  • Andrea Parrot will develop virtual visits to women's health facilities to provide access to more students and to facilities with logistical barriers.

    Industrial and Labor Relations

  • Michael Gold and David Way will continue improving undergraduates' understanding of labor law by adding in-class polling and more interactive tutorials.

    Johnson Graduate School of Management

  • Robert Bloomfield and Anthony Lednor will continue developing and enhancing simulations for teaching management, accounting and finance.

    Law School

  • Claire M. Germain and Kevin Clermont will help law students analyze how French courtroom practices differ from those in the United States by filming and annotating French civil and criminal trials.

    College of Veterinary Medicine

  • Bradley L. Njaa and Sean McDonough will enhance vet students' pattern recognition of general and systemic pathology by developing a digital library of examples.

    Universitywide (FABIT)

  • Ashim K. Datta and Lance R. Collins will develop Web-based instruction to help undergraduates use a professional computational tool to solve biological/biomedical engineering problems.

  • John Forester, Scott Peters, Davydd Greenwood, Ken Reardon, Steve Hamilton and Debra Trumbull will improve students' skill in producing oral history profiles by building an inventory of profiles and increasing students' command of editing tools.

  • Christina Stark, Carol Devine, Jamie Dollahite, Christine Olson and Carole Bisogni will help nutrition professionals gain greater understanding of childhood obesity through an interactive, online course.

    April 22, 2004

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