1. Changing Pedagogies
While all chapters throughout this eBook are about cultivating change through the innovative use of technology, those in this first section focus on the use of academic technology to transform pedagogy. Contributors address aspects of pedagogy that have seldom (if ever) fully been addressed, moving decidedly beyond memorization to explicit attention on problem solving and interactive coaching.
These innovative pedagogical approaches remix and flip the classroom; the imaginative uses of technology emulate the behavior of expert teachers and allow students to be creative in how they explore and address critical problems. Students access computer coaches and 3D simulations, work in teams to design their own experiments, and engage in course evolution. Contributors share processes they follow, definitions and theories which influence them, challenges they face, the impact on accreditation, and the “new landscapes” that emerge.
As John Bryson states: “I certainly understood cognitively why the redesign might be good for the students. What I had difficulty taking on board was that the redesign would have me doing something less of something I actually like doing—being the major focal point of the class… My role changed to being more a designer of learning occasions, a coach, and an advisor… I came not only to accept the new roles, but to welcome them, since my students clearly were benefitting from a course in which their learning was front and center.”
The solutions shared in this section indicate how the innovative use of academic technologies add value and increase efficiency and effectiveness. The solutions include imaginative uses and development of videos, podcasts, vodcasts, and simulations; they indicate how faculty and staff are using GoToMeeting, Moodle, Blackbag, iPads, Camtasia Relay, Skype, Ning, and Google Apps. Those on the digital frontlines at the University of Minnesota are indeed focused on student success.
3. Providing Direction
The chapters in this section illustrate how innovative leadership – at system-wide, campus, collegiate, and departmental levels – has stepped forward to provide direction and support for cultivating change. These contributors challenge the assumption that we need a big, expensive program to get things to happen. In contrast, they illustrate the power and potential of strategic, focused investments. As Claudia Neuhauser states, “A small investment in additional analytical capabilities to develop individualized education could allow the University to develop a sophisticated tool kit that would produce reports and predictive models that are tailored to each college and coordinate campus, thus turning data into actionable knowledge at a local level… This new approach to analyzing student data would lead to the development of tools for advisers and students to personalize the educational experience…thus realizing the vision of individualized education.”
For example, the University Digital Conservancy (UDC) provides free, worldwide access to research and scholarship contributed by faculty and staff at UMN, currently hosting over 23,000 works that have been downloaded over 1.5 million times. Growing exponentially, the UDC provides the permanent URL for this eBook collection:
http://purl.umn.edu/125273. And in another Libraries initiative, with no budget but armed with great social science expertise, the authors used a free resource—Dataverse
http://www.economistsonline.org/-- as a solution for making data available.
Likewise, the Center for Writing, with an investment of $12,500, created suites of videos that now provide support for multilingual writers across the University. And in the College of Veterinary Medicine, they “counterbalance” the scarcity of direct support with strong collegiate and departmental support for innovative teaching technologies.
These chapters are also unique in the level of faculty and student influence in providing direction:
Across the University, the visionary U-Spatial project leverages expertise in the spatial sciences, eliminating duplication and providing a framework of data, equipment, expertise, and resources that benefit all researchers. At the collegiate level, the School of Pharmacy is using a suite of cloud-based resources to diversity the conversation and speed up their curricular revision process. Those providing support for the iSEAL course management system at UM Rochester emphasize that it is the faculty’s responsibility to request new features and enhancements and provide development direction. And at UM Morris, as a result of listening sessions with students, IT support is moving forward with mobile computing and mobile learning.
4. Extending Reach
While all chapters in this eBook represent the University’s Land Grant Mission in action, the chapters in this final section most explicitly indicate our expanded engagement via innovative uses of technology.
These programs use technology to reach well beyond the fences of the academy. For example, the Ambit Network has trained 240 mental health providers from 43 agencies in Minnesota, screening 1,300 children for trauma and post-traumatic stress. Programs in Nursing and in Clinical Laboratory Sciences share lessons learned as they changed their course delivery to accommodate distance students’ needs and to provide equitable instruction on other campuses. These new online programs work to meet impending shortages of clinical laboratory personnel and to provide in-service training for clinical affiliate preceptors throughout our region.
The innovative use of iPads extends the reach of teacher education through supporting the assessment requirements in the field; iPads likewise assist field scientists with 25 unique studies across 50 experimental sites in 30 locations across the state. Digital storytelling deepens engagement and cultural awareness for students studying locally as well as preparing for and studying abroad, and online training modules raise the visibility of children’s needs among battered women’s shelter advocates. Researchers are changing strategies to meet the needs of a social and mobile population; they are collecting data via texting, transitioning computer courseware to mobile web apps, and building mobile technology training for response to disasters.
Conclusion
This collection of innovative stories from the digital frontlines is about evolutionary, incremental transformation. It’s about springtime where the earth around us changes; it’s about the importance of the ecosystem in cultivating change. When taken one by one, the overall changes are strategic, but when taken in the aggregate, they represent significant change in the academy.
This collection of innovative stories is a reminder that we are a collection of living people whose Land Grant values and ideas shape who we serve, what we do, and how we do it. Many of these projects engage others in discourse with the academy: obtaining opinion or feedback, taking the community pulse, allowing for an extended discourse, and engaging citizens in important issues.
Last, consider the seed savers exchange where gardeners collect and distribute thousands of rare seeds to others (
http://www.seedsavers.org). When my beets grow better than yours, I give you some seed. I’m glad to share it with you. Our hope is that as you read these chapters, you'll think, “I could do that!” And you know that when you contact a contributor here, the person is ready to share, ready to help, ready to envision the future together, ready to cultivate change.