ActionLine NEA

Best Practices: 'Helping Old Dogs Learn New Tricks'

The Center for Academic Excellence, The Office of Information Technologies, and a group of faculty, called The Classroom Research Resource Team, offer faculty at Portland State University opportunities to learn educational technology, integrate it into their courses, and investigate the relationship between the technology introduced in the course and the student learning outcomes.

At Colorado State University, faculty are linking technology in the large class setting to the use of small group approaches in all introductory psychology classes. Highly visual materials in the form of short video teaching modules and multiple screens, employed for traditional overhead transparencies, Power Point presentations, and a visualizer, support traditional course content. This format allows flexibility for introducing topics, posing questions on issues, and facilitating discussion. These large classes are taught both by regular faculty and by experienced Graduate Teaching Fellows. Students also participate in small discussion groups of no more than 10 persons, facilitated by a trained undergraduate teaching assistant.

Across the country, Colleges of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine have been leaders in enhancing their instruction through the visualization and computer modeling of content material. The new technologies are being effectively integrated into the traditional lecture setting as well as laboratory and clinical instruction.