HSC Faculty Focus Group Notes 4-5-2010
Present: Dr. Joseph Steffen – moderator, Mark Kasselhut – recorder
Attendees: Andrew Wright, College of Business; Jane Casada, Dental School; Glenda Adams, Nursing; Diane Chlebowy, Nursing
#1.
“Death by PowerPoint” mentioned – misuse of technology is more important than the technology itself. In CIS – faculty and students are more technology aware and have a higher demand and expectation of technology use. Balance must be present. Technology use is not on the faculty evaluation.
Students like the lectures on powerpoints and being able to download them for studying. In Nursing and Dental the class experience is lecture with hands on clinicals. The renovations in the Dental school will provide new instructional technology in all teaching spaces.
In nursing dept – students and faculty would prefer not everything was put on powerpoint. Many classes have multimedia case studies for example – there must be a balance – between technology and interaction.
Materials other than PPT are often posted in Study guide form for class. These are useful for exams but students still come to class and take notes.
In School of nursing – all classrooms have clicker bases and are used extensively by classes
Tegrity – most not using for full course capture in nursing, but rather course recordings.
The faculty member’s voice is the best technology. The technology is in the background but by using Tegrity this professor was able to provide students guidance in software development that has been vital to success.
The ability to access the internet in class is important. This instructor uses YouTube and other sources of examples. They still use DVDs and videos when they have access to materials. Access to internet is good in Nursing but still can be difficult.
#2.
In nursing it has helped – they allow laptops and allow students to police themselves. Due to nature of classrooms the faculty are stuck in front of room and can’t monitor laptop activity.
Some see students on laptop as a problem
Students think they can multi-task better than they actually can.
Students don’t have control about using laptops
Real question – are you using active learning? There are Improvements in outcomes when you have to use the tools immediately in lab settings.
Use of I clickers promote discussion about the results of the questions
Nursing faculty evaluations don’t have technology questions
#3
Nursing all classrooms have technology so no problems with access
But support on how to use the equipment is lacking and some classrooms don’t have the same equivalent equipment – only a few have document cameras
College of Business evening classes sometimes have issues since classes have to meet outside of the business building – and are not guaranteed to have technology
Dental school – all classrooms are okay
Only one nursing classroom has compressed video to the remote site.
In business school – rooms are okay but more technology is needed – not all are equal – most don’t have clickers, lack power for laptops and no compressed video.
Power for laptops is also a problem for nursing classrooms
Not everything works but at HSC they have a good response to trouble – have dedicated support
Microphones in classrooms can be problems especially in dealing with Tegrity
Dental school has visited other Dental schools and we are doing okay compared to other institutions
Business school has extra fees to support technology
Nursing and dental both have specialized technology in simulation labs that is essential, access to these labs is competitive.
Equipment delivery?
On Belknap – there is a general tech classroom shortage so some faculty carry equipment by choice. Equipment delivery process Is good but shared technology – especially computers can cause problems, especially with Tegrity.
#4
Some faculty are using facebook, etc – use BB for tasks and discussions but students won’t always log on unless forced.
Likes Blackboard – central to the course and the class expects to uses
Many classes are using Blackboard in a hybrid mode – passive storage of information into Blackboard to supplement face to face. The use of Blackboard in an official hybrid mode could free up space by removing a day the class meets
Giving tests out of class saves a great deal of time.
Have noticed close to the same results in classes where BB exams are given instead of in class.
Essays are useful –BB allows typing of answers, better quality of answers and more legible
Training – this was out of sequence but a fairly long discussion to end the session
At Nursing it is mainly cohort and peer training, not always scheduled training – it has gotten better over the past several years. Faculty should be responsible to know and know when to ask.
Training on technology has not been part of orientation
College of Business is now doing orientation for new faculty training to ensure all have training
Nursing doesn’t have tier 1 so its training again comes primarily from within
Have been to Delphi Training on Blackboard and Delphi has come to the department for training on clickers and Blackboard.
If you add or feature pedagogy in training would people come to training – probably not as strong a lure as technical training.
Alternate Learning Spaces
There are really no teamwork spaces in the building – could repurpose labs in COB for this purpose.
On HSC there are no good teamwork spaces – space too limited – more could uses spaces for team projects if space was available – Library on HSC is very quiet and few small group rooms.