2002-2003 TLT Mini Grant Recipients

Six faculty recipients of the 2002-2003 Teaching, Learning and Technology "Mini Grants" will present their results Friday, April 11, at 11 a.m. as part of the joint UMBC TLT Fair and USM Pedagogy & Technology Day at UMBC's South Campus. Presenting as a panel to showcase the variety of approaches rather than delve in-depth into any one project, the faculty will respond to the following questions:

1. Briefly summarize the pedagogical problem or opportunity your grant attempted to address?
2. Describe what you did with the mini grant (e.g., software purchase, student support, etc.)?
3. Describe the results, outcomes or lessons learned from your project?

Co-sponsored by OIT and the Faculty Development Center, the TLT Mini Grants were designed to enhance students' technological fluency and engagement in the classroom.The following is a summary of the faculty projects reported in the OIT Newsletter earlier this year:

History Associate Professor Kriste Lindenmeyer, who chairs of the department's technology committee, has equipped a small computer lab to support 13 faculty and their students who will be using Blackboard in nearly 30 courses this fall. On its own, the department also hired a grad assistant to help Lindemeyer run the lab and support faculty who were trained in Blackboard this summer.

Sociology Assistant Professor Sheila Cotten is integrating technology into the department's SOCY 610: "Survey Construction" course by exploring how the Internet can be used as a survey tool. In addition to experimenting with software, she's hired a teaching assistant to help with project management for the course that is a standard for many social science students.Note: Cotten will be presenting at the next TLT Brown Bag on Monday, April 28 at 1 p.m. (location TBA at www.umbc.edu/brownbag).

Civil Engineering Assistant Professor Jack Gwo is hiring a student programmer to help him build online, self-paced tutorials to be used in the department's groundwater hydrology courses. "The goal is to engage students in technology innovation in hydrological sciences and engineering rather than merely learning modeling software that often takes up the majority of classroom instruction and computer laboratory times."

Computer Science/Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Tim Oates is also hiring a student programmer to help him build visual models of nearly 20 complex data structures students often struggle with in CMSC 341 "Data Structures," which is required for all computer science students. Oates and fellow CMSC 341 lecturer Dennis Frey are hoping their online, self-paced interactive models will allow the department's 300 CMSC 341 students to practice and understand key concepts, and free up class time that had centered around discussing a few time-consuming, hand-drawn data structures.

Music Professor and Chair Linda Dusman is using her award to integrate technology into more of the department's performance and composition curriculum. Specifically, MUSC 101 Fundamentals of Music Theory and MUSC 110 Musicianship Laboratory will explore the use of Practica Musica computer assisted learning software. Music Theory II and III will use ECS TimeSketch Editor, a graphical composition tool, to learn formal analysis. And Music Theory IV and Composition will use Finale, a state-of-the-art music notation software used by practically all music professionals. The department will also purchase one or two computers for use in its digital keyboard lab.

Science 100 Instructor Karin Readel likes to assign group web projects, but didn’t like that the responsibilities usually fall on one tech-savvy group member. She also wanted other students to learn technical skills they may need in later courses or on the job. While Readel didn’t receive funding to buy her own FrontPage server, OIT provided it along with in-kind administration support. Some of her initial results—including an observation that students aren’t as tech savvy as we often think—were shared during a TLT Brown Bag workshop on Nov. 18, 2002 (see “past presentations” at www.umbc.edu/brownbag).