>newground
In “A History of the Future,” an undergraduate course taught by IUB history professor David Pace, students reflect on visions of the future represented in Western culture over the centuries. In many ways, they are also helping to shape the future themselves through the innovative ways the course accomplishes its goals.
With the aid of an IU SBC Fellows grant (formerly the Ameritech Fellows Program), Pace constructed an elaborate website for the course, which both supplements material discussed in the lecture and engages the students in collaborative weekly assignments. The website not only helps them learn the subject matter of the course, but the way historians think and make sense of their subject.
Pace is an historian of French cultural history who writes on and has participated in many conferences on the scholarship of teaching and learning. The SBC Fellows grant allowed him to use web technology to address pedagogical issues he has been grappling with since the late 1980s. “The web,” he explains, “provides a useful tool for modeling the basic operations of critical thinking, breaking them down into minute parts and augmenting what students need to do to read like historians.” And of course the web also makes all kinds of material available to them in a medium they’re familiar with.
Pathfinders and Pioneers
Pace is one of many IU faculty members across the state who has participated successfully in IU’s SBC Fellows Program. In 1999 IU applied for a grant to fund innovative uses of technology in the classroom. The Ameritech Foundation (now SBC) responded with a $1 million grant to fund five rounds of projects over the course of five years. Awards for four of the five years have been conferred on their recipients and the results have been quite remarkable.
Brad Wheeler, associate dean for teaching and learning information technologies, comments on the astonishing success of the program and the enormous amount of creativity to which it has given rise. “The grant set out to jumpstart faculty engagement in making innovative and effective uses of new technology in the classroom. We sought faculty who would serve as pathfinders and pioneers in their fields. In all possible ways we accomplished what we set out to do. We are extremely grateful to SBC for what they made possible at IU.”
Wheeler explains that, “As a result of these successes, we are ready to move on to a new phase in the use of technology for teaching at IU. The first four years of this program have paved the way for others. Now we are ready to invest in the new materials on a larger scale.”
A sampling of these projects gives an idea of the variety of fields and departments that have benefited: They range from IUPUI’s teaching of surgical procedures in nursing and medicine to “interactive color theory” at IPFW, to a course on plant biology at IUB which studies “plants-in-motion.” They include a computer science course at IUPUI in which the students actually create the software to construct computer-generated panoramas of particular sites and an astronomy course for non-majors at IUB. Add to these a project at IUS to digitally reproduce hundreds of scores and recordings of works by women composers from 1500-1900, an IUB course on the Beatles, and one on electronic commerce in which the students learn the topic by “doing it” themselves.
SBC's Mission
The SBC Foundation sees the program as part of its effort to improve the quality of life in Indiana by promoting new uses of technology. As Duane Hazelbaker, the director of corporate affairs, explains, “SBC is committed to funding programs that increase access to technology and integrate technology with education and community development. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the entries and we know this type of program is exactly what Indiana needs to be successful and move forward. We are proud to be a partner in this worthy endeavor.”
As both Pace and Wheeler observe, this kind of innovation in teaching and learning is not merely important. It’s necessary. “We are heading rapidly to the ‘wired-from-birth’ generation,” says Wheeler. “This technology is now part of the culture. At the same time, these grants and the technology have become a canvas on which the faculty is painting some exciting new ideas for teaching and learning. One could not overemphasize the vision and wisdom of SBC for helping us jumpstart this project.”
>Liz Rosdeitcher
Faculty recipients of the SBC awards will showcase their funded projects and share their work with colleagues at the third annual Summer Leadership Forum on June 6 from 1-3 pm in the University Library, IUPUI. The event is open to all who are interested in the projects. Learn more about the faculty projects and the SBC Fellows Program.