Guidelines for Faculty Applying for Technology Academic Enrichment Stipends

With support from outside funding agencies and the College's budget for technology, the Library, Technology and Learning Committee continues to offer faculty stipends to support the incorporation of technology into the learning experiences of our students. This year the Committee reviewed the progress of the past five years, and has articulated new technology goals in light of that progress in its report, "Wheaton Vision 2005." We believe that we must now develop and support new initiatives for funding and consequently are prepared to offer stipends in the three categories below (replacing the categories of earlier guidelines).

Interested faculty may review the Committee's report. Proposals are particularly encouraged in the following categories:

1. Cross-course applications: This initiative encourages and supports proposals which would shape teaching practices and learning opportunities in more than one course, across a field, department, discipline or area, instead of in individual courses.
   • Projects under this heading might seek to create a statistical data-base or visual archive, research model or program, etc., which would enhance teaching and learning in several courses in a department or across departments on an interdisciplinary topic. They might integrate the use of instructional software in the teaching of specific proficiencies (writing, languages, statistics, for example) that are used in a range of courses across an area of the curriculum. They might seek to develop the content of an enriched departmental website which links information technology tools to specific pedagogical goals for the department and its courses. Or they could address the Committee's goal of developing "creative connections to a networked community" across the advanced-level courses of a department's curriculum. We hope, in fact, to stimulate broad, innovative applications that may go well beyond these suggestions and find new ways to be pedagogically creative with technology from proposals under this rubric.
   • Proposals addressing these goals may come from individual faculty or groups within a department or area of the curriculum, or even from entire departments, and should indicate how the proposed development would affect the learning experience of students in two or more courses within that department or area. See below for further guidelines in preparing all proposals.
     
2. Departmental Workshops and Retreats: The Committee anticipates that many of the proposals in the first category will be department-based and will reflect departmentally developed goals regarding their students' knowledge of and skills with technology in the discipline. We therefore encourage departments to seek support in planning and implementing their own discipline-based workshops to develop technology goals and strategies for achieving them. Departments considering such sessions, which may be on or off campus, should review the Committee's report, cited above, and may wish to confer with the staff of Academic Computing or with members of the Committee in planning its agenda and goals. We anticipate that proposals to develop cross-course applications (category one) will grow out of such workshops. Proposals should be prepared by academic departments and outline goals for departmental development.
   
3. Mentored applications in individual courses: The Committee continues to encourage proposals for applications of technology in individual courses. In order to support faculty making these applications, however, we are now seeking proposals from teams of two or more in which one person is the leader and/or mentor in developing the proposed applications. Normally the mentor will already have successfully developed and implemented the application(s) being proposed. The Committee will be pleased to recommend faculty mentors for various types of applications.

Submission of proposals:
Proposals should be in the form of a written document that:

1. Includes a brief report on previous technology projects completed by the applicant(s) within the last two years. Your abstract of reports submitted to the Committee is sufficient.
   
2. Indicates in which of the categories listed above you are applying, and describes how the proposal fits that category.
   
3. Describes the pedagogical goals or outcomes of the proposal and specifies strategies that will be used to reach the goals or outcomes. Examples:
   • Creates a visual archive of materials which students can access through a departmental website and will be used to increase their ability to analyze and apply visual information in the study of X (category 1).
   • Applies an on-line collaborative writing program to the goals of enhancing writing skills in Writing Intensive courses across a particular area of the curriculum (1).
   • Develops a comprehensive statement of the department's goals for students using information technology in the field and of how those goals may be reached in 300-level courses in the department (2).
   • Creates a pedagogical process to teach students to use PowerPoint in making oral presentations in introductory courses in an area of the curriculum (e.g., Cultural Diversity courses) (3).
     
4. Identifies needs in order to accomplish goals: estimated time required, mentor, equipment...) Examples:
   • "I/we need to be shown how to set up a threaded electronic discussion. I also need about a half day of help and pedagogical advice from a faculty mentor who has done this previously."
   • "I/we need approximately a day of technical training on PowerPoint and approximately a week to produce a sample PowerPoint presentation to develop the expertise needed to teach the students how to do one."
     
5. Outlines an assessment plan and a dissemination plan.
   
6. Please submit proposals to the Committee via the listserv at: techlearn@wheatonma.edu
   For advice and/or information in developing proposals, you may contact Tom Brooks (x8230, tbrooks@wheatonma.edu, or Committee Chair for 2000-2001, Herb Ellison.
   
7. The deadlines for submitting proposals in 2000-2001 are:
   • November 15, 2000
   • February 15, 2001
   • June 15, 2001