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Technology Course Enhancement Report

This spring, I worked on two projects that built on my previous work integrating technology into my courses. The first involved using web-based discussion in my large class, History 231: U.S. Women since 1869. The second involved improving my skills with Photoshop and PowerPoint in order to enhance my classroom presentations in History 231. While there is always room for improvement, both projects met with considerable success. Report Pedagogical Goals Pedagogically, electronic discussion is one of many techniques I use in an effort to mitigate the alienating effect of large classes. Since my women's history class enrolled more than forty students this spring, electronic discussion was an important component of the course. Generally, I have been pleased with the use of e-mail discussion in the past, but the difficulty with electronic discussion lists in large classes is that the messages can overload students' mailboxes. Web-based discussion seemed to be a good substitute. My efforts to integrate images into my lectures are part of an ongoing effort on my part to address the pedagogical issues raised by students' [...] attention span. In some ways, I see the use of slides as a kind of "commercial break" that can serve to refocus wandering attention. I also believe that students can benefit from having an image to associate with an idea and that such association can serve as an aid to memory. Strategies In February, I met with Shaoping Moss to set up a web-based electronic discussion forum for History 231. The forum was accessible not only through Wheaton's academic homepage but also through a link on my electronic syllabus. Over the course of the semester, I learned how to manage the forum, and students participated at rates comparable to participation rates in electronic discussions for previous courses. When I first began to learn how to scan images and create slideshows in the spring of 1998, I faced many challenges mastering the technology not only of creating slideshows but also of presenting them. This semester, I have continued to work on these issues. In January, I attended a workshop organized by Alex Bloom, who agreed to serve as my mentor for this project. Later in the semester, Alex took the time to remind me to scan images at no larger than 72 dpi in order to minimize the amount of memory required to run a slideshow. He also kindly helped me learn how to manage the memory on individual computers in order to run PowerPoint presentations. And he shared with me a number of images that he had scanned for his own courses. Over the course of the semester, I created several slideshows for History 231, and by the end of the term, the presentations ran quite smoothly. Assessment On the whole, students responded more positively to the PowerPoint presentations than they did to the web-based discussion, though several found the discussion useful. With regard to discussion, student comments ranged from "I hate the electronic board postings" to "The email discussion group was helpful because you got to see other peoples' opinions." Rates of student participation in electronic discussion did not differ significantly from previous semesters, when I used an e-mail discussion list rather than the web-based one employed this semester. In a class of 44 students, participation ranged from a high of 18 posts to a low of zero over the course of the semester. Most students posted a total of between nine and twelve messages. At least one student complained that it was difficult to participate in a discussion that included so many other students because she had trouble coming up with something original to say. The next time I teach this course, I will break down the discussions so that fewer students will participate in each one. I will also link the on-line discussion more closely to in-class discussion and to study questions published in the syllabus. Once I learned to manage memory more effectively, the PowerPoint presentations went very smoothly, and students responded to them quite positively. Many students characterized the slides as "helpful," "useful," or "interesting." One student wrote, "The slideshows really bring the facts to life. It's important not only to learn the information but to realize that these events/situations really did occur. I think students need visual representation to fully grasp this." Another commented, "The slides definitely help me to remember things because there is such a great amount of information presented in class and in our texts." PowerPoint presentations will definitely be a regular component of my introductory-level courses in the future. Dissemination I do not currently have plans to disseminate information about this project outside Wheaton. I want to continue to work on electronic discussion a bit before writing an article on integrating on-line and in-class discussion in history courses with large enrollments. My thanks to the committee for their continued support of my efforts to employ technology to enhance my teaching.

Last updated on 12/1/00;
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