May 14, 2020 | Home Page
Less than two weeks after Penn State transitioned to remote teaching, the Tech TAs program debuted to provide faculty real-time, on-demand Zoom support so they could focus on delivering lessons and not video-conferencing technology. Thanks to a positive reception and the continuation of remote teaching, Tech TAs will be available during summer courses.
In an anonymous survey of faculty who utilized Tech TAs during the spring semester, 100% of respondents indicated that they would recommend the service to a colleague and that Tech TAs added value to their courses. Additionally, over 90% of respondents mentioned they would use Tech TAs again, and that they helped to meet their students’ needs.
One survey respondent replied to an open-ended question that this brand-new service brought them peace of mind during adverse circumstances. “Tech TAs gave me confidence that everything during my Zoom lessons would run as smoothly as possible,” they said.
Penn State students serve as Tech TAs and are the Zoom technology experts during the synchronous portion of a class. Examples of their work in Zoom during the spring semester included; setting up breakout rooms, tracking students’ attendance, administering polls, monitoring the chat feature, synchronous tech support, and recording sessions.
Additionally, the Tech TAs can help configure Zoom so that students cannot enter a “room” unless the host is present. This will prevent faculty from receiving emails anytime someone enters their Zoom room, and it will help eliminate excessively long recordings.
Faculty can request the help of a Tech TA by completing this Tech TA faculty request form. Upon submission, an email will be sent that introduces the instructor and the Tech TA. After the intro email, the TA will follow up directly to assess specific needs and determine the next steps.
Sep 18, 2019 | Home Page
Penn State faculty who participate in the third round of Affordable Course Transformation at Penn State (ACT@PSU) will continue the effort to provide greater access to higher education through affordable course materials. The call for proposals will open on Wednesday, September 25 and the deadline to submit is Monday, November 11.
“It was exciting to work on [ACT@PSU] because it gave me the resources to complete something I had planned for many years,” said Zachary Klingensmith, assistant teaching professor of economics at Penn State Behrend, when asked about his ACT@PSU project last year. “The ACT team introduced me to existing materials that allowed me to create something beautiful, useful, and free for my [ECON 102 and 104] students which will be used for many, many years to come.”
Published research has shown that open educational resources (OERs) are effective in increasing students’ end-of-course grades along with their potential to save student populations millions of dollars. Penn State is supporting the effort to develop OERs through ACT@PSU, a program funded by the Open and Affordable Educational Resources (OAER) Working Group which is charged by Penn State executive vice president and provost Nick Jones.
Faculty who participate in ACT@PSU receive a grant stipend, instructional design support from Teaching and Learning with Technology, and additional support from the Open Educational Resources coordinator and Open Education Librarian.
ACT@PSU will open the call for proposals on September 25. Interested faculty should visit Penn State’s OER website and click on “Schedule Consultation” in the top right corner and choose to meet in person or via Zoom with Julie Lang or Amanda Larson.
Following the consultation, an online application can be submitted along with a syllabus for the course intended for transformation.
Mar 29, 2019 | Home Page
On Saturday, March 16, more than 500 attendees packed into Presidents Hall at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center to kick off the 26th Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State. One of the most innovative professional development events of the year at Penn State, no other conference promises to spark your imagination and stoke your curiosity for what is possible for the future of higher education.
In her opening remarks, Jennifer Sparrow, senior director of Teaching and Learning with Technology, touched on Penn State’s commitment to forward-thinking with initiatives such as President Barron’s vision for One Penn State 2025, a guiding framework for University-wide education innovation with a focus on student success and lifelong engagement. “I am proud that Penn State continues to be cutting-edge and Teaching and Learning with Technology collaborates with faculty to explore how innovative technology can transform education to advance student learning.”
Penn State leads the charge in reimagining student learning by tackling the burning discussions in higher education on topics such as immersive learning, connecting education to the workforce of the future, and promoting access and equity.
Keynote speaker Dan Heath addresses a crowd of more than 500 attendees at the 2019 TLT Symposium at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center.
After the buffet breakfast, four-time New York Times bestselling author and a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE Center, Dan Heath delivered the keynote address on how to make ideas stick. “Our memories are leaky, fallible, and they deteriorate,” says Heath. “For an idea to stick, it needs to be understood, remembered, and change something.”
Citing the research done by Dr. Michael Palmer, professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia, Heath captivated the audience with his explanation of how Dr. Palmer used learner-centered, backward-integrated design principles to convince instructors to rethink how they create a syllabus to teach their courses. By starting with a goal of what is most important for students to take away from a course and working backward to create the activities and assessments, the core ideas have a chance of sticking long after students leave the classroom.
Heath co-authored four must-read business books, with his brother Chip, including Made to Stick, Switch, Decisive, and their latest, The Power of Moments.
Energized by the keynote speaker’s message, attendees dashed to the concurrent sessions—two before lunch and two afterwards. The most popular sessions covered topics including 3D printing, 360-degree videos, open educational resources, learning the art of storytelling, the future of digital fluency, and leveraging prototypes of artificial intelligence applications to support data empowered learning at Penn State.
The most anticipated aspect of the Symposium every year is the Open Innovation Challenge, where five faculty innovators have five minutes to present their idea in the hopes that it will ignite the attendees’ curiosity and earn their votes as the most impactful.
Professor of Astronomy Chris Palma envisioned technology that will help students embody solar system formations; Faith McDonald, professor of English, hoped to prepare students with digital stories to face workplace challenges; Dr. Matthew Woessner, professor of Political Science, wanted to create 360-degree videos to take students to distant places through virtual reality; Josephine Wee, assistant professor of food science, wanted students to reimagine classrooms without textbooks and embrace interactive content in real-time; and Rodney Allen Trice, professor of practice in the graphic design department of the Stuckeman School at Penn State, won the challenge with his idea “Walk a Mile,” a series of 360-degree videos and photos that create an immersive experience to invoke empathy. Penn State’s Stuckeman School also houses graduate and undergraduate degree programs in architecture and landscape architecture.
Over the course of the year, Trice’s idea will be explored and developed with the help of TLT staff. “Working on the Open Innovation Challenge is the highlight of my year,” explains Zach Lonsinger, learning experiences designer for Teaching and Learning with Technology. “I enjoy having the opportunity to meet and work with amazing faculty who have this contagious enthusiasm and passion for transforming teaching and learning with their big ideas.”
The conference ended with faculty networking over scoops of Penn State Berkey Creamery ice cream while trying out some new technologies such as test driving a BEAM robot and stepping into virtual reality with headsets at the Discovery sessions.
The Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology brings together faculty, staff, and innovators to inspire new ideas for what is possible in the future of higher education. It takes one “sticky” idea to inspire innovation that changes the world. From Gutenberg’s printing press to Thomas Edison’s light bulb, curiosity fuels learning, and educators are charged with stoking it.
“It’s incredible how dedicated our faculty, staff, and students are to show up at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning to share the innovative things that they are doing in the classrooms and to learn more about what is happening in the teaching and learning community at Penn State,” says Sara Davis, 2019 Symposium chair and Teaching and Learning with Technology instructional designer. “I want to thank everyone who attended the 2019 Symposium and mark your calendars, the 2020 TLT Symposium will be on Saturday, March 21, 2020. I hope to see everyone next year.”