Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Tech Initiative Gains Ground

The Teaching, Learning and Technologies Initiative has allowed a group of faculty to reinvigorate their classroom experiences with new teaching techniques this academic year.

The enterprise, which was launched in May 2011 by the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship and the Gelardin New Media Center, aims to help faculty use technology in creative ways to advance learning as well as student- faculty interaction.

According to Executive Director of CNDLS Randall Bass, the university plans to mesh the goals and resources of the program with those of the Doyle Initiative, which focuses on emphasizing diversity and tolerance in the undergraduate curriculum, and the BottleNecks and Threshold Initiative, which is designed to further students’ understanding through engaged writing.

“TLT will continue to push the envelope on technology-enhanced pedagogies,” Bass wrote in an email.

This year, the TLT Initiative includes six faculty fellows from all four of Georgetown’s undergraduate schools.

Professor Betsy Sigman, who teaches in the McDonough School of Business, has applied the program’s technology within her operations and information management courses by having students create online timelines charting companies’ progress and using Google Plus as a classroom forum.

“Being a TLT fellow has almost taken [teaching] to a new level, in that [it has] allowed me to step back and integrate new technology into the classroom and think about new technology I wanted to introduce students to,” Sigman said.

Professor Nancy Crego, who teaches pediatric nursing in the School of Nursing and Health Studies, has used the fellowship to improve her longstanding program of patient simulation by electronically tracking and recording her students’ progress.

Both Sigman and Crego emphasized the initiative’s upside for both students and faculty.

“[Students’] enthusiasm and interest takes things to a new level,” Sigman said. “It creates a community of learning that we all strive for.”

For Crego, the main benefits of being a TLT fellow were unexpected.

“The most positive thing for me on the faculty end is the contact I’ve had with so many different places within Georgetown,” she said. “I found out about other resources, and [my TLT team] shared with me other people on faculty who use technology in different ways. It’s been great networking.”

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