French instructor Robert Kilpatrick uses blogs in Blackboard to provide students with opportunities to practice writing French in an unstructured manner, different from the other types of more formal writing students are asked to do in the course. The Blackboard blog was chosen over a public blog to allow the students to write in a space which was private to the course, in deference to their still-developing skills with French. The blog exercises engaged students in the course, and improved their ability to spontaneously write in French compared to previous courses Kilpatrick has taught.

Using FlipCams, students produced short video interviews and pieces that showed artworks around campus, asking questions that centered around how important art is at the university, potential spaces for artworks and how students in the campus community create and experience art.

The videos were uploaded to a public blog for the course; most of the student videos can be seen in the November postings of the blog.

ARTSVIS 54 Blog:  http://artsvis54.blogspot.com/

Project Description

As part of the CIT’S Spring 2006 Fellows program designed for faculty teaching large classes, Dr. Queen Utley-Smith wished to be more creative in her use of teaching strategies to keep her students interested and engaged.

In the program, Utley-Smith and the other Fellows were introduced to a wide range of methods to enhance student learning and engagement in large courses including new approaches to lectures and effective use of student feedback and groups. She tried to use Blackboard’s blogs in her Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (N502) class for guided student reflections. She also used “opinion polls” to determine student attitudes about health promotion and to then use their responses as a starting point for facilitated discussion, which worked well for her.

She reported that some strategies she applied to her N502 course were successful in keeping her students interested and engaged and she would be certain to use in the future a number of ideas that were presented during the Fellows program.

Project start date: 1/2006
Funding awarded: $ 1,250

Project Description

As part of the CIT’S Spring 2006 Fellows program designed for faculty teaching large classes, Kathryn Trotter particularly searched for ways to keep learning as interactive as possible in her classes. By working to provide multiple ways to learn the content (visual, audio, progressive recall, case scenarios with discussion threading), she hoped her students would all complete the course with adequate content knowledge to both become practicing clinicians in women’s and men’s reproductive health, as well as pass their certification exam.

In the program, Trotter and the other Fellows were introduced to a wide range of methods to enhance student learning and engagement in large courses including new approaches to lectures and effective use of student feedback and groups. She used individual blogs to allow the students to write their weekly personal clinical journal. This served the requirement to keep a log, and also allowed the students and the instructor to read the blogs, and offer support and clarification to the individuals. The students liked the variety of perspectives as well as clinical case scenarios provided by the blogs.

In the blogs, the students discussed how they felt, how they measured their own progress, what they liked and didn’t like, without being graded. Trotter was able to pick up on site issues, such as preceptor difficulties, and types of patients seen, which her School uses to determine appropriate sites to use in future.

Trotter also found it simple and helpful to use Blackboard’s survey tool to gather feedback about the value of students’ on-campus experiences in this distance education course.

Trotter reported that the methods she explored were successful in helping her interact with her students, engaging her students, and giving them a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Project start date: 1/2006
Funding awarded: $ 1,250

Additional Information
An article about Trotter’s and Dr. Jane Blood-Siegfried’s experience using Blogs, in the Inside, the Duke University Medical Center and Health System Employee Newsletter.

A poster presented by Trotter at the CIT Showcase 2006