Earlier this spring, a collaboration of Swem Library, the School of Education, and IT Information Services received a grant from the College’s Creative Adaptation Fund (CAF) to develop resources to help faculty develop new knowledge and skills in e-learning. We define e-learning in the broadest possible way: any educational activity that uses “electronic” technology to enhance learning. This could include computer-based learning, all kinds of Web activities, virtual classrooms, and digital collaboration. We’re particularly interested in finding projects that blend online and face-to-face learning in new ways.
About Gene Roche
Gene Roche is director of Academic Information Services with responsibility for assisting faculty in using technology effectively in their teaching, learning and research. He also has an academic appointment as Executive Professor in the School of Education where he teaches courses in educational technology planning, emerging technology, and adult education and works with with students on independent study, dissertations and comprehensive exams. Current projects include working with the SOE’s Executive EdD program, co-chairing William and Mary’s Survey Center, and serving as chair of the Electronic Campus of Virginia. Gene completed his AB degree at Hamilton College and his MS and EdD degrees at Syracuse University–all in the snow belt of upstate New York. Before coming to William and Mary, he was the Director of Career Services at Hamilton and taught in graduate programs in Adult Education at Syracuse University and Elmira College.
March 5, 2013
Flipped Classroom Update
I’m in the midst of the last week of my flipped class, and there are lots of lessons being learned — most of them by me. I’m still very much in it right now, but let me share a few thoughts.
January 22, 2013
Thoughts from a MOOC Pioneer
Recently Scott E. Page did a presentation at the University of Wisconsin Center for Educational Innovation where he reviewed his experience teaching his Model Thinking course twice through online course provider Coursera. The talk he gives is a very interesting insight into the process of creating a very successful MOOC (massive open online course), but ties the experience into the typical role of a professor. For him, the mission of the professor is to share important ideas as deeply and with as wide an audience as possible.
December 18, 2012
Confessions of a Classroom Flipper
I never thought I’d see the day when I had to confess to becoming a classroom flipper. After generations of teaching courses that focus almost entirely on interaction among the students, I’m now trying to learn how to create screencasts of my “lectures” so that students can “cover the material” before they come to the class session. The course I’ll be teaching this spring is an undergraduate course in the Mason School of Business on “using computers to make business decisions.” I taught the class last spring as an experiment, and if there ever was a course that begged to be put online, this is the one.
November 13, 2012
What We Can Learn from Bryn Mawr’s Online Learning Experiment
On the “worth watching” list of experiments in online learning is a project at Bryn Mawr, a small liberal arts college that values personal interaction with students. Although using online learning at a college like Bryn Mawr sounds a little counter-intuitive, faculty involved in the project hope to “reinforce their hands-on teaching model rather than to subvert it” by using online course modules. How does this kind of model work, and what can we learn from this online learning experiment?
October 11, 2012
Making the Switch to Online Evaluations
A new online evaluation system at the College will help make course evaluations more humane and environmentally responsible, as well as more useful for instructors. Click through to read more about why we’re making the switch.
September 27, 2012
The Final Last Word on MOOCs
It’s easy to find criticism with new ideas, and massive open online courses are no exception. In this post, Gene responds to a scathing review of an introductory statistics course offered by Udacity. Massive Open Online Courses, he says, can offer professors ways to interact with students on an individual level that large lecture courses cannot.
August 23, 2012
Inconvenient Truths about MOOCs
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been unavoidable in discussions of the role of technology in higher education. In this post, Gene gives an overview of those discussions, as well as the reasons why we need to pay attention to how MOOCs could transform the ways that we teach and learn.
July 12, 2012
The MOOCs that (Almost) Ate UVA
As I’ve confessed recently, I’m not very good at predicting the future of technology. I missed wireless and YouTube, and there were nights when I had serious doubts about this whole “world wide web” thing. Nonetheless, recent events seem to suggest that even in those of us working in traditional institutions might need to pay some [...]
June 21, 2012
Using Surveys to Foster Individual Responsibility for Learning
How might an instructor use surveys to help teach a class? In this post, Gene talks about his technique of having students fill out electronic survey to help him tailor his syllabus to groups of students as well as encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning.