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by Paulette Robinson

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is proud to announce the speakers for the second annual speaker series, “Teaching, Learning, Technology?” The series was created to facilitate a campus discussion of issues related to the integration of technology into the teaching and learning process through presentations and discussions facilitated by national experts. The series is co-sponsored by the Academic Support Unit in OIT and the University of Maryland University Libraries. All presentations are held in McKeldin Library room 6137. Detailed information is available on the Speaker Series Web site at www.oit.umd.edu/AS/speaker_series.html.

The first speaker in the 2003-2004 series will be Charles Dzuiban from the University of Central Florida, who will speak on September 25 at 2 p.m. Dr. Dzuiban is the Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness. In his presentation, “The Impact of Online and Mixed-Mode Courses on University Faculty and Students,” he will summarize findings from seven years of evaluating the University of Central Florida’s distributed learning initiative that examined both fully online and mixed-mode (hybrid) courses. Faculty and student demographics and satisfaction will also be discussed as well as the impact these varying course modalities have on faculty ratings and student success and attrition.

The second speaker, Dr. Arlene Russell from UCLA’s Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, will present “Calibrated Peer Review™ – A Writing and Critical Thinking Instructional Tool” on November 13 at 2 p.m. Calibrated Peer Review™ (CPR) is a new discipline-independent, instructional management tool that enables an instructor to make frequent writing assignments that probe student understanding of concepts without requiring increased instructional resources for grading. The tool facilitates within its structure the process of student peer review by modeling a peer review process (calibrated by the instructor), providing an opportunity for students to practice and be evaluated for their peer review competency, and then having the students anonymously review peer assignments. Well-designed CPR assignments have been demonstrated to enhance student understanding of the topics, to facilitate self-based learning using technology, to improve writing skills, and to teach evaluation skills.

The rest of the speakers in the series include Dr. Brian Coppola, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan and Director - CSIE: Chemical Sciences at the Interface of Education (www.umich.edu/~csie), who will present February 12, 2004; Dr. Sean Brophy, postdoctoral scholar in Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University and part of the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies as well as VaNTH (an Engineering Research Center to support Bioengineering Educational Technologies–a consortium effort housed at Vanderbilt), who will present March 11; and finally, Dr. Vijay Kumar, Director of Academic Computing at MIT, who will be the main speaker at the Teaching With Technology Conference on April 9, 2004 and will present on emerging technologies for teaching and learning.

We encourage you to come and not only listen to the presentations, but also to participate in the post-presentation discussions. Light refreshments are served.

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