Supporting Duke in China: Duke Kunshan University
CIT continues to support Duke faculty teaching at DKU. CIT provides consulting and assistance on planning courses and uses of technology, as well as support for faculty thinking about using new models of teaching (flipping the classroom, distance models, etc). CIT Senior Academic Technology Consultant Andrea Novicki traveled to DKU in 2015, providing on-site support for Duke faculty.
Improving learning for STEM students
CIT continues to participate in Duke’s COMPASS program, part of a “five-year, $1.5 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to improve learning for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students, particularly underrepresented minorities, in introductory science courses.” CIT’s Andrea Novicki serves as part of a team creating a STEM Teaching and Learning Collaboratory that brings together faculty, teaching assistants and learning specialists to enable all students to succeed in introductory STEM courses.
Lesser Commonly Taught Languages
Duke continues to partner with two other universities to increase the number of less commonly taught languages available on campus: Tibetan (from the University of Virginia), K’iche’ Mayan (from Vanderbilt University) and Creole (from Jacques Pierre, Duke Romance Languages).
Students at all three universities attend a course synchronously through high-definition video conferencing tools. In addition, native speaker teaching assistants help in the classroom and with grading at each of the partner institutions. The classroom configuration, as well as online activities used during class, are set up to encourage maximum interaction across the campuses and foster a sense of community.
CIT Academic Technology Consultant Elise Mueller helped Pierre redesign his Sakai site to make sure all materials and assignments were accessible by students and TAs at all universities. She also worked with him to use an iPad and online apps like Quizlet, PollEverywhere, and Explain Everything to increase inter-institutional student engagement during and outside of class time. Pierre and Mueller worked together to develop strategies to best use the teleconferencing setup for Pierre’s live teaching.
Assessment Scholars
The Assessment Scholars program supported faculty members who received grants from Arts and Sciences Faculty Assessment Committee (ASFAC) for projects to assess student learning. Molly Goldwasser (Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs), CIT’s Randy Riddle (Senior Academic Technology Consultant), and CIT’s Kim Manturuk (Program Evaluator) developed and ran the program, which provided time for participants to work on their assessment projects, share information and ideas across teams, and report on their project status along the way. Twelve ASFAC projects received funding, and all funded project teams were invited to the Assessment Scholars program. Four project teams consisting of six individuals choose to participate in the program.
Preparing future faculty — Bass Online Apprentices
CIT Senior Academic Technology Consultant Sophia Stone continued to manage CIT’s partnership with the Graduate School’s Bass Online Apprentice Fellowship, which provides Ph.D. students hands-on experience in online college teaching by collaborating with Duke faculty to develop Coursera MOOCs or other online courses. This year we provided the opportunity for three Bass fellows to work with our project teams to create global online learning experiences. Stone also continued to teach GS 762 Online College Teaching, a hybrid course she co-teaches and co-developed with Hugh Crumley, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs.