This Year’s Faculty Tech Fellows: AI Literacy, Critical Thinking, Immersive Media Exhibition, and more
Chatham University’s Faculty Technology Fellows program sets out to empower faculty to use technology to enhance teaching, increase student engagement, and advance scholarship.
The two year program gives faculty the chance to develop projects that will enhance pedagogical skills, technology proficiency, engagement strategies, and digital literacy, as well as advancing their research and scholarship.
Watch this year’s presentation and lear more at tlc.chatham.edu.
Here are the projects from this year’s fellows:
Teaching the Teachers: Integrating LMS Training into Graduate Writing Pedagogy
by David Blackmore, associate professor of English and writing coordinator
ENG515, Teaching Writing, prepares teaching fellows and other MFA Creative Writing students how to teach different types of writing courses, including academic and creative writing, in various higher education contexts.
The biggest hole in the practical training that we provided to students in ENG515 was that we did not train them in the use of Brightspace or any other LMS (learning management systems). Since LMS are used in almost every higher education teaching context, the goal was to incorporate LMS training into the ENG515 course.
Rendering the Invisible: Prototyping a Virtual Exhibition for Immersive Media at Chatham
by Shimul Chowdhury, assistant professor of immersive media
One of the challenges collectively faced at the end of each semester within the immersive media program is, how do we show what we’ve done? How do we share our work with our peers, then document and archive it for the future? How do I—as an instructor who also wears the hats of the curator, exhibition designer, and marketing manager—ensure the impact and experience of a live immersive experience is adequately attended, considered, and recorded? Can immersive media even be experienced in a meaningful way if not done so live and in person?
These are the questions that I asked myself when considering what sort of tech-centered project I might attempt to pursue while teaching in an already highly tech-centered program. By reflecting on past curatorial and archival projects in my personal practice, I plan to explore potential platforms and form factors for a Chatham immersive media digital exhibition.
Breaking the Stalemate: Integrating Generative-AI and Media Literacy into Higher Education Pedagogy
by Ryan D’Souza, assistant professor of communication
I am interested in addressing the stalemate in the classroom between faculty and students concerning generative-AI tools. The notion of a stalemate is borrowed from chess, wherein neither side can progress or win, leading to a draw; however, in the classroom, while there are no immediate winners, there is a clear loser—the debt-incurring student. Following reports from the World Economic Forum, generative-AI tools are now part of the desirable “soft skills” employers look for (2023), as well as the political acumen for citizens living in a media-dense world (2024).
In the midst of such changes, faculty must adopt, learn, and teach. Therefore, we must develop ways to better integrate new technologies and their communicative logics in research, teaching, and service. If not, both faculty and students will find themselves outside the sphere of social changes.
Enhancing Critical Thinking in Athletic Training: Developing Interactive Simulations for Student Evaluation
by Mindi Hilborn, assistant professor of athletic training
Student evaluation in athletic training is something that not only takes physical, hands-on skills but needs to have critical thinking evolve. Within the healthcare curriculum, students are often taught about conditions in their entirety and then struggle when working through vague symptoms, especially outside of athletic injuries.
For this reason, I thought that there needed to be a patient evaluation simulation that could be utilized by students to practice their critical thinking with lower stakes—less points and not with live patients in their clinical settings. This also needed to be something that could be adaptable to different injuries and illnesses in a variety of our courses.