1998-1999 Miller Faculty Fellowships

Proposer(s)	Proposal Title
Thomas Andre, Denise Schmidt	"Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers Today: Enhancing Pre-Service Teachers' Technology Skills for Tomorrow's Technology-Enhanced Schools"
Description:	Tomorrow's technology-enhanced schools will require that teachers be prepared to use and integrate digital instructional technology (DIT) Increasing and documenting our preservice teachers' skills in exemplary uses of DIT is critical to ISU's teacher education mission. Currently, the lack of real-world classroom models that use DIT for instruction inhibits beginning and advanced students from implementing digital technology effectively into instruction. This project will provide opportunities for preservice teachers in beginning and advanced instructional technology courses and teaching methodology courses to use videos that will: illustrate critical concepts and exemplary PreK-12 uses of DIT; and provide authentic classroom-based, technology-related, problem-solving experiences for students. Additionally, preservice teachers will create electronic portfolios of technology-based educational materials developed in their teacher preparation courses. These portfolios will assist in the assessment of students' DIT skills development and will highlight their academic achievements as they prepare to enter 21st Century technology-enhanced schools.
Dennis Dake, Steven Herrnstadt, Arthur Croyle, Mary Stieglitz	"Visual Literacy for Artists and Scientists"
Description:	This project entails the development of a new undergraduate foundations course in visual literacy, involving content on visual perception, visual communication, and visual problem-solving skills. The course will target an interdisciplinary audience of art, science, and engineering students and will be made available both to on-campus and to nontradional, off-campus students beginning in the summer of 1999. The primary purposes of this course, to be taught via the World Wide Web (WWW), are: to provide a large group of undergraduate students a unique opportunity to develop basic visual literacy skills and knowledge for 21st century interdisciplinary careers that will require visual communications; and to showcase the visual research efforts of Iowa State University faculty and advanced Art and Design students and make educational service connections with the larger ISU community, the people of the state of Iowa, and the nation.
Alvin Day	"Web-Based Cooperative Learning"
Description:	Several faculty in the College of Engineering are moving toward a cooperative learning environment in the courses that they teach. Much of this movement has occurred through faculty participation in Project LEA/RN. Other College of Engineering faculty are moving toward web-based delivery of some or all of their course content. Still others are experimenting with the internet as a mechanism for interaction among all course participants. As the world wide web continues to expand its saturation into business, school, and home, web-based delivery of courses will also be in increasing demand. This project will explore and develop methods for incorporating cooperative learning into web-based, internet-delivered courses.
Anne Foegen, Denise Schmidt, Constance Hargrave	"Learning and Teaching with Group Response Technology"
Description:	Learning and Teaching with Group Response Technology (LTGRT) is designed to incorporate an innovative communication technology into lower division courses in the College of Education. This technology (known as Discourse®) efficiently allows all students to participate in learning simultaneously. As Curriculum and Instruction faculty use group response technology in lower division courses, students will have an experiential basis from which to consider active participation, teacher monitoring, and feedback as essential elements of effective instruction. LTGRT will expand their repertoires of effective technology-based teaching methods. A research component integrated into LTGRT will further the existing line of inquiry on the effects of group response technology in higher education learning environments and examine evaluation data from students and instructors who use the system.
Leslie Hogben, Brian Keller, Bill Rudolph, Janet Sharp	"Improving the Mathematics Program for Prospective Elementary School Teachers"
Description:	Major changes are occurring in the mathematics curriculum in elementary schools nationwide. Teachers are asked to teach material not previously in the curriculum, including geometry, probability, statistics, and algebraic reasoning. Moreover, they are asked to use new methods, including modeling with manipulatives and cognitively guided instruction. We must prepare the graduates of our elementary education program to teach this content and use the new methodology. Although the current math courses for prospective teachers are a good beginning, they do not adequately prepare teachers to meet the changing needs of schools. The Departmnets of Mathematics and Curriculum and Instruction propose to address this problem. This collaboration represents a golden opportunity to design an excellent mathematics program that will prepare prospective elementary school teachers to teach the mathematics curriculum of the twenty-first century. These teachers will have an enormous impact on the students they teach; consequently, the redesign of these courses is essential.
Doug Jacobson	"A Student-Centered Approach to Computer Engineering Through Learning Communities"
Description:	Learning Communities, a growing initiative at Iowa State University, aid freshman in the transition to college life as students live in the same residence hall and attend a common block of classes. By combining learning communities with the concept of student-centered active learning, students will gain control of and adjust more quickly to their new environment, experience increased achievement, and persist in the program. First year computer engineering students involved in the learning community will participate in two new courses during the 1998/1999 academic year. The new courses will be framed within the context of active learning to better prepare students for continuation in computer engineering by increasing their skills in group work and providing life-long learning skills. The courses will allow students to experience Computer Engineering through interactive projects within a context of promoting interactive skills. Students will complete their freshman year with a greater awareness of computer engineering, knowledge and skills for successful teamwork, and experience a quicker and more satisfying acclimation to the university and college life.
Brian Keller	"Project LEARN CALC: Partners in Learning"
Description:	The purpose of Project LEARN CALC is to provide mathematics instructors, particularly new and inexperienced calculus instructors, with resources to improve the teaching of calculus. The project is a cooperative effort among mathematics, science and engineering instructors to place student learning at the center of the educational experience in calculus and to increase classroom-orientated interactions among the disciplines. Calculus instructors and veteran faculty from Project LEA/RN will form partner teams with the following goals: develop, practice and refine effective teaching skills; enhance student learning in freshman and sophomore-level mathematics courses; and create shared experiences for instructors and students from the different disciplines providing a foundation for future instructional efforts. Drawing from the success of Project LEA/RN and a pilot investigation, the project will establish an environment in which instructors will explore pedagogical and learning theories and their implications for effective teaching in the context of freshman mathematics.
Ardith Maney	"Studying Central Europe in Transition: A Collaboration with Iowa Community Colleges to Internationalize the Undergraduate Curriculum"
Description:	Iowa State's Strategic Plan aims at strengthening undergraduate education and enhancing students' awareness of global issues and cultures. This project supports those goals by developing an innovative interdisciplinary, lower-division course that builds upon cultural ties between Iowa and Central Europe; alliances already established among ISU, Iowa's community colleges; and universities in the Czech and Slovak Republics, and interest in the new nations of Central Europe. Unique in its inception, the courses are being jointly developed by faculty at ISU, Iowa Central Community College and Kirkwood Community College, and offered on each campus at a common time to a total of 90 students during the Spring '99 semester. The three courses will utilize a common website supporting instruction and share guest speakers via the ICN. Fifteen students from all three campuses will also have an opportunity to further their awareness in an associated study abroad program planned for Summer '99.
Thomas Polito, Lee Buras, Brent Pearce, Sherry Pogranichniy	"Integrating New Students into the Agronomy Learning Community"
Description:	The close proximity of the Agronomy Department's undergraduate reading room to the teaching faculty offices along with dedicated participation of the Agronomy faculty in the activities of the undergraduate student club have formed the basis for strong bonds among and between Agronomy students and faculty. The weak link in the development of cohesiveness is getting new students immediately involved. This project is intended to very quickly form cohesive, supportive learning communities that will be the foundation for the integration of new freshman students into the Agronomy Department's undergraduate academic community, thus easing the students' transition to the University and providing a learning community beyond the first semester.
Herman Quirmbach	"Econ 101: Putting the Freshmen Back in Freshman Economics"
Description:	My project will use Internet technology to give the Economics 101 student an experience that is more personal and that responds more directly to his or her individual learning needs. For many an entering student, typically coming to Iowa State from a small high school, this campus can seem a very large and impersonal place. The problem is compounded when the student finds herself or himself in one large introductory course after another. Unfortunately, huge enrollments - over 3400 students last year - have left my department with little choice in the past but to teach Economics 101 in large lecture classes and generally without discussion sections. We need to do better. My project will use the Internet to improve the dissemination of information regarding course activities and enhance the availability of lecture notes. I intend to tie individual practice experiences directly to lecture topics, so that each student can get immediate practice and feedback on each topic. The creation of a Frequently Asked Questions posting and later a course-specific newsgroup will greatly facilitate two-way communication between the student and the instructor - and among students with shared concerns. The development of software to implement market simulations will allow the students, working together, to get hands-on personal experience doing economics. All of the above can also be adapted to meet the needs of commuting, nontraditional, and distance-learning students as well.
Robert Thompson, Elisabeth Hamin	"Sustainable Communities: An Interactive Perspective"
Description:	We propose to create a course on sustainable communities that will incorporate innovative teaching methods and adopt a global perspective. The course will advance the College of Design's goals of making sustainability in design a more prominent part of the curriculum and of encouraging interdisciplinary coursework and contribute to the University's strategic goal of increased internationalization of programs. In the course, students will explore both the theoretical construction of sustainability and its application to physical and social planning of communities. The students will examine the ethical basis for sustainability, the history of the idea, its outcome measurements (indicators) both in the U.S. and abroad, and examples of community projects embodying the goals of sustainability. Students will examine their own ethical understanding of the basis for sustainability, conduct sustainability audits of their lives, develop personal sustainability indicators, and determine plans for increasing the sustainability of their lives based on those indicators. Finally, students will help a community in Iowa develop a sustainability plan. The course will be cross-listed in Community and Regional Planning, Design Studies, and Environmental Studies.
Janette Thompson, Steven Jungst	"Enhancing Student-Centered Learning in the Undergraduate Forestry Curriculum"
Description:	Student-centered instruction is a new model of teaching/learning that Faculty in the Department of Forestry are adopting throughout the undergraduate Forestry curriculum. Forestry faculty view this new pedagogy as an opportunity to enhance student success at Iowa State and especially in their careers after graduation. We have adopted this approach after faculty participation in Project LEA/RN activities facilitated by members of the ISU College of Education during the past two years. This student-centered model of education has been shown to develop successful student team skills, student confidence in learning abilities, and life-long learning skills. In addition, students educated with this approach have shown greater academic achievement, favorable attitudes toward learning, and better retention in undergraduate courses and programs. We are proposing the addition of a half-time graduate teaching assistant to our staff to provide support during integration of this new approach, particularly in a 200-level series of six required courses.
U. Sunday Tim	"Distance Education in Precision Farming: Creating and Implementing Authentic Learning Environment and Web-Based Interactive, Multimedia Instructional Materials"
Description:	The various technological forces that have caused such upheaval in the global industry are also stimulating changes in the education of the global workforce. The traditional model of location-specific and time-specific educational experiences is vastly replaced by a new paradigm of distance learning, continuous education, and life-long learning. Land grant colleges and universities are called upon to make significant changes in the quality of the educational experience by reengineering courses and curricula to incorporate emerging technologies that break the constraints of place and time. Integration of these technologies into higher education presents an excellent opportunity to improve the services provided to students, while responding to the changing definition of learning and student demographics. This proposal addresses the need for distance education courses in precision farming. Precision farming, an emerging farming concept that enhances the production of food, fiber, and feed, offers the promise of increased productivity and profitability, decreased production costs, and reduced environmental impacts from agriculture. In the project, the principal investigator (PI) will develop and manage an authentic learning environment that contains comprehensive instructional materials to support distance learning in precision farming. The PI will create interactive, multimedia instruction/learning materials that can be used in distance education courses at ISU and globally. The PI will also evaluate the effectiveness of these educational resources and disseminate the products of the research to interested institutions and ISU programs. The potential benefits of this project include developing courses and instructional materials that keep pace with cutting-edge technology; providing a highly interactive learning environment for distance education; and providing opportunities for undergraduate students and adult workforce to attain a higher level of competence and skill in precision farming.