Faculty find value in teaching with technology

By Judy Lin

Students of muralist and professor Judith Baca can view interactive digital murals on the Internet, link to background information and even comment directly about the artwork.

In Political Science Professor Jeffrey Lewis' class, students use cell phones and computers to play games such as "Prisoner's Dilemma" that help them grasp the connection between their use of intuition and formal analysis.

Lewis and Baca, who is in world arts and cultures, the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and the Chavez Center, are this year's winners of the Brian P. Copenhaver Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. Created by the Faculty Committee on Educational Technology (FCET), the annual award recognizes faculty who use technology to enhance undergraduate learning. In the five years since its inception, 17 winners have been selected from a field of 130 nominated by students and faculty.

The award has succeeded in helping more faculty think about how they might use technology in their teaching — an effort that hasn't always been viewed as an asset, noted Ruth Sabean, assistant vice provost and director of educational technology. In fact, she added, some faculty recall being told, "Don't waste your time pursuing that until after you are tenured."

But times have changed, said Sabean, who also was recently surprised with a Copenhaver Award of her own in recognition of her efforts. "There's a level of scholarship that goes along with using technology," she said, "as an effective pedagogical tool to help students grasp abstract concepts or become enthusiastically engaged with the material."

Many faculty now put teaching technologies on their curriculum vitae and report the Copenhaver Award to funding organizations that support the development of teaching modules.

The committee has also used the award as a springboard to build a sense of community among faculty. Many who took some of the first "baby steps" in using technology felt isolated, Sabean said. "They didn't know who else was doing anything at UCLA. Were you in a community? Or were you really out there on the end of the limb?"

Selecting the winners is difficult. "It's very spine-tingling to read what students write about how these innovations have changed their educational experience," Sabean said. But sometimes, she noted, what's new and exciting to a student isn't genuinely new to the FCET. "Innovation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."

Winners and nominees met at an award ceremony on May 1. You can meet them virtually at a Web site that includes interviews with about 80 award winners and nominees. "Faculty have a real vision, and they have taken steps towards it," Sabean said of the interviews. The Web site includes links to innovators' software, campus resources to start incorporating technology in teaching and other valuable tools. See the College's Educational Technology Web site.