CL-1: Learning Through Technology (LT^2): Case Studies: San Diego State University

Creating A Computer-Enhanced Geology Learning Environment

Implementation

In the course of describing the learning environment Eric created to achieve his goals for student learning, we have focused, for the most part, on what Eric chose to do, and presented information indicating that these activities were achieving the instructors' goals and why they worked. We considered only in passing the matter of how they created these environments.

During our interviews with Eric and his colleagues, we explicitly asked "how" questions, such as:

"What kinds of new resources did you need?"

"What forms of support or hindrance did you encounter?"

"How did you deal with the stresses that come with change?"

We also asked them for advice they'd like us to pass along to others who are about to embark on this path--things they would have appreciated knowing before they got started.

Drawing on their responses to these questions, we present SDSU faculty insights and advice on how to implement the kind of learning environments Eric has developed. We start with the personal resources that made Eric's reforms possible. We then consider both technical and non-technical institutional resources. Last, but not least, we turn to a set of issues that have more to do with cultural factors that shape faculty teaching practices. We have chosen to organize these latter issues under the header, "Managing the Dissolution of the 'Atlas Complex'." The "Atlas Complex" is a term from Finkel and Monk's article, "Teachers and Learning Groups: Dissolution of the Atlas Complex." With this term, Finkel and Monk identify a constellation of implementation issues that are experienced by nearly all the faculty we know who are seeking to help students take more responsibility for their own learning.

Personal Resources
Eric was not alone in experiencing a diverse array of difficulties when trying to carry out his education reform efforts. Educators featured in the LT² web site commonly experienced obstacles ranging from difficulty securing funds to resistance from their colleagues. Likewise, these educators often are characterized by particular personal characteristics that allowed them to overcome those obstacles. Eric is no different. In talking with him, his colleagues and students, we discovered that Eric shares many of the same personal characteristics with other successful education reformers. These include:

a willingness to put in extra time above ones normal duties;

determination to keep going ahead with efforts despite lack of financial and personal support, and despite the professional damage that can sometimes accompany a concentration on teaching efforts; and

a joy of seeing students succeed, especially when they surpass your own level of knowledge of a particular aspect of the field.

To read a faculty and student discussion of these characteristics and the integral role they play in the successful implementation of a new way of teaching, see Discussion 2.

Reward Structure
Eric has found that, for the most part, personal satisfaction has been the reward for his work with technology and innovation.^a Even though he is in a university that is focused on teaching, research still comes out on top when salaries and tenure considerations^b are at issue. And, despite the fact that things are beginning to change,^c Eric's department chair said that it will take an entire restructuring, at the college and university level, to substantially change the way salaries and tenure are considered.^d

Funding
Although Eric has received financial support from his college for his efforts to incorporate technology into his classroom, Eric's main sources of funding, have been from industry and from people who want to buy the images.^e Interestingly, Eric uses administrative issues like funding as learning opportunities for his students. By involving them in these processes, they learn organizational skills that carry over to their future occupations, ^f according to him. And when it comes to finding money to fund his students' overseas voyages, Eric relies on overseas companies to provide travel funds, and on his students' own excitement and willingness to do vital work on a volunteer basis.^g

Processes for Getting Going
No less critical than the personal and institutional resources described above is knowledge about how to actually implement innovative learning activities in your courses. We know that every faculty member develops their own style, and only rarely will simply "adopt" a new approach--this characteristic of faculty is one of the greatest strengths of higher education. At the same time, we suspect that, with respect to knowledge about how to implement new learning activities, the vast majority of faculty innovators and early adapters end up "reinventing the wheel." Rather than being necessary to maintaining faculty individuality and creativity, reinventing the wheel may be a poor use of faculty time and effort. With this point in mind, we asked Eric and his colleagues for their advice on "getting going." They stressed the importance of getting to know and work with people outside your department and school, including faculty members, non-faculty members, and people in industry.

For a faculty discussion of networking, see Discussion 3.

Managing the Dissolution of the "Atlas Complex"
As we explained at the beginning of this case study, a growing number of science, math, and engineering instructors are acting on the conviction that their courses need to be designed in ways that help students take more responsibility for their own learning. This is the first teaching principle that informs Eric's decisions about which learning activities to use in structuring his courses. This section of our case study makes clear that having the necessary internal and external resources isn't all you need to implement these new activities that force students to take responsibility for their own learning. In addition, you must be willing to forego old patterns and try new ways of interacting with your students. Most faculty and students--including those featured in this case study--bring to college courses complex assumptions about teacher and student roles, plus a whole set of social and psychological habits associated with these roles, that present formidable barriers to implementing this teaching philosophy. Donald Finkel and Stephen Monk put these barriers in a nutshell with their phrase, the "Atlas Complex" (see References).

Encouraging students to take more responsibility for their own learning requires faculty to relinquish some responsibility--in other words to abandon the notion that they must, like Atlas, bear the weight of the entire classroom world on their shoulders. Breaking out of the Atlas complex involves a willingness to step aside from the authority and power of center-stage and a desire to empower students; it requires asking questions instead of providing answers, listening instead of talking, feeling comfortable with student confusion instead of rushing to fix things. In Discussion 4, faculty discuss the challenges that accompany the transition from "expert provider" to "guide on the side."

a. Eric: I think the rewards are internal. The rewards are from you, you are doing what you want to do.

The last position advertised in the College of Sciences was for somebody who could do this kind of science education in geology. So what five years ago was seen as being a stupid thing to do is now seen by the people who are leading us as what we want to go with. The prevailing understanding of the faculty role has changed in that way and the reward system needs to [change as well].

In a sense, our department still clearly values writing papers as the most important thing to do. But I have chosen a different direction. For me the reward is going over to a country like Khasakstan and making a difference. There is no way that you can describe the significance of that feeling.

b. Eric: The way that you are promoted is on the basis of research papers. With all the verbage aside, teaching counts for very little as far as promotion is concerned. However, although research is something we are encouraged to do here in the California State System, it's not part of our "live or die," like in the University of California system. A focus on research papers is not part of the "live or die" at the CSU system because teaching is so much more part of what the faculty are expected to do. However, we functionally choose to make research output also the measure by which most promotion decisions are made. The university is growing in its willingness to consider contributions to science and teaching outside the traditional research paper measure of success. Future work by teachers to develop technology in the curriculum as a significant part of their contribution to the university will be recognized as a viable contribution. And, yet, we do more research here than the faculty at two or three of the UC schools do. We were set up with teaching as the focus, but we're strongly encouraged to do research.

c. Kris Stewart: I don't think Eric is appreciated as well as he should be. He's got tenure, but he feels that his department will not support him for promotion because he focuses so much on his teaching and his outreach activities that he is unable to publish extensively. Publishing is rated very highly in his department. But I am an example of how the reward system is starting to change. I was promoted last year. I don't even try to hide the fact that I do not publish in the traditional sense. I give invited presentations, and present papers at conferences, and therefore, many of my own peers dismiss me as a researcher. But I was promoted to full professor based on an evaluation of all activities in terms of service, research and teaching.

d. Gary Girty, Department Chair of Geological Sciences: I guess the biggest problem here is that the retention, tenure, and promotion decision is made at different levels. I've been on the College of Sciences retention, tenure, and promotion committee. The problem here is that you have to make [changes] at the college and the university level in order that a person who is not publishing a lot can be successful. Right now I don't see that happening. I mean we might, for example, recommend someone who we think is doing wonderful things for the department, but without the solid, hardcore publication record to back it up and support it, I don't think it would go past the college level.

e. According to Eric , "Imagery is satellite image of a particular area, which might be used by a commercial company to help find minerals or oil, help study environmental effects, help find water or manage water, help study crops, help build pipelines, or help identify faults and other dangers for man. Generally our students have processed Landsat Thematic Mapper or Landsat 7 data and provided it to companies or government groups to help solve problems such as these. Students are basically helping lead companies toward the use of these remote sensing tools and are therefore learning to add value to image products (data sets) by their processing and interpretation. This is basically what they would be doing as the manager of such a lab within a company."

f. Eric: We normally get funding through either companies, or through people who want the image. The students actually interact with the people who want the image. They find it and write up the purchase order, so they develop the whole understanding of how you do something. And then the image comes and they appreciate the time frame for this process, which is a couple weeks now.

g. Eric: And in that context, we've been going out to projects in the north end of the Caspian, and the companies we work with have funded our travel and lodging over there. They're not attractive grants because they provide no overhead and no salaries. ... But in the context of what we're doing, you can accomplish things because they [the governments we work with] have no money to pay. And they say, "We don't have any money," and he [the student] says, "Well, that doesn't matter, I'm still going to help you."

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