THE ATHENA PROJECT

Helping Teachers Move Into Learner Centered Computer Classrooms
at Arizona State University

OVERVIEW

The transition from a traditional classroom to a computerized classroom is challenging. It necessitates relearning and rethinking traditional pedagogical practices developed for traditional classrooms. At ASU, as at all universities, the traditional face-to-face classroom is increasingly giving way to computerized classrooms. For example, at ASU during the past five years, the number of computer-mediated classes has grown by 26%. Too often as teachers we are just thrown into a computer classroom without any preparation. As a result, we are often overwhelmed by the technology. Old pedagogical skills that were effective in a traditional classroom seem to no longer work in a computer-mediated classroom where a machine stands directly between our students and us as teachers.

The Athena Project was created to help encourage instructors to make the leap to digital classrooms in ways that focus on learner-centered pedagogy in a digital environment. The Project also seeks to take advantage of the enormous resources already available on campus through Instructional Technology, Distance Learning and Technology, and the Center of Teaching and Learning Excellence.

This Project also envisions a more comprehensive and on-going program of training than what has previously existed. It begins with an intensive one-week workshop in a computer classroom shortly before classes begin. The object is to help teachers prepare and rethink their pedagogy preparatory to making the leap from the traditional composition classroom to a learner-centered computer classroom.

This project also creates an on-going support mechanism through a system of individual mentoring by experienced teachers and a longitudinal study of the problems and techniques peculiar to teaching writing in a computer mediated classroom for the participating teachers.

Finally, because the Athena project offers a stipend to each of the participating teachers, the end requirement is that each participant will share their expertise by mentoring other teachers, and submit an electronic portfolio that will contribute to the resources of an on-going website for teacher and student resources. Participants will also be encouraged to publish their own teacher-research in a digital environment.

Specific Goals of the Project

1. Exploring, identifying, and implementing learner-centered models and techniques in a computerized classroom environment in 20 - 60 classes (immediately impacting from 500 to 1500 students a semester) in the 2003-04 academic year

2. Increasing teacher competence and confidence with learner-centered education in a digital environment both as a system of delivery (technology) and as a whole new system of education (philosophy)

3. Increasing student interaction with technology and course content leading to improvement of student achievement, confidence, and motivation

4. The establishment of the Athena Project web site that will include self-tutorials and links to teaching resources online for instructors who are just beginning to teach writing in a computerized classroom. This web site will be the creation of the project participants.

The Need

The movement toward offering computer-mediated instruction, hybrid, and online courses has accelerated nationwide in the past few years. In response ASU has accelerated the support for technology and teaching with the goal that students become not only computer literate but sophisticated and knowledgeable users of the technology. In short that practice what has come to be called “deep literacy,” a comprehensive literacy that includes the awareness of digital media. Increasingly students demand more flexible class schedules, a demand most easily accommodated by alternatives to traditional “face-to-face” classrooms.

Increasing enrollments also place demands on “brick-and-mortar” classroom space. Computerized course offerings have taken many shapes, and in the Writing Programs at Arizona State University have assumed several forms. There is the computerized classroom, the model closest to the traditional classroom. Another form is the “hybrid” model that meets once a week in a computerized classroom and once a week online, usually on a M/W or T/TH schedule, and finally there is the completely online course in which the instructor and the students may never meet face-to-face.

In a computerized classroom, or any of the variations just discussed, the ground shifts. The differences between traditional pedagogical strategies used in a face-to-face classroom and the computerized and/or hybrid and online class can be daunting. Many are reluctant to enter this realm, correctly perceiving that it requires much more work and many time-consuming hours. The Athena Project helps this process to become less a matter of trail and error. The intensive workshop and follow-up will help participating teachers make a more focused, knowledgeable, and efficient transition to the electronic classroom.

Recruitment

Recruiting faculty to participate and accepting participants to the workshop occurred during April, 2003. Each participant was asked to submit a letter of interest explaining what, if any previous experience they had in a digital environment, and their reasons for wanting to participate in the Athena Project.

Summer Workshop, August 4 – 8, 2003

Before classes begin, this weeklong workshop will develop a community and interaction between the participants will continue via the use of a listserv and web site particularly dedicated to this project. Completion of the workshop and the revised syllabi in electronic format that result will be documentation for the partial stipend payment.

Academic Year Follow-up

There will be a series of meetings as well as listserv exchanges to allow participating faculty to continue their conversations about their pedagogy, their problems, and especially their successes allowing them to exchange tips, information and classroom exercises.

Mid-course Workshop

This 2-day workshop will occur shortly before the beginning of the second semester in January. Participants will meet to compare successes and failures from their first semester experience in computer classrooms and to prepare for classes in a hybrid setting. The importance of this workshop will be not only to revisit pedagogical strategies for teaching in a computerized classroom, but approaches in a digitized classroom with particular attention to sustainability

Special student assessments designed by the participants during the first workshop will be reviewed. These student assessments will help the teachers and the Project to determine student participation, motivation, confidence with technology and interaction with course content. Emphasis will also be on beginning the second semester with new confidence and additional tools to build the ability to teach in a technological environment. Also at this mid-point the discussion will focus on beginning the final stage of the project, which will consist of developing electronic assessments for teacher portfolios and student outcomes. http://www.ilstu.edu/~ddhesse/wpa/positions/outcomes.htm

Expected Results and Outcome

1. Faculty participants will demonstrate a clear use of learner-centered techniques as applied to teaching in a computer classroom. This outcome will be measured by the use of learner based educational strategies and activities that include clear statements of student learning outcomes and clear measures (WPA Learning Outcomes statement) that assess these outcomes. The original and revised syllabi will be the basis for comparison.

2. Faculty participants will teach courses that use more learner-centered computerized strategies. This outcome will be assessed by self reports (teacher research journals) from faculty as they implement their revised syllabi

3. Faculty will establish and use networks, including the listserve, the web site, face-to-face formal meetings and informal daily contacts. This outcome will be measured by monitoring the follow-up conversations, the individual mentoring of the project directors, and the final electronic teaching portfolio that will be submitted at the conclusion of the project.

4. Increase student interaction, familiarity, and critical use of technology in relation to the course content and relevant web-linked resources. Student assessments at the beginning and at the conclusion of each semester will be carefully evaluated and collated using the rubric of the WPA Learning Outcomes Statement.

Dissemination of Results

The results of this project will be disseminated through conference presentations at Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Writing Programs Administrators (WPA), and the National Council of English Teachers (NCTE). Further dissemination will come through publication of articles in online venues such as Computers and Composition, etc. Finally, but most importantly, we hope and encourage the participants in this project to continue to do their own teacher research and to publish those findings in print and on-line journals.

The Computer Mediated Instruction Committee (CMC) will distribute this information among faculty currently teaching in computer-mediated classrooms and online so that the periphery benefits and information from the project will affect far more people than the teachers and students who participated directly.