Crosstalk meeting on November 14, 1997

Recommendations of the Technology/Teaching Methods subgroup of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning

• Models of a university (distance learning vs residential university vs a combination of both)
• Methodologies (what are you trying to teach?)
• Technologies
• Support systems (social support systems, human advice and information)

The consensus is that the Residential Campus is a critical element of MIT's future.

Two themes that come out of the Task Force discussions are:

• We should do more to enhance the educational benefits of living together.
  • When we think of "distance learning" we should be thinking of importing things as well as exporting.
  • We should think of community life as a method of education
  • The Classroom/Lab/Community is a three legged stool on which the university is based

• MIT is not longer an "off beat" educational institution. MIT is now a model - a leader in higher education generally. We should think of ourselves as providing a general platform for all students, no matter what their direction or future career. We are now in a leadership position generally, not just in quantitative fields.

Our goal is to build upon the interaction between research and teaching, to hook up the pieces of the triad better than they are at present.

During the discussion the following points were made:

• We need to improve the support systems for faculty, including on how to improve pedagogy through use of technology
• One way to help faculty learn to use technology tools (Powerpoint was given as an example) might be to have students teaching faculty
• We need to coordinate the various pockets of support for teaching that are scattered throughout the Institute
• We need to provide recognition and rewards for innovative and excellent teaching
• There are two type of support that faculty need with technology - standard tools and extensive development
• There need to be two support structures available to faculty - one on a departmental level and a second larger, campus-wide support structure
• We need a comprehensive census of what technologies are used in all departments.
• We need to make it easier for someone to bring a laptop into a classroom to give a presentation
• We should create something like the Educational Technology Interest Group at the U. of Illinois, where interested people can learn and share information about different pedagogical tools

A part of the new Office of the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education was described - The Faculty Support Center. This Center will consist of those members of the Dean's Office who support faculty as teachers and advisors. It will also be making connections with other groups such as Academic Computing, AudioVisual, MIT Libraries, etc so that all of these resources are visible and available to faculty in a holistic way.