Colby, Bates & Bowdoin

CBB Mellon II Faculty and Technology Stipends

Biology

Barry Logan, Bowdoin College
Robert Thomas , Bates College
The Botany Database, developed by Barry Logan (Bowdoin College) and
Robert Thomas (Bates College) in collaboration with the Educational
Technology Center (Bowdoin College), was designed to provide students
with access to images (along with supporting information) used in lecture
and laboratory sessions of botany courses. The WEB-based database has
been used extensively in several courses at Bates and Bowdoin Colleges
and student feedback has been positive.

In the past year, we improved the Botany Database by initiating a comprehensive
floristic survey of Bowdoin College's Coastal Studies Center (directed
by Jessica Brooks, a Bowdoin College undergraduate), adding records
associated with Prof. Thomas' "Plants and Human Affairs" course, incorporating
images from the Kate Furbish collection, and rendering the "Search"
tool more specific. In the coming year, we plan to develop a quiz tool,
allowing students to examine their own knowledge of selected plant species.
We also will include "Quick-time VR� technology that enables a viewer
to "move around" three-dimensional images of plants or plant parts from
species representative of major taxa. We will also enhance the Botany
Database aesthetically with a new Introductory page and overall appearance.

URL: http://acad-db.bowdoin.edu/cbb99/Plants/intro.pls?

Biology

Andrea Tilden, Colby College
Kleckner, Bates College
Dickinson, Bowdoin College

Classics

James Higginbotham, Bowdoin College
Margaret Imber, Bates College

This project will enable us to construct web based modules that explore
aspects of ancient Mediterranean societies.

Economics

Hornstein, Bowdoin College

Michael Donihue, Colby College

We studied the feasibility of incorporating online interactive games
into macroeconomics courses at the principles and theory levels. Aided
by research assistants, we found few macroeconomic experiments with the
potential to be put online, as well as an experimental economics protocol
which made original design challenging. We ran several existing games
in our classes and compared results. In general, students responded very
positively and expressed a willingness to participate in similar online
exercises outside of class. We learned that successful implementation
of such experiments requires much preparation, proper scheduling within
the course, just the right amount of guidance, and class discussion of
what the experiment does (not) illustrate. Although we did not generate
an online game, we both were convinced of the games' pedagogical value,
and will be better able to implement them in the future.

Education

Karen Kusiak, Colby College

Marcia Makris, Bates College
Sarah Mackenzie and Lu Gallaudet, Bowdoin College

This site will promote and sustain both faculty and student collaborative
activities. Developed pages offer technologically enhanced resources for
student teachers.

While difficulties with the video conferencing facility prohibited
the use of the newer technologies as envisioned in our proposal, the collaborative
web site we developed over the year provided prospective teachers with
a goodly number of teaching related resources. Discussions among ourselves
resulted in a number of positive interactions and knowledge exchanges
about the content of our education classes. The book by Grant Wiggins
was good for the student teachers and I wouldn't have used it if I hadn't
talked with the Bates faculty

Activities during the second year proved more successful at Bates than
at Colby (Bowdoin did not participate this year). Two teleconferences
were "purchased" from Teachers' Workshop, an organization in
Georgia. At Bates, a number of community educators attended the discussion
sessions led by Bates students. At Colby, four town teachers signed up
for the sessions. We had significant problems with the telecasts: 1.)
the technical quality of the broadcast was poor and fuzzy, and 2.) the
speakers did not demonstrate good online teaching techniques, they were
"talking heads with few visual displays," and 3.) the content
was rather weak.

In rethinking the use of "new technology" in our classrooms
I see three benefits: 1.) interactions with speakers to strengthen the
concepts presented in the class readings and lectures; 2.) interaction
with authors outside of our immediate geographic area and cultural frame
of reference. (Since cultural diversity, multicultural education, and
teaching for social justice are issues in all of our program's courses,
it would benefit our students to discuss their views with public university
students or those who are teaching in more urban or more culturally diverse
settings.) and finally, 3.) the modeling of effective teaching examples
using technology in their presentations.

While follow up grants are not in hand, I do have ideas for continuing
the project namely, to use the video conference facility to connect with
an author/professional developer, to incorporate Web casts related to
course content and, to identify a faculty member from a college unlike
CBB who would like to collaborate in setting up student discussions on
different teaching perspectives that would benefit both our classes.

Geology

Peter Lea, Bowdoin College
Robert Nelson, Colby College
Michael Retelle, Bates College
This project involves developing on-line resources for environmental
geology studies in south-central Maine.

Pyschology

Bill Klein
Psychology Department ,Colby College
Paul
Schaffner Psychology
Department, Bowdoin College

This project will incorporate various technologies
that will allow our students to experience directly, and explore collaboratively,
the various social aspects of behavior.

Paul Shaffner and I revised our project considerably from the previous
year, with the most tangible difference being that we did not use the
videotechnology during class time, but rather in structured activities
outside of class time. Students completed a series of Prisoner's Dilemma
games, made videos of their student colleagues engaging in deception (which
were shown to students in the other class so we could see how well students
detect deception), and completed a social facilitation task in various
forms. Although there were still a few kinks, the projects went more successfully
than in the previous year, and students seemed to respond favorably. I
will be on sabbatical next year, but I anticipate that Paul and I will
continue working together when I return.

 

View Powerpoint Presentation on Collaborative
Technology-Based Curriculum Enhancement in Psychology by Paul Schaffner

Collaboration: Religion and Cultural Imagery in Literature

Lavina Shankar, Bates College
Nikky Singh, Colby College

This collaboration will enable faculty lecture exchanges and joint
web page development to provide enhancements for classroom discusssions.
Religious symbols in
Desai' Clear Light of Day

The CBB Technology grant allowed Nikky Singh and Lavina Shankar to
begin what we imagine will be a long-term professional collaboration.
We were delighted to discover the several overlaps in our teaching, research
interests, and institutional infrastructures, which we had never--in the
five years--discussed seriously. We are grateful that the grant gave us
an opportunity to structure our own knowledge about the other�s work,
as well as to learn from each other in ways that will benefit our teaching
and research. Throughout the year we gave several guest lectures in the
other� class and developed a web page that provides review materials and
images for our classes.

We have provided each other with feedback on draft essays/book chapters.
For instance, Lavina sent her book proposal, "Digging Roots," to Nikky,
and Nikky sent her draft essay �Kristeva�s Semiotics and a Female Re-visioning
of Sikh Scripture� to Lavina. With her expertise in South Asian literature,
Lavina has been able to recommend bibliographical materials on diasporic
literature to Nikky. Nikky provided Lavina with bibliographic references
to materials on the �Bhakti� religious movement, and various texts on
Hindu goddesses for her literary analyses of the novels and short stories
of Meena Alexander and Shani Mootoo.

Although we will teach two different courses next spring there is further
overlap. Lavina will teach a seminar on �Asian American Women Writers,
Filmmakers, and Critics� where she will include a section on Sikh immigrants
(as that is Nikky�s resarch specialty). And Nikky will revive her course
on South Asian Women and include literary texts suggested by Lavina from
her book on South Asian American women writers. Since our collaborative
experience this year proved to be very fruitful, we plan to teach some
common texts/films by South Asian women�eg. Deepa Mehta's Fire or Earth�so
that we can give talks to each other�s classes again, and perhaps arrange
a video-conference in which either of the classes can interview one of
us or other authors. And we also plan on being co-panelists at a future
professional meeting.

Robotics

David Garnick and Eric Chown, Bowdoin College
Clare Congdon, Colby College

This proposal would develop constructopedias for classroom use and
move the curriculum into robotics. CBB colleges can see the nearly complete
Robotics at:
http://academic2.bowdoin.edu/cbb99/robotics/