Rob Elliott, School of Engineering and Technology
Principal Investigator: Rob Elliott, senior lecturer, Department of Computer Information and Graphics Technology, School of Engineering and Technology
Co-Principal Investigators: Luke Jones, lecturer, and Xiaonan Guo, assistant professor, Department of Computer and Information Technology, School of Engineering and Technology
Project Title: Reinventing the CIT First-Year Experience
Funding Level: $15,000
Abstract:
This proposal represents a collaborative effort of the entire Computer and Information Technology (CIT) faculty body to recommit to the improvement of the first-year experience for CIT students by focusing on three introductory courses. CIT has been a leader in innovative teaching and learning techniques, dissemination related to teaching scholarship, keeping our curriculum technologically up-to-date, and engaged collaboration with industry partners to build a robust pipeline for the Indiana IT workforce. The program feels that our next major advance is to ensure all undergraduates benefit from these efforts from their very first step into their first-year courses. We acknowledge that our focus on delivering workforce-ready graduates has sometimes distracted us from providing high-impact experiences targeted specifically to foundational courses. Rapid changes in the technology landscape do not always trickle down to the fundamental instruction on which upper-level coursework is dependent. The faculty – working together – hope that more effective integration of existing resources into these courses – and a realignment that acknowledges and accommodates the frenetic pace of technological innovations – will drive success rates for students throughout their undergraduate education. Specifically, this proposal targets three first-year courses with interventions related to increased authentic learning experiences and other high-impact practices, building holistic IT practitioners who can maneuver an ever-changing career path, creating opportunities for more significant interaction with all full-time faculty, the modularization of content so that industry shifts are represented, and professional development of full- and part-time faculty to ensure the use of effective and engaging pedagogies in all courses.
