When it comes to incorporating technology into teaching, Holly Gayley has run the gamut. 聽Gayley, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at 精品SM在线影片, has harnessed several of ASSETT's resources over the past few years to聽help make her teaching more effective. 聽She first participated in ASSETT's 2012 Teaching with Technology Faculty Seminar, which provided a framework for her to build upon her聽digital storytelling course about Ritual and Media.聽聽Later, she聽took the ASSETT Hybrid and Online Course Design Seminar in 2013. 聽Gayley says, "ASSETT has been helpful in learning about which kinds of pedagogical goals these technologies are best suited for." 聽In recognition of her efforts, ASSETT has awarded Gayley both a聽student-nominated Fall 2013 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award and also the 2013-2014 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award, which was presented to her at the 2014 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Symposium聽in May this year.
For Gayley, technology is聽a tool that can facilitate independent and critical thinking among students. 聽She says, "I can't imagine giving a lecture without interaction," and she uses technology to create opportunities for student participation even in large lecture classrooms. 聽For example, in the large course, Foundations of Buddhism, Gayley splits聽students into smaller groups to discuss potential morals for the multivalent tales of Buddha's past lives. 聽The groups come to their own聽conclusions about the morals of the story that the class is reading. 聽Gayley inserts their answers as choices for an entire class clicker question about the best moral of the story. 聽Then, the class has the opportunity to聽vote on and discuss the messages in the tale and how they serve Buddhist ethics. 聽In addition to empowering students to come to their own conclusions, this exercise, "... teaches students that such tales are multivalent and can have layered ethical messages," Gayley聽says.
Students as Knowledge Generators
Gayley says she sees students as knowledge generators, and she recognizes the potential of "Students [to] harness technology to express knowledge." 聽In that spirit, Gayley聽assigns students the task of becoming documentary film makers themselves in聽her Ritual and Media course. 聽She聽encourages students to use the technological resources that CU provides on campus to support their work; in particular, "The ATLAS media lab has been terrific [in supporting students],"聽Gayley聽says. 聽When students complete their original 3-5 minute documentary shorts, they upload them to聽a course blog that she聽created. 聽There, students can comment on and respond to one another's work. 聽Through her efforts to incorporate technology into her teaching, Gayley has found that not all attempts are聽always well received. 聽For example, she has observed聽that while students are generally enthusiastic to comment on聽online discussion boards on their own time, they may聽not be as willing to attend live online discussions at scheduled times.
Gayley stresses that a course on Buddhism would be incomplete without inclusion of visuals. 聽She explains that throughout pre-Modern Buddhist Asia, the general population was often illiterate, and intricate visuals were therefore essential to convey symbolism and myths. 聽Gayley has recently collaborated with Ariana Maki, the Associate Curator of Asian Art at the CU Art Museum, to apply for a GAMM interdisciplinary teaching grant to teach a class about Buddhist Art and Ritual. 聽If the grant comes through, Gayley would聽use Voicethread to facilitate online discussion of Buddhist images. 聽Students would聽record their own impressions and聽participate in interactive online discussions about works of art in relation to their ritual contexts. 聽I asked her,聽Why would you use Voicethread instead of just having students type in their comments on an online discussion board?聽 Gayley聽responded聽that hearing the voices of other students makes the dialogue more personal and dynamic, as opposed to reading a typed opinion. 聽Such understanding of the opportunities technology offers to facilitate learning has earned her聽awards and progress.
