The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning has named Elon University faculty members Michelle Trim, David Neville and Ketevan Kupatadze as CATL Scholars for 2011-2013. The selection process was highly competitive, with 10 faculty applying for the three positions.
The purpose of the CATL Scholars program is to cultivate scholarly and innovative teaching and learning at Elon. CATL Scholars receive funding for two years to develop, implement and assess projects intended to transform student learning.
The three faculty selected to be CATL Scholars beginning next fall are:
• Michelle Trim (English), “The Feedback Study Tool: Developing a Multidisciplinary Strategy for Understanding How students use teacher feedback”: How do students use the feedback they receive on their written work? What are the barriers hampering students’ successful assimilation of feedback into their learning processes? What about the way feedback is understood keeps students from writing well? Is the use of feedback a “threshold concept” (Meyer and Land 2003) in academic writing? These questions will guide my project as I aim to better understand what students do with the written feedback that they receive. Although existing scholarship details techniques for providing feedback to students, little has been done that investigates how students actually use feedback. The primary goal for this project is to develop a means for faculty across disciplines to understand how students are using feedback in their classes. This has clear implications for how faculty use feedback to help students learn.
• David Neville (German), “Using 3D digital game-based learning environments to enhance second language acquisition”: The DigiBahn Project is an interdisciplinary initiative to produce a 3D digital game-based learning (3D-DGBL) environment to teach a second language and culture to advanced high school and beginning university students. Specifically, the project will prototype and test one level of a standalone 3D graphic adventure game for PC and Mac platforms requiring students to navigate a simulated German environment while meeting specific instructional goals and managing the sociocultural and linguistic demands of an assumed in-game persona. Answering calls made by the Modern Language Association to revise and revitalize the teaching of second languages and cultures at all levels through new instructional approaches and technologies, the project will develop print-based instructional materials and lesson plans to accompany the game, maintain a download website to distribute open source project materials and source code, create a community website to support players and collect feedback to drive future game development, and generate research articulating best practices for using 3D-DGBL environments in second language acquisition.
• Ketevan Kupatadze (Spanish), “Rethinking the value and nature of Advanced Composition and Grammar courses in Foreign Languages”: The goal of my project is to restructure the Advanced Spanish Composition and Grammar course according to the innovative techniques of engaged and individualized teaching and learning. The project will address two problems that foreign language curriculum faces not only at Elon but around the US: First, the lack of scholarly research related to the foreign language instruction at advanced level; and second, the lack of textbooks for this type of course that would promote communicative and engaged learning. The materials created for the class, the research accompanying the project and the results obtained will provide valuable information to anyone teaching not only composition and grammar courses in foreign language, but upper level literature and culture courses as well.
A full description of each project is available on the website linked from this page.
A faculty and student committee selected these scholars in a blind review process. Review committee members were:
• Ann Cahill (Philosophy), 2010-12 CATL Scholar
• Maggie Castor (Philosophy junior)
• Steve Friedland (Law), CATL Faculty Advisory Committee
• Mary Knight-McKenna (Education), CATL Faculty Advisory Committee
• Anne Marx (Sport & Event Management), CATL Faculty Advisory Committee
• Phillip Motley (Communications), 2010-12 CATL Scholar
• Anne Simpkins (Art), CATL Faculty Advisory Committee
Next fall the CATL will invite applications from faculty for appointment to be scholars during the 2012-2014 academic years. Applications will be due on the first Monday in October 2011.
For more information on the CATL Scholars program, please visit the website or contact Peter Felten at pfelten@elon.edu.