Vanderbilt Center for Teaching Podcast

In this episode, we’re changing up our format a little. Instead of featuring an interview with a single faculty member, this episode features audio recorded during a February 2008 lunch discussion co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching and the Vanderbilt Center for Ethics. The discussion was part of our joint Technology, Values, and Teaching series and was titled “Teaching in a Digital Age: How Should Technologies Shape Our Learning Space and Pedagogical Practices?” This double-size episode presents the opening remarks made by the three panelists at that discussion:

• Patricia Armstrong, assistant director at the Center for Teaching and senior lecturer in the Department of French and Italian;
• Matt Hall, assistant vice chancellor for Information Technology Services; and
• Jay Clayton, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Chair, Department of English.

All three panelists spoke about their experiences integrating technology into their teaching, Patricia in the context of the French language and literature courses she teaches, and Matt and Jay in the context of a rather unique first-year writing seminar they co-taught in the fall of 2007. The seminar was titled “Worlds of Wordcraft,” and it examined the role of narrative in computer games and other new media.

Episode 7 - Teaching in a Digital Age

[MP3, 41 min 20 sec]

Relevant Links:

• English 115F Worlds of Wordcraft Fall 2007 blog
• English 115F Worlds of Wordcraft Fall 2007 podcast
• “Learning in a Digital Age”, by David Carew, from the November 2007 edition of Vanderbilt View

Please take a minute or two to leave a comment here and share your thoughts on teaching with technology. We’re interested in hearing what you have to say. Vanderbilt instructors are also welcome to call the Center for Teaching at 615-322-7290 to arrange a meeting with a CFT teaching consultant to discuss technology or any other aspect of their teaching.

In this episode, we feature excerpts from an interview with Michelle Sulikowski, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and Director of Education at the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. In this interview, Michelle describes her use of SafeAssign, a software tool that can detect unoriginal content in student papers. Michelle used SafeAssign in a first-year writing course on chemical biology in which students wrote papers about chemical and biological topics of their choosing. She used SafeAssign to teach her students about plagiarism and the writing process in the natural sciences.

Episode 3 - An Interview with Michelle Sulikowski

[MP3, 17 min 35 sec]

• SafeAssign home page
• Using SafeAssign on OAK/Blackboard

If you’ve used a plagiarism detection and prevention tool such as SafeAssign in your teaching or have ideas for doing so, we encourage you to leave a comment here. Vanderbilt instructors are also welcome to call the Center for Teaching at 322-7290 to arrange a meeting with a CFT teaching consultant to discuss ways to use SafeAssign effectively in their teaching.