Changing the Way of Teaching

The sixth ACC seminar on teaching and learning B1, College Hall

The Academic Computing Center (ACC) held its sixth AUB seminar on teaching and learning with technology on May 29 in College Hall, where a panel of professors introduced their experiences of web-enhanced classes.

The first person to speak was Thalia Arawi, professor of Internal Medicine, who illustrated how she has been making use of Moodle, an online learning management system, to enrich her classes. Taking advantage of discussion forums on Moodle, Arawi organized her classes according to modules that are covered throughout the semester, whereby students could post any comments or questions they had about the material. Each posting was visible to the entire class, allowing for an out-of-the-classroom exchange. Video and audio footage greatly enhanced the quality of learning for the students and made the courses more dynamic.

George Arbid of the Faculty of Architecture and Design delivered a presentation on the integrated use of computer-aided software that proved invaluable for the training of first-year architecture students. His animated lecture and PowerPoint aids significantly facilitated the students' ability to learn the fundamental techniques in drawing and principles of perspective.

The final presentation by Leila Hanna of the Olayan School of Business documented her efforts to make her course, Marketing Communications, a useful collaborative learning experience. Where her course once rested on a webpage with fixed course information, Hanna decided to try using a blog, an online journal, to give her students more opportunity to contribute to the course. After attending an ACC seminar the year before, Hanna had been introduced to Moodle, which gave her a promising solution to create both an online album and a venue for her students to provide creative ideas for the course.

The ACC had also arranged a web conference with Alan Aycock of the University of Wisconsin, in which he argued for the effectiveness of integrating online work with the classroom as a pedagogical tool. According to him, blended courses make it easier for students to temporarily "suspend their beliefs and open up to new ideas." At AUB, faculty have taken on this new technology to a surprising extent; in this past year, 50 percent of AUB instructors have incorporated Moodle into 55 percent of all AUB course sections.