The Technology Teaching Excellence Initiative provides a variety of opportunities for faculty to choose from to enable the wise use of instructional technology to enhance student learning. To learn more, please visit the links below.

Colloquia and Seminars. These events focus on pedagogically appropriate approaches for using instructional technology. Some explore the application of technologies that are supported by USC, others demonstrate how new technologies can be used to improve learning.

Colloquium: Benefits of Classroom Response Systems for Peer Instruction and Assessment. Dr. Timothy Stelzer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. To view on-line or download, click here.

Seminar: Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasting. Dr. Lara Anderson and Dr. Lara Ducate, University of South Carolina. To view on-line or download, click here.

Putting your Class On-line. Dr. Tena Crews, University of South Carolina. To view on-line or download, click here.

Community of Practice. A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of 8-16 faculty members who have a common interest or challenge and who collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. Typically, a CoP will meet for one hour several times a semester.

We are organizing a CoP for Teaching On-line. To join, please contact the CTE at 803-777-8322 cte@sc.edu.

Grants. Instructional Innovation Grants will support teaching-related activities such as pedagogy, course, curriculum and program development, and educational research. The program will encourage faculty to develop individual educational research projects leading to the pursuit of external funding sources or the promotion of scholarly activities.

Each year, a targeted call for proposals will be issued. Topics will vary yearly and will be selected with the Faculty Advisory Board. For example, the program could target freshman course improvement, technology-enhanced teaching methods, interdisciplinary course development, etc. Throughout the year, grantees will meet monthly in the CTE to exchange ideas as they work on their projects. At the year end, the CTE will sponsor a colloquium at which the grantees will present the results of their work to each other and to the greater university community.

Grant topics for 2008-2009 are being developed.

Consultations. Our doors are open to anyone who wishes to discuss specific teaching concerns and effectiveness as they relate to a particular class. To learn more, click here.

Additional Resources. To learn about technologies supported at the University of South Carolina and instructional technology online resources, click here.