University Teaching initiative Projects

Anthropology

Title: "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Archaeology: Merging the Field Site and the Web Site"

Faculty: Jeffrey L. Hantman

Description: To enhance field research in Archaeology. The target group includes undergraduate students interested in participating in an archaeological excavation and learning the methods of archaeological research. The proposal will also go toward funding for anthropology graduate students who will serve now and in the future as TAs and instructors in the field methods and laboratory methods classes.

Architecture

Title: "Digital Representation of Urban Places"

Faculty: Michael Bednar

Description: To develop better methods for representing urban places utilizing digital media.

Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures

Title: "Multimedia tools for Hebrew language teaching at the University of Virginia"

Faculty: Daniel Lefkowitz

Description: Continued development and implementation of digitized audio, video, and textual resources used in teaching Modern Hebrew.

Title: "Web-based Chinese and Japanese character learning program"

Faculty: Helen Shen and Tomoko Marshall

Description: This project involves three major steps: designing vocabulary exercises; inputting materials into the web page; and creating audio files.

Cell Biology

Title: "Interactive CD-ROM for Teaching and Learning Human Anatomy"

Faculty: Virginia Taylor

Description: To develop a CD-ROM that contains digital photos of dissection steps and important structures. The project will involve dissecting a male and female cadaver, take digital photos that document the steps of the dissection, take digital photos that illustrate the important structures in a particular area, modify the photos using imaging software, incorporate the photos into the existing dissection manual, and transferring the project to a CD-ROM.

Title: "Virtual Human Anatomy: A three-dimensional journey through the human skull"

Faculty: Virginia Taylor

Description: To study a specific area of the skull that students find challenging, by taking a CT series of the skull, and then creating a three-dimensional rendering on the computer. Long range plans for this project include adding additional regions of the skull to the program.

Chemistry

Title: "Biomaterials: A Proposal for the Development of a New Advanced Interdisciplinary Seminar"

Faculty: Cassandra Fraser

Description: "The development of a new course in the field of biomaterials. A new course in this area will be beneficial to a broad cross section of the University."

Drama

Title: "New avenues for teaching technical theater"

Faculty: Shawn Evans

Description: This project will provide new avenues for teaching technical theater to students, utilizing the World Wide Web and HTML formatted information. A descriptive catalog of the hardware and an on-line study guide for students will be developed.

Education - Department of Human Services

Title: "Improving the Quality of Teaching for all Instructors in the Service Physical Education Program"

Faculty: Diane E. Whaley

Description: This project will design a comprehensive training manual, improve evaluation criteria by creating a web-based system, and update the instructional materials for student instructors to use in the design and implementation of their classes.

Biomedical Engineering

Title: "Evaluation of the Undergraduate Educational Climate in the School of Engineering"

Faculty: Borjana Mikic

Description: A survey will be conducted in a collaborative effort between the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Curry School of Education in an effort to identify student perceptions of barriers to education within the engineering school at the undergraduate level.

Engineering - Computer Science

Title: "Animation of Structures - for use in Lecture, Lab & Homework"

Faculty: John Pfaltz and Anita Jones

Description: The creation of a structure animation base capable of exercising and displaying structures as directed by the user and an initial library of structure types, building from the simple to the complex.

Title: "For the Cost of Lecture, the Benefits of Tutoring"

Faculty: Paul Reynolds

Description: To conduct research on ways of bringing the benefits of tutoring to medium-sized classes without taxing professors unduly, such as redesigning a course with the goal of maximizing interaction and accountability.

Engineering - Technology, Culture, and Communication

Title: "Improving Undergraduate Students' Team Work and Problem-Solving Skills"

Faculty: Mark Shields, TCC; John O'Connell, Chemical Engineering; and Richard Jacques, TCC

Description: Enhancing teaching development and teaching evaluation to improve undergraduate students' team work and problem-solving skills by building a classroom simulations web site.

English

Title: "Diagnosing Problems in Student Essays: Intensive Workshop for Instructors and Tutors"

Faculty: Greg Colomb

Description: Developing a new way to train instructors in diagnosing student writing. Materials that are expected to speed the process through which instructors learn to diagnose problems in student essays efficiently and effectively will be developed.

Environmental Sciences

Title: "Integrating Disciplines within the Department of Environmental Sciences"

Faculty: Jose Fuentes and Thomas Smith

Description: To develop a course aimed at integrating disciplines within environmental sciences, with emphasis on seeking practical applications to and wider understanding of environmental processes.

Government and Foreign Affairs

Title: "Government and Foreign Affairs Teaching Assistant Development Program"

Faculty: Steven Finkel

Description: To institutionalize the training, development and support of teaching assistants in the Department through such means as producing a resource handbook for teaching, hosting a department teaching resource center, and expand on its offerings of teacher training workshops.

Title: "Introduction to American Politics"

Faculty: Larry Sabato

Description: To institutionalize the training, development and support of teaching assistants for the Introduction to American Politics course and to enhance the student's experiences by bringing the real world of politics into the classroom.

History

Title: "Using the Web to Teach"

Faculty: Brian Balogh

Description: To continue to build on the Web development and evaluative services of a graduate technical assistant this summer and next fall for the history course Viewing America: United States History from 1945 to the Present

Title: "An Oral History Seminar focusing on the Frank Ix and Sons Textile Plant"

Faculty: Nelson Lichtenstein

Description: Organizing a Spring 2001 undergraduate seminar that will use the Frank Ix Textile Plant records as the basis for a set of research papers that will explore the inner life of the textile factory during the last half century.

Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese

Title: "Italian Language Resource Materials"

Faculty: Deborah Parker

Description: Assembling a teaching and learning resource site for graduate student teaching assistants in Italian.

Nursing

Title: "Nursing Students Learning and Sharing Health Assessment Skills"

Faculty: Shelley Huffstutler

Description: To promote an optimal teaching-learning environment for second-year baccalaureate nursing students during the laboratory session of the Client Assessment course. A family nurse practitioner will be assigned, along with one faculty member, to each of the laboratory sessions to assist undergraduate nursing students in establishing a strong foundation with health assessment skills.

Title: "Peer Development for Clinical Educators"

Faculty: Judith Sands

Description: To enhance the developmental and evaluative feedback to clinical faculty concerning their role performance, and to enhance exposure to innovative alternatives to approaching the job of clinical teaching. This will involve having clinical faculty from peer institutions visit UVA and spend 1-2 days observing faculty in the clinical area, who will provide feedback on teaching activities. UVA clinical faculty will also travel to other schools of nursing in the region to observe acknowledged clinical teaching experts implement their role.

Psychology

Title: "Psychology 250, Child Development: Redesigned class discussion sections & improved web-based education"

Faculty: Angelilne Lillard

Description: Designing structured activities for each of the semester's 14 class sessions and redesigning the course web page.

Religious Studies

Title: "Early Christianity and the New Testament: Digitized Course Material with Interactive Map Interface"

Faculty: Harry Gamble

Description: Designing an interactive, web-based classroom repository of digitized texts, images, videos, and maps for the teaching and study of Judaism and early Christianity.

Title: "Tibetan Digital Learning Resources"

Faculty: David Germano

Description: Integrating original fieldwork research in Asia, research in Tibetan colloquial language (grammatical & lexical), new technology, and the teaching of Tibetan in UVA classrooms, with a broader goal of developing new digital templates and instructional models that will be made available to teachers of other less commonly taught languages and cultures.

Title: "Introduction to Eastern Religions: digitized video and audio database"

Faculty: Anne Monius

Description: Creating a digitized video and audio database during the summer of 2000 for use in the large lecture course, RELG 104, and several undergraduate-level courses focusing on Hinduism.

Sociology

Title: "Promoting Teaching Excellence Among Graduate Teaching Assistants"

Faculty: Sharon Hays

Description: Producing and distributing a Handbook for Teaching Assistants in Sociology, planning and implementing a department-specific training workshop for new teaching assistants, and promoting excellence in graduate student teaching by funding a one-year fellowship for an experienced TA who has demonstrated superior skills in teaching, to serve as Lead TA for the academic year.