
September 2009
In this issue, Academic Commons and the National Institute for Technology
in Liberal Education (NITLE) join forces to provide the liberal arts
community with an opportunity to share and discuss the details that
make a difference. The five case studies presented here closely
examine how practitioners developed specific projects and
collaborations and explore the lessons learned along the way. In these challenging times, innovation is all the more critical.
Trace Evidence: How New Media Can Change What We Know About Student Learning
Posted January 18th, 2009 by Lynne Adrian, University of Alabama
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Clicker
technology, often used in large-enrollment science courses, works
well when every question has a single right answer. Lynne Adrian
wanted to find out whether clickers could be used in disciplines
which raise more questions than answers, and how illuminating the
gray areas between “right” and “wrong” could
help her students think critically about American studies. She found
that the technology allowed her to preserve traces of the otherwise
ephemeral class discussions, enabling her to analyze the types of
questions she was asking in class and to track their effects on
students’ written work throughout the semester.



