December 1999 Related Links TAC's Goals Survey on tech requirements

Technology Across the Curriculum Enhances Learning and Meets Work Force Goals By Emily Yaghmour You might expect that a course on the American Revolution would be the last place you would find technology requirements. But thanks to a new program at George Mason called Technology Across the Curriculum, or TAC, you'll find technology requirements in all kinds of unusual places. Students benefit from this in two ways: First, they learn to use technologies, like databases, spreadsheets, e-mail, and the Internet, that employers expect them to use in the work place. Second, the technologies enhance the learning process so that students get the most out of their courses. Producing a technology-savvy work force is an important goal of Governor James Gilmore. In 1998, he provided George Mason with funds to develop technology minors in an effort to increase the technology skills of George Mason graduates, particularly liberal arts graduates. President Alan Merten then asked Information Technology Vice President Joy Hughes to work with Daniele Struppa, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and Lloyd Griffiths, dean of the School of Information Technology and Engineering (IT&E), to see how best to use these funds. Together, the three conceived a plan to create technology minors, and five have been approved: Information Technology, Computer Science, Telecommunications, Electronic Journalism, and Multimedia. However, Hughes says, as they discussed the issue, they realized that creating minors would not be sufficient to reach all George Mason students because not all students would pursue one of these minors. So in addition to formulating the minors, they created a plan to infuse technology requirements into general education requirements. To do this, they first had to identify the technology skills students most likely would need in their careers. Struppa enlisted the assistance of Dee Ann Holisky, associate dean of CAS. Working with faculty members from most of the other academic units, Holisky coordinated a faculty survey to determine the kind of technology skills faculty members required in their classes. This provided a base line against which the success of the TAC program could be measured. Then, with help from Anne Agee and her staff at the Department of Instructional Improvement and Instructional Technologies (DoIIIT), Holisky and other TAC developers composed a list of preliminary goals and sought feedback from faculty members and employers, asking them which skills they thought liberal arts graduates should possess. The resulting 10 goals are each divided into "basic" and "advanced," with suggested skills for each level. "This is a moving target," says Holisky, and she fully expects these definitions to change as students graduate from high school with more and more sophisticated technology skills. Once TAC goals were identified, CAS faculty members were encouraged to develop proposals for technology-enhanced assignments for specific courses. The funds provided by the governor were used to offer various incentivesÑcourse releases, summer stipends, money for software or hardware, or assistance from graduate students. The response was encouraging. Proposals were funded in the Honors Program and the Biology, English, Geography and Earth Science, and Psychology Departments. The Department of History and Art History took a departmental approach, and 10 of its faculty received some TAC support. Some people have the mistaken impression that TAC expects faculty members to use technologies in teaching course content, Holisky points out. Instead, TAC urges faculty members to develop assignments that require students to use various information technologies in learning course content. And this is not technology for technology's sake, she adds. The goal is to apply technology to assignments that are truly enhanced by technology. TAC is modeled after WAC, or Writing Across the Curriculum, which promotes the incorporation of writing assignments in a wide range of classes, not just in English. WAC promotes writing not simply because writing is an important skill to develop but because writing about subjects helps students learn about them. The developers of TAC have the same philosophy about technology. If you are a faculty member in CAS and you are interested in submitting a TAC proposal for a course or courses you will be teaching in the 2000Ð2001 academic year, visit cas.gmu.edu/tac/index.html and click on the "request for proposals" link.