Facilitating Communication Between Cross-Disciplinary Groups
co-teaches "Managing the New Product Development Process," a class divided
between 45 MBA and engineering students (and sometimes design
students from the California College of Arts and Crafts) who
work together to create a "first-pass prototype" during
the semester. For the past three years Beckman has used a Blackboard
course website to help students communicate outside of class.
As Beckman describes the project, "It is a very team-intensive
effort that requires close collaboration and interaction. Students
post documents related to their projects to the website, so
all students on their team and faculty can access the documents.
This not only allows all faculty to see the documents without
making multiple copies, but it also provides a historical record
of progress on the project." Additionally, students can
arrange for their work group to "meet" and conduct
real-time chats on Blackboard.
The website makes it "much easier
to share group information with multiple faculty."
ETS trained Beckman on Blackboard. Prior to that, she had a freeform website
for the course created by the Instructional Technologies Program. "Blackboard
makes it very simple," Beckman says. " I've watched the Web grow
for a number of years now. What compelled me to use it is that it seemed
to become more accessible. I remember the days of using tags in WordPerfect
to highlight text, and wasn’t keen to return to those days by doing
my own HTML."
She mentions that her freeform website was more flexible than
the Blackboard template. With Blackboard Beckman has found
that "the only catch is that the organization of the site
may not match what you have in mind. You have to remember where
you've put documents (for example, course documents or course
information)."
Beckman appreciates that the website makes it "much easier
to share group information with multiple faculty. It keeps
us from making multiple copies or moving paper around." In
addition to enhancing group communications, Beckman and other
course faculty use the course website to post lecture notes
and other class documents.
The instructor found that the website didn't make all tasks
easier. "The way homework assignments are handled – have
to download, write on them, save them, upload them and send
them back to students, . . . and then go to another page altogether
to record the grade – isn't worth the effort. I went back
to paper."
Not surprisingly, this Lecturer who won the Distinguished
Teaching Award in 2001 doesn't credit the course website
as an incentive to integrate more media into her classroom
(she already uses simulations, games run on Excel spreadsheets,
and PowerPoint). And, she notes students expect to see technology
in the classroom. So, what inspires her to keep pushing the
envelope? Beckman answers simply: "Watching what the
students do with the technology!"
|
Sara Beckman
Senior Lecturer, Haas School
of Business
Technologies Used
Blackboard course website with:
- Real-time chat
- Instructors share assignment access
- Lecture notes and course documents |
