Some professors get teaching ideas from Mars. Literally. Paul Singh, UC Davis Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, was impressed when NASA scientists controlled robots on Mars from their labs on Earth during the 1996 space shuttle mission. He wondered, “If we can operate robots on Mars from Earth, why can’t we use the same technology at our university?”

Mission to Mars Hits Home at SITT SITT participant and Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Paul Singh and a TA handle the food-drying equipment created for his students to use as a pre-experiment exercise. The system of tubes and wires is connected to a small Internet camera that allows students to operate the controls on the custom-built system from their own computers at home. “Students run experiments from home so that when they show up for class, they have already become engaged in the lesson,” Singh says. Singh was inspired to create the equipment after watching NASA scientist on Earth control robots located on Mars.

Singh, a recent presenter at the Summer Institute on Technology in Teaching (SITT), faced increasing class sizes and decreased interaction with students. In response, he developed a system that enabled students to operate a piece of lab equipment from a remote location. Students log on to their computers at home and are able to switch on a piece of lab equipment (pictured, right) via the Internet, watch the experiment, and have the data emailed back to them. Students then switch off the instrument and the first part of the lab is complete — without students moving from their computer monitors.

Innovative technological teaching ideas such as Singh’s occur daily in offices, labs, and departments across the UC Davis campus. But it’s only once a year that instructors gather to share their accomplishments and instruct fellow faculty at SITT, sponsored by the Teaching Resources Center (TRC). Now in its 10th year, SITT hosted more than 60 teaching assistants, lecturers, faculty, and staff from July 21 to July 25, offering morning presentations and afternoon hands-on labs.

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“ This campus is fortunate to have leaders among faculty and staff in teaching with technology,” said Vice Provost for Information and Educational Technology John Bruno in a lunchtime talk at SITT.
This year’s presentations included several reports on the development of online and hybrid courses at UC Davis. Professors passed on information gleaned from practical research in this budding field and shared their challenges and successes.

In the labs, Photoshop and intermediate and advanced PowerPoint were popular with many instructors who have mastered basic techniques and are ready to step up to the next level. Several labs were taught by faculty, including basic PowerPoint and labs for MyUCDavis, the campus Web portal that offers course management tools for instructors.

In addition to nuts and bolts technology information, the week offered valuable social interactions. “Networking among faculty is an important part of SITT,” said TRC Director Ellen Sutter. To facilitate an active exchange of ideas, the week included informal discussion sections regarding student computer literacy, copyright laws, and the future of technology in education. Faculty members from diverse departments shared their differing perspectives, discussed problems and brainstormed ideas for the future.
SITT began in 1994 when five devoted individuals, in cooperation with the Teaching Resources Center, began a week-long seminar with the idea that faculty members would teach their peers about how to use technology to enhance learning in the classroom. Since that time, participants have found that a mixture of educational technology and traditional teaching techniques is the most effective.

“ Use technology to its maximum advantage, but don’t overuse it,” advised one of the SITT founders Frank Samaniego in a lunchtime address. “Technology is best when it does something you can’t do any other way or [when it] does it better.”

For more information about this year’s SITT, visit the Teaching Resources Center’s Web site at http://trc.ucdavis.edu/trc/sitt/default.htm. To find information about free technology training on campus, visit the TRC or the Arbor site at http://arbor.ucdavis.edu/.