PAST PROJECTS

These are some of the projects I worked on as Senior Instructional Designer at the University of Virginia:

Electronic Course Layout and Presentation System: eCLPS (also known as "interactive syllabus" or  iSyll) is an enhancement project for the collaborative learning environment at UVa, UVaCollab. The idea stemmed from the results of a survey conducted to find out the needs and interests of students, faculty, and staff using the system. Based on the comments we received, we identified two problems: 1) students were frequently confused by the "tool-centric" layout of the system's user interface, and 2) instructors were not engaged with the design and organization of the course sites they were using. The eCLPS workflow grew out of an iterative process to address these problems.

The syllabus is arguably the central document for linking administrative, instructor, and student perspectives on a course. Thus, it serves as a convenient locus for exploring electronic technology integration in education and teaching and learning in general. The term interactive syllabus was first coined by Sylvie Richards in reference to electronic course documents that contain within them links to files and multimedia objects designed to effect a constructivist model of teaching and learning. iSyllabus (the interactive syllabus as we have adapted it for use in UVaCollab) is somewhat based on Richards' original idea.  eCLIPS, however, incorporates additional interactive activities such as discussions, assignments, and assessments, as well as many other external tools woven into its structure.

Protein Structure and Function Exploration (completed 2013): In this project I worked with Professors Charles Grisham and Reginald Garrett to construct an archive/showcase for the work their students were producing in CHEM 4410 or BIOL 5010.

SPAN8210 (completed 2013): This project involved the redesign of a pedagogy course taught by Professor Emily Scida in the Department for Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. The goal of the project was to address the need for the students in the course, who were being trained as foreign language instructors, to be more reflective about their own leaning processes as well as about themselves as teachers. Working in collaboration with Professor Scida, we decided to employ video technology to enhance the course and achieve the desired objective. The results of this project will be published in a forthcoming issue of International Journal of ePortfolios (IJeP).

EDLF 5000 Multicultural Education (completed 2013): Multicultural Education is a large (300+ students) course taught in the Curry School. The course involves two Teaching Assistants plus on average twenty-five "facilitators" (students who took the course the previous semester). The facilitators themselves take a related course (EDLF 5593).The technology support needed for this project included designing a document management system with annotations and a discussion board for the course's writing-intensive assignments, as well as a role-based access structure to the archive for the instructor, TAs, and facilitators. E-folio, a multi-purpose portfolio-based system I designed, was used successfully in this course for six years (2007-2013).

For Better For Verse (completed 2009): Professor Herbert Tucker was awarded a TTI Fellowship in 2008 to address a need in his poetry courses: to help student practice scansion outside of class without the aid of tutor. I worked with Professor Tucker prior to the award exploring the feasability of designing such a tool, budgeting the costs, and developing a design, implementation,and evaluation plan. Once he was awarded the Fellowship, I organized the meetings and discussions with a third-party website developer, and then managed the integration of the vendor's work with the University's Scholar's Lab server system where the project resides. During the whole process, I met with and helped Professor Tucker adjust the design of the tool to address problems that arose during testing.

A vos Plumes (completed 2009): Professor Alison Levine was awarded a TTI Fellowship in 2008 to address the need for a French composition website where language instructors and students can share resources and exchange ideas. My role in this project was to facilitate the design, implementation, and dissemination of the website. A vos Plumes was one of the last TTI Fellowships awarded to UVa faculty.

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