Abstract:

Without employing suitable faculty incentives, instituting instructional innovation with academic technologies in universities is challenging. To address this challenge, this presentation will explore a grant program focused on promoting innovative instructional use of lightboard technology and, in particular, will: discuss faculty incentives for grant program participation; explore methods employed to encourage diffusion of innovation; and, lastly, explore ways that the program may be improved for future cycles.

In 2016, Butler University’s Center for Academic Technology received funding to build and equip a ligthboard studio. A ligthboard studio is typically outfitted with a large glass surface that works similarly to a whiteboard. Essentially, a large pane of glass is positioned between the instructor and a video camera. The advantage of this set-up is that it allows instructors to face the camera through the glass while they illustrate concepts, equations and processes, etc. on the glass. The camera is configured to automatically flip the ‘x’ axis so that viewers can read text normally instead of reversed as a mirror image would render. Further, instructors have the capability of incorporating integrated graphics such as slides. It is predicted that the lightboard facility will spawn innovative instructional approaches related to flipped classroom models or other engaging pedagogies.

After Butler installed the ligthboard studio, the facility needed to be tested and then promoted to faculty at the University. To work out technical and procedural issues with the studio, a limited pilot program involving three faculty was instituted in the spring and summer of 2016. After feedback was addressed and improvements made, a concerted effort to promote use of the ligthboard studio among faculty began. It was thought that connecting project activity related to exploring innovative use of academic technology to teaching excellence and faculty development components of the promotion and tenure process would yield the most interest. Ultimately, it was hoped that faculty lightboard innovators would include this activity on their Faculty Activity Reports (FAR) which would, in turn, support their promotion and tenure ambitions. To do this, a small-scale grant program was envisioned and titled the Academic Technology and Innovation Grant (ATIG) program. Focusing the initial offering of the grant on use of ligthboard technology was thought to be good way of testing the grant’s appeal and construction within a limited scope. Depending on results, ATIG will be expanded to incentivize other types of innovative use of technology such as effective use of classroom-based technology or creating online courses using universal design principles, etc. To promote maximum diffusion of lightboard innovation, several components were built into the grant design that required dissemination of knowledge gained from the each grant project. Design of the grant benefited from vetting multiple drafts with various stakeholders and, ultimately, included a mix of stipend and discretionary budget and requirements for dissemination. Six proposals were received and five were awarded and include nine faculty members from multiple disciplines. As indicated earlier, this presentation will explore the incentive structure selected; discuss dissemination requirements; and finally, suggest improvements to grant design.

Keywords:

Innovation, faculty development, academic technology, instructional technology, lightboard, flipped learning.