Discipline Specific Teaching Support

Abstract

The best uses of technology in teaching and learning will be those that originate in specialized concerns of individual disciplines and that respond to the discipline's own teaching agenda. Figuring out how to support disciplinary development is different from figuring out how to provide generic support that can be used in any subject. In this presentation we extend an earlier analysis of faculty culture and discuss the problem of moving from 'generic' support for instructional uses of technology to support for the growth of disciplinary resources. Using examples from several programs at the University of Arizona and Wake Forest University, we show how to capitalize upon disciplinary loyalties by building tools that are specifically appropriate to one or two disciplines. It is likely, now that most universities have adopted similar course management systems, that these disciplinary specific tools will become increasingly important in the years immediately ahead.