Rationale

Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) proposes that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fund a program of faculty development designed to enrich the humanities curriculum at the college through the application of instructional technology to the teaching/learning process. During the spring of 1998, selected faculty members from humanities disciplines, such as history, art, literature, philosophy and music, will explore new approaches to integrating humanities instruction across disciplines through use of the world wide web (Web).
 

In the last ten years, the study and teaching of the humanities has changed dramatically as a result of the technological revolution sweeping the Western world. There has been an enormous explosion in the availability of, and access to, text, images and sounds through the Web at the college, and this phenomenon has altered fundamentally the scope and nature of humanities instruction. The non-linear, non-bounded nature of the Web has made it less meaningful to speak of discrete disciplines. For example, material on a site such as Georgetown University's "Labyrinth" (www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth), devoted to medieval studies, escapes simple pigeon-holing as history, art, philosophy or literature. Thus it is becoming more relevant to acknowledge the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge--and it is easier to do so with the Web--and to offer a curriculum that integrates humanities materials as such.

Because of the rapidity of technological developments in recent years, faculty at NVCC have struggled with the issue of what can and should actually be done with the new technology. What are the pedagogical and curricular uses of the new technological infrastructure? Is it something more than just an expensive electronic encyclopedia? How does one improve the effectiveness of electronic resources and shape them into sophisticated, creative and engaging approaches to learning? How should, or can, the humanities be taught in a technological environment?

Technology that brings new resources to the classroom (virtual or physical) can be a very effective instructional tool if designed correctly, and many scholars have already produced substantial resources using the WWW. Roy Rosenzweig at George Mason University pioneered the use of multimedia in the teaching of American history with his CD-ROM textbook, Who Built America?, and he is now collaborating with Steve Breier at the City University of New York on the American Social History Project (http://www.ashp.cuny.edu). Edward Ayres at the University of Virginia used source material to produce a hypermedia archive devoted to the Civil War era, the Valley of the Shadow (jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2), while the Vergil Project (Joseph Farrell at the University of Pennsylvania, ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~joef/courses/project.html) and Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu) remain good examples of projects that have made rich resources available to students. In fact, the Web can serve as a powerful tool to promote humanities education, as amply demonstrated by these projects, but what is still lacking is a discussion of methods for using these resources in the classroom, although Ayres, Rosenzweig and Breier are now moving in that direction.

This proposed focus grant will provide time and structure for faculty at NVCC to assess Web technology for teaching the humanities, to decide how that technology might be used and to develop a plan for constructing a Web-integrated humanities curriculum. Such a curriculum will include a) general humanities course offerings, such as Introduction to Philosophy, that use Web-syllabi to interlink study units with courses in other disciplines, such as history; b) specific instructional Web-modules as stand-alone units, such as one on the Russian Revolution, that combine materials from a variety of disciplines and that can be used in a variety of courses; c) specialized humanities course offerings that now are infrequently taught, such as Stories of the Trojan War; d) general humanities courses that can be taught with a Web-course delivery systems, such as History of Western Civilization; e) the use of appropriate humanities content sites on the Web (such as the Valley of the Shadow); and f) a capstone humanities course that requires a student to develop his/her own integrated humanities Web site.

In short, the proposed focus grant is not just a "let's put some courses on the web" approach but, instead, will allow NVCC faculty to develop a comprehensive model that uses Web technology to teach the humanities in a cross discipline learning environment. For example, in this environment, Romanticism might be studied from a variety of different approaches (historical, artistic, literary) by a student in a class such as Western literature or Art History because, through the Web, each course can provide links to the discussion of Romanticism in the other courses.

In addition to the benefit of developing interconnections, the Web brings a wealth of previously untapped resources to the community college student. Again, with respect to Romanticism, students can use a variety of Web sites to add a virtual dimension to their physical classroom, such as the Romantic Circles project (http://www.inform.umd.edu/RC/rc.html), which draws together an enormous amount of resources about the romantic poets.

Finally, students, in addition to benefiting from this new approach to teaching the humanities, will also improve their technology skills and prepare themselves for their future lives. This (use of technology) has become one of the general education goals of the college and reflects the growing importance of technology in the world today.

Thus, the proposed project will lead to improved humanities instruction at the college and perhaps provide a model for other academic institutions. Through use of the Web, faculty will be able to expose students to new images, texts and sounds; to offer specialized humanities courses and instructional modules that are not offered now because of administrative constraints; and to interlink courses to allow students to draw on humanities resources common across all disciplines.

Institutional context

Northern Virginia Community College is one of twenty-three two-year colleges that make up the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). Established in 1964, the college consists of five campuses (Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas and Woodbridge) and an Extended Learning Institute (ELI), which provides distance-based instruction. These campuses, located in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, support a variety of degree programs, including two-year associate degrees, one-year certificates and short career studies certificates. In all, the college supports programs in more than eighty majors and one hundred thirty curricula.

The college, which is one of the largest in the country, attracts a sizeable and diverse student population. During the 1996-97 academic year, approximately sixty thousand full- and part-time students enrolled at the college, while over twenty thousand students registered for non-credit courses. In addition, students from over one hundred fifty countries attended classes.

Like other institutions of higher education, NVCC has gradually recognized the need to improve its technology environment, and the college developed a General Technology Plan that proposes to spend at least five million dollars over two years to upgrade that environment. By the spring of 1998, each faculty member at the college will have a PC workstation linked to the college network with access to e-mail, the Web and administrative and educational resources. Students, who can already access electronic materials by means of computers in the libraries and computer labs, will also have e-mail access in 1998.

Content

To work towards the goal of creating a model Web-integrated humanities curriculum, this project will offer a series of twelve discussion sessions in the spring of 1998. The conversation will initially center on models for teaching the humanities in an interdisciplinary setting and the impact of technology on humanities education. Participants will then proceed to training in technology applications useful for academia and to a discussion of using that technology to teach the humanities and to develop a Web-integrated humanities curriculum.

Throughout the twelve weeks, faculty will read from two books that highlight the problems and advantages of using electronic resources in an academic setting: Bernard Robin, Educator's Guide to the Web (1997), which offers advice about curriculum integration, and Jane Lasarenko, Wired for Learning (1997) which examines some common design problems. Since the technology of the Web evolves so quickly, particular attention will be paid to articles published on the Web itself, such as Mary Hernandez and Karen Tallman, "Untangling the Web: Using the World Wide Web for Art and Humanities Reference Services", or Todd Oppenheimer, "The Computer Delusion". Faculty will also read from Michael Clark, Cultural Treasures of the Internet, 2nd ed. (1996), which provides a review of some of the most important Web sites for the arts and humanities, and during the course of the project, participants will discuss relevant content sites on the Web, such as the those mentioned above.

The twelve week program will begin with an introductory session in which the project directors explain the overall purpose and structure of the program. In the following week, faculty will discuss with John O'Connor, Dean of the New Century College at George Mason University, various creative models for an integrative humanities curriculum. Then, Arnold Oliver, Chancellor of the Virginia Community College System, will speak with participants about the specific impact of the new technology environment on humanities education at the community college.

In ensuing sessions, Yitna Firdyiwek, technology liaison at the University of Virginia, will explain and summarize instructional technology options currently available to faculty. Sue Polyson and Bob Godwin-Jones from the Instructional Development Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, designers of the "Web Course in a Box" program, will talk about Web-interface design and the problems of course delivery via the Web, and Emilio Ramos, Director of Academic Computing at the Dallas County Community College District, will address the problems of designing, setting up and managing an online curriculum.

To fully understand the educational potential of the Web, faculty will receive training--tailored to their individual needs--in the training phase of the program: principles of distance education design (Diane Thompson); research and resources in the Web environment (Jennifer Egan); use and design of interactive multimedia (Robert Brown); and Web-page design, construction and maintenance (Aggie Taormina).

Finally, participants will discuss how to use the Web to support a humanities curriculum. Faculty will work on short "Humanities enrichment modules," which can be either Web-based learning resources, an instructional module or a sample interactive modules. These resource modules will become part of the Web at the college and will serve as a modest beginning for the creation of a Web-integrated humanities curriculum. The directors, in discussion with the participants, will also develop a plan of action to involve more faculty in a future expansion of this project.

Project staff

Dr. Charles Evans, assistant professor of history, has directed two faculty study projects funded by the NEH and has also received a series of grants that supported the development of interactive multimedia modules for use in history courses and the creation of a Web-instructional model for teaching history. He has taught history courses that use computer conference technologies, and he is currently teaching a history of Western civilization course, that he designed, on the Web. For the focus grant he will oversee the budget, be responsible for overall administration and act as liaison to the visiting presenters.

Dr. Agatha Taormina, professor of English, has been an assistant director of NEH and FIPSE grants that promoted interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities and science curriculum. She currently has grant funding to teach HTML and Web course design (Perkins and Tech-Prep grants) and to develop an interdisciplinary honors course. She has also created Web-materials to supplement her English and literature courses, and she teaches her classes in a networked writing environment. For the project, she will be responsible for administration of the discussion sessions, act as liaison with the college administration and provide training on Web course design.

Dr. Diane Thompson, professor of English, has also been an assistant director of an NEH grant and was the NVCC site director for a three-year Annenberg/CPB grant that studied the use of interactive networks in and between classrooms. She has been teaching in a distance education environment for over fifteen years now, including the use of computer conferences and television, and has published numerous articles on using computers in the classroom environment. For the project, she will administer the discussion sessions, oversee evaluation and dissemination of the project results and provide training on distance education design principles.

This team of project administrators has successfully directed a previous NEH faculty study project at NVCC (Islamic History and Cultures, Summer 1994) and brings a diversity of experience to the proposal, representing different disciplines (history and literature) and different campuses (Loudoun, Woodbridge and the Extended Learning Institute). Two are actively involved in offering their courses via distance education, and all have managed grants before. Most importantly, all three have already begun to use technology actively in their classrooms.

The following faculty have committed to participate in the project : John Wulff (Music), Barbara Seaman (American Literature), David Whipple (Art History), Jud Sage (American history), Donald Gregory (Philosophy), Thomas Hardy (Art History), Rosemary Gallick (Humanities) and Berta Finkelstein (Psychology). Jennifer Egan (Reference Librarian) and Arnold Bradford (Humanities), as staff members of the college, will participate but not be compensated by grant funding. The directors will actively seek to increase the number of faculty participants--we have had more applicants than funding will support--by soliciting further support for this project as funds become available in January from the Northern Virginia Educational Foundation and the Teaching and Learning Roundtable (TLTR) at the college. Faculty have been drawn from all campuses at the college, and each possesses experience in using technology in the classroom.

Evaluation

Dr. Thompson will prepare the initial surveys of current technology skills and humanities expertise for participants in the first discussion session. She will also prepare evaluation forms for participants to submit during and at the end of the spring sessions, and she will summarize these faculty responses in the final project report. The success of the project will also be measured by the production of the short humanities enrichment modules by participants during the program and by the development of a plan for the further design and implementation of a Web-integrated humanities curriculum at the end of the twelve-week program.

Dissemination

Faculty presentation of the results of this program at state and national conferences will be encouraged. The directors themselves will propose panels for inclusion at various meetings such as the Virginia Community College Association (VCCA), the Community College Humanities Association (CCHA) and the American Historical Association. As with earlier funded projects, the directors will also encourage the submission of articles to various journals, including the Inquiry: The Journal of the VCCA, the Community College Humanities Association Review, Teaching History and the NVCC Review.

All three project administrators will serve as liaisons to the history and English disciplines, providing information to their colleagues on results of the twelve-week project and encouraging continued cooperation between the disciplines and the campuses. A special session on cross-campus day designed to introduce all college faculty to the results of the project will be held to achieve cross-campus integration.

Last revised:  February 8, 1998
Send comments to:  Aggie Taormina