News and Information Services' Summary of the

Report by the Joint Subcommissions on What We Teach and How We Teach

New technologies and media are dramatically increasing the amount of information available to the world and changing the ways in which people interact with one another, with their work, and with the institutions of society. Whether or not the information of the “information age” meets a scholar’s standards of validity and usefulness, it is transforming the environments from which our students come and the workplaces where they will seek employment when they leave the University. If we are to accommodate and adequately prepare students, we must adapt what we teach and how we teach to reflect the information revolution and its impact on the world.

WHAT WE TEACH

From Information to Knowledge

Though students need to know how to use information and communication technology effectively, our educational focus should not be on simply imparting skills, but on creating opportunities for students to gain these skills as they pursue broader educational objectives. Rather than leaving the University merely trained in the use of information technology, University of Michigan graduates should be educated about information technologies, with a deep understanding of their histories and impacts on society and culture. They need to be able to swim in the new, information-intensive environment, managing the information with which they are bombarded wisely and with an eye to its value. They need to understand how to read and interpret the information communicated through new technologies, be it in the form of text, image, sound, video—or all combined. They must understand, too, that information alone does not constitute knowledge. Acquiring knowledge involves evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing information, placing it in the appropriate context, and using it to formulate theories.

Some opportunities already exist for University of Michigan students to learn about the power—and limits—of information and to explore its cultural, economic, political, and social ramifications. The School of Library Studies, by transforming itself into a School of Information, made the larger study of information revolution issues its major mandate. The Schools of Education and Business Administration teach about information as a set of systems. The School of Art and Design and departments such as Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Communications, and Film and Video, to name only a few, teach about the new media and information technologies and their implications.

An Across-the-Curriculum Approach

Such learning experiences should not be confined to a few schools and departments. What we need now is an across-the-curriculum approach, with opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in using information technology to access and manipulate real research data, publish multimedia web pages, develop models and simulations, and communicate and collaborate with colleagues—while at the same time learning to think critically about the larger issues of the information revolution. Not only should students understand these issues in the abstract, but they should also relate them to their own lives and activities, such as sharing music files via the Internet.

Students should emerge from this experience having learned to:

• Critically evaluate information and its reliability.
• Incorporate information into a field of knowledge so that it serves a specific purpose or intellectual goal.
• Grasp some of the cultural, economic, and political implications of the information revolution and legal and ethical issues it raises.

Video streaming, interactive web pages, photography, audio files, and even tactile feedback are increasingly important parts of digital communication. In response to this trend, the commission recommends the creation of an interdisciplinary concentration or major in multimedia studies. This should include two or three well-publicized, one-semester introductory or sophomore level courses open to large numbers of students not concentrating in multimedia studies.

HOW WE TEACH

Opportunities and Incentives

University of Michigan faculty are constantly increasing their use of information and communication technology, though 63% still say they lack the skills they need to use everything they want to use. Those who employ the technology in teaching use it in a variety of ways: course management; presentation; online tutorials, workbooks, and exercises; student/faculty research projects; and collaborative projects, some of which involve students and faculty at other institutions.

Though a number of innovative teaching projects already are underway, most have developed as individual initiatives, in the absence of any University-wide sense of purpose or enabling policy. These efforts have not always been well coordinated with other, similar projects, and there has been insufficient cross-fertilization between units. The University needs to create structures and incentives to encourage coordination and the exchange of ideas, such as:

• Regular workshops or forums on the information revolution or information technology, featuring speakers who can relate their expertise to specific disciplines.
• Opportunities for graduate students—who often act as pathfinders, uncovering new possibilities for information and communication technology in their fields—to work with faculty in developing new courses, curricula, and uses of the technology in courses.
• Centers in which graduate students can share knowledge and projects related to information and communication technology.
• Opportunities for faculty to work across disciplines in developing new uses of information and communication technology in courses.

Upgrading the Information Technology Environment

Along with developing educational initiatives and creating incentives, we must upgrade the educational information technology environment, in the classroom and out, and ensure that students and faculty have the necessary support. Recommendations on infrastructure and support include:

• Increasing the number of classrooms with network and multimedia access.
• Hiring more information technology personnel to maintain equipment and provide side-by-side instructional support to faculty and graduate students who want to use information technology in teaching.
• Making low- or no-cost training workshops on particular information and communication technology skills readily and widely available to faculty, staff, and students.
• Requiring all staff to be competent with information technology applications in their areas of responsibility.

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