Minard 320J
North Dakota State University
11 December 2000

Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs
Old Main 103
North Dakota State University

Dear Dr. Schnell and University Senate Faculty Development Committee:

Enclosed please find five copies of a proposal for an Intra-disciplinary Instructional Development Grant. The project, "Coordinating Practical Writing Courses: Expanding Opportunities for Student Collaboration in Technology Intensive Classes," represents the English Department's attempt to better serve the 400-500 students who take English 320 (Practical Writing) each year. The department offers between twenty and 24 sections of this course yearly, taught by six to eight different teachers. This project has three related objectives: 1) to provide high quality, in-house technology training for the regular teachers of practical writing; 2) to improve student access to and expertise in the current technological applications necessary for employment in business or technical fields; 3) to coordinate English 320 classes so course objectives for all sections require both collaborative projects and significant technology components, while providing busy teachers with a wealth of possible ways to meet those objectives.

In order to meet these objectives, I ask for funding to provide three half-day workshops and one half-day retreat. The workshops would do three things: provide training and materials to introduce faculty at varying levels of expertise to the technological resources NDSU provides them and their students; offer hands-on opportunities to play with innovative assignments, demonstrating the ways in which these resources might be used in the classroom; and bring in an outside workshop director to offer intensive training in collaborative team-building. The half-day retreat, at the end of the semester, after the series of workshops, would provide the opportunity to coordinate course objectives, develop and critique assignments, and revamp syllabi. The fall semester of 2001 would see teachers entering the classroom with a scaffolding to support their efforts at innovation in the classroom—both the human resources offered by colleagues and a library of books, journals, and teaching materials. A teaching environment rich in this sort of support lends itself to a rekindled investment and interest in teaching this very important course.

Thank you for considering this proposal; it offers exciting opportunities for both teachers and students. The group of teachers with whom I worked to develop this proposal—lecturers in the English department, including the co-applicants, Eunice Johnston and Claire Legowski—are, like me, genuinely interested in and committed to upgrading their own technological literacy and passing those skills along to students. But perhaps what is even more important to all of us, students and teachers, is developing an atmosphere of mutual support and sharing for classroom innovation and creativity; that's what keeps dynamic and experienced teachers in a position to excite and compel students to develop the skills they will need to enter the 21st century work force.

If you have any questions about this proposal, or need clarification about any of the information it contains, please do not hesitate to call me H: 293-1065 or O: 231-6587. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours very truly,

Elizabeth J. Birmingham

Back to grants index