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Educator Highlight
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Every day we hear about new and innovative ways our customers are integrating response technology into their classrooms. These stories were so good we just couldn’t keep them to ourselves. That's why we developed our "Educator Highlights." Do you have any suggestions for our next Educator Highlight or would you like to be featured for your innovative use of response technology? Contact us.
Dr. Justin Tolman Dr. Justin Tolman serves as an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Sciences at Creighton University's School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. Justin studied Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin where he had the opportunity to become an undergraduate teaching assistant. It was during this time that Justin discovered his passion, "I absolutely fell in love with teaching. I immediately saw how rewarding it was for me to see when students suddenly understood challenging material," he explained. Justin was initially introduced to Turning Technologies' TurningPoint student response system while a student at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy. In professional courses, the technology was used to increase student engagement and improve student comprehension of course material. After completing his Pharm.D. degree, Justin pursued his Ph.D. After completing his Ph.D in 2009, Justin turned his attention to finding an academic position in a School or College of Pharmacy at a higher education institution. He found that perfect fit with Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. Shortly after arriving at Creighton, Justin began creating and designing a new course while teaching it for the first time. During that first difficult year, Justin knew he wanted to provide his students with the same classroom experience he had a few years earlier through the use of student response technology. He approached the School’s Office of eLearning and Academic Technologies (OLAT) and found that the School did have a student response system in place. However, the experience with the solution had been poor. Justin took the initiative to research Turning Technologies and all of its product offerings. He presented his findings to the School’s eLearning team and they were instantly on board to try to get this new user friendly student response system for their School. Once the eLearning team was on board, they took the reins and established an agreement with Turning Technologies to set up a pilot program for the use of Turning's mobile polling solution, ResponseWare. As part of the School’s technology initiative, each incoming student is given a tablet PC. ResponseWare seemed to be the perfect fit for Justin's course needs as Pharmacy students commonly bring their tablet PCs to class anyway. Using the University’s wireless internet connection, students simply respond to TurningPoint questions using ResponseWare from their tablet PCs. Justin has been piloting ResponseWare and TurningPoint in his second offering of this revised course since January of this year. "Since I started using it, everything's been great! The integration was very smooth and practically seamless. My students love using it. The ability to instantly see the feedback provides students with an added dimension of learning," said Justin. The students were so impressed with the technology they actually went to other instructors and asked why the technology was not yet incorporated in their courses. "Faculty members started coming to me and asking about the technology, saying that their students were asking to use student response. They wanted to learn more and see how they could be a part of the pilot," said Justin. Justin has even included the use of ResponseWare for distance learning. Creighton’s pharmacy program has a distance pathway providing a full-time educational method to obtain a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. This innovative pathway covers the same material as the traditional campus pathway, but allows students to take asynchronous didactic coursework using the latest in distance education technology, from wherever they live. Justin has hosted online reviews and group discussions using web based chat sessions which then brings distance students and campus students together. With the use of ResponseWare, Justin was able to make these sessions more interactive for all students. "When I first told this group I would be using ResponseWare and TurningPoint, they were like, 'We get to use this too!' They were actually really excited to be able to use the same technology they had been hearing all about for so long," exclaimed Justin. Recently, Justin along with the School’s eLearning team held an open discussion to propose the adoption of TurningPoint and ResponseWare across the School - creating this opportunity for all faculty and students in the School. They currently are awaiting a decision. Justin has high hopes for the approval and looks forward to the continued use of the technology in his future courses. "I plan to become more versed in the TurningPoint AnyWhere software as I think it helps open up the teaching dynamics, by not limiting presentations to PowerPoint. I often teach using OneNote and a tablet during class," explained Justin, "I can't wait to see this technology rolled out across the School." |
