Despite
her already substantial experience in the classroom, Coastal Carolina
University new full-time politics professor Dr. Pamela Martin is always
interested in learning new ways in which to advance her teaching.
With Coastal’s distance learning program she has found one.
Martin is using a brand new distance learning classroom in University
Hall on Coastal’s Conway campus which utilizes modern technology
to communicate by means of real time video and audio with her POLI
102 Introduction to World Politics students at Coastal’s Higher
Education Center in Georgetown. POLI 102 introduces students to
the principal forces and factors influencing world affairs, emphasizing
the problems and policy perspectives of foreign countries and regions.
Thanks to Coastal’s new videoconferencing technology, funded
by one of two state lottery grants awarded to the university last
year, Martin was also able to include Professor Barry McDonald from
Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, as a guest lecturer
on law and technology in her POLI 501 Contemporary Issues in International
Relations class this past semester.
“This technology greatly added to the students’ learning
environment by making the class applicable to the ‘real world,’”
said Martin.
This semester she is connecting her POLI 501 class with students
at La Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.
“This is a pilot initiative to test the feasibility of global
telecollaborative courses here at CCU. After a few weeks, the preliminary
results are very positive and encouraging for future telecollaborative
endeavors,” said Martin.
Martin volunteered to be the first to test the new distance learning
classroom last semester before several similar classrooms were fully
implemented on the Conway campus this spring.
“The students enjoy using the technology,” said Martin.
She believes that the new technology is having a positive impact
on her students, and that the technology “reinforces learning.”
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Dr.
Pamela Martin became an assistant professor of politics at
Coastal Carolina last year. She was an adjunct faculty member
for Coastal for three years prior. She received her Ph.D.
at the University of Maryland, College Park, in Political
Science focusing on International Relations and Comparative
Politics. In 1998 she came to South Carolina from the University
of San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador, where she held a Teaching
Fellowship in the Department of International Relations. Martin
teaches POLI 102 Introduction to World Politics, POLI 201
American National Government, POLI 315 International Relations,
and POLI 501 Contemporary Issues in International Relations.
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Martin
has an assortment of tools in the new classroom which helps her
facilitate instruction to her students. The classroom provides large
monitors and a projector to present multimedia demonstrations to
both the local and distant classrooms. She believes that this new
technology not only revolutionizes her students’ educational
experience, but also greatly aids her performance as an instructor.
“The
multimedia resources in the room help me organize and facilitate
instruction, and force me to make that instruction applicable to
the students. I make my lectures more multimedia,” said Martin.
Laptop computers,
funded by another state lottery grant, are also available for students
to use during class.
“The
laptops allow the students to learn actively, rather than simply
view the material,” Martin said.
Along with
her use of the new distance learning classroom, Martin also utilizes
WebCT, Coastal’s online course tool.
“WebCT
provides a 24 hour a day resource for students, offering those with
diverse schedules access to quizzes and assessments at convenient
times,” said Martin. Her students, along with many others
using WebCT, have access to their assignments, quizzes, assessments,
and grades from any computer that has Internet access.
“The
discussion board feedback adjusts my teaching,” Martin said
of WebCT’s discussion board tool, which she also utilizes
in her classes.
Assisting
Martin in her new distance learning experience is Coastal’s
Technology in Education to Advance Learning (TEAL) Lab.
“The
TEAL staff helps me create and modify my WebCT courses. They also
trained me with videoconferencing. They are extremely reliable and
knowledgeable, which lowers my level of anxiety in the classroom
with new technologies,” Martin said. “The TEAL Lab is
open long hours providing WebCT assistance for me as well as for
my students. I’m sure that more faculty members will gain
confidence in using the new facilities and reap the instructional
benefits the technology has to offer.
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