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 Whether
integrating computer technology with his courses or challenging
students with questions or “problems” to solve, Donald Egolf,
Communication, practices what he learned long ago about
teaching: “Always
try to devise an educational assignment that is interesting and
fun.”
Among the comments in Egolf’s award from the Chancellor
is that he provides “many supporting examples designed to
match your students’ experiences in order to gently challenge
and encourage them to think in new ways.”
This methodology is demonstrated explicitly in a brief
conversation with the 30-year veteran of teaching at Pitt:
he asks questions that provoke contemplation long after
the conversation has ended. Egolf finds the Socratic dialogue,
combined with a communication topic that students are interested
in, is an “effective learning vehicle to teach what I want to
teach. When
students have to take positions and defend those positions, the
issues surrounding a topic become manifest.”
‘Mini-experiments’
For example, after summarizing the many
studies that show the dramatic effects of physical
attractiveness, Egolf will ask, “What are the reasons
underlying the importance we wittingly or unwittingly assign to
physical attractiveness? Is
it because of nature or nurture?”
Some students are then asked to defend the nature side,
others the nurture side, and the debate begins.
Sometimes he will assess a student’s commitment to a
position, “Would you have your child undergo cosmetic surgery
to increase the child’s attractiveness, or would you
administer synthesized growth hormones to your child even though
the child was within the normal height range?”
As he assigns “fun” and challenging ways for students
to approach course material, Egolf regularly conducts
“mini-experiments.” “Often
I like to do mini-experiments to test the theories I’m talking
about. I
acknowledge to the students that these mini-experiments are not
replications of scientific research, but I’m certain that they
make the theories more vivid for students.
For example, at the beginning of a class I might ask
selected students a number of questions (such as ‘How many
letters are in the word, Mississippi?’) while videotaping
their faces close up. Then, in class when I talk about the
related theory, I will say, for example, ‘If theory x is true,
we should see our subjects’ eyes move in a certain
direction,’ and we look at the video to determine if the
students’ behavior supports, refutes, or seems to be unrelated
to the theory’s predictions.”
Technology
A Small Group Communication course Egolf taught
recently illustrates how he has integrated technology into his
teaching. Students
were given the task of creating a comprehensive website on small
group and team communication.
Working in groups, students researched the content needed
to construct the site and then (with the assistance of Kathy
Dorsey Griffin of (CSSD) adapted that content for the website
medium using animation and color.
Egolf found that the website class outperformed another
section of the same class taught in the traditional way.
“The students produced a good website.
I was so proud of that class.
And, more important, they learned the course content.”
The class, which included several students who had no
prior experience with computers, was “very labor intensive for
everyone,” Egolf recalls.
This
course and others encouraged him to pioneer studies in
“Website Construction As Pedagogy,” about which he has
published numerous papers and received national attention.
Egolf’s interest in technology as a teaching tool has
led to his participation in various national forums like the
invitational national symposium of the Council of Exceptional
Children.
For the past 15 years Egolf has reviewed grant
applications for the U. S. Office of Education; the applications
have involved the use of technology to promote communication in
nonspeakers (people who cannot use speech as a primary means of
communication). Here
computers are used by the nonspeaker to synthesize speech.
More recently he has become fascinated with a new
technology that not only synthesizes a person’s speech but the
person’s body movements and facial expressions as well.
This means that people can have their identities,
including their physical images, voices, body movements, and
facial expressions “banked” in a computer.
“So if you found out that you had a degenerative
disease, would you want to bank your identity?” he asks,
characteristically prodding his listener to think.
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