sweet briar magazine inside - Sweet Briar College

Teaching Model Pilot Gets
High-tech Lift
eBonnie “ty” SHreve ’14 STARTED
CARRYING HER APPLE IPAD everywhere she
went — even to Wal-Mart — as soon as it arrived
in the mail.
Ty received the iPad this summer from Sweet
Briar, free, but with strings attached. She is one of
30 students in two sections of English 104 who
agreed to experiment with the device to examine
ways to incorporate it into their learning. Before
they even arrived on campus, the students
completed creative projects related to reading
assignments.
Fifteen faculty members are conducting a
similar experiment using iPads for teaching. ese
were paid for by a Mellon Foundation grant that
provides discretionary funds for new presidents to
support initiatives important to them. Both
groups will share what they learn as part of a
strategic effort to ensure that Sweet Briar is
providing a digitally sophisticated education to all
students.
“Of course, what is meaningful in this pilot is
not the iPads themselves,” says President Jo Ellen
Parker. “ey are simply one opportunity to
examine the ways in which digital tools can — or
cannot — enhance pedagogy. In other words, this
pilot project is about teaching, not about a
device.”
Ty, a multi-instrument musician and biology
major who is eyeing the pre-vet program, has
found the highlighting feature a bit tricky to use
but doesn’t mind the e-reader. Annotating is fast
and easy, she says. She likes the way it organizes
her notes by page number — almost like a table of
contents — and how easy it is find a notation or
passage in the text by searching. And unlike a
laptop, the iPad is always ready to go.
On-Campus
Research
CHryStaL CoLLinS ’10 AND professor of
environmental studies David Orvos used the
environmental sciences lab’s atomic absorption
spectrometer to test about 70 samples of human
breast milk for mercury. ey used cold-vapor
hydride analysis to measure levels of the metal.
e samples were collected from women in
Belize in response to concerns about
environmental contaminants. Collins, of Lusby,
Md., graduated summa-cum laude with a B.A.
in archaeology and minors in anthropology and
environmental science.
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