Giving Faculty
Tools to Enable
Student Success
We believe that advanced technology
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in higher education makes it easier for institutions to execute their academic vision of success. We're seeing colleges and universities use Apple products to build seamless technology-based communities that help eliminate barriers between students, faculty, and staff. This makes it much easier for faculty and staff to do what they do best—teach, innovate, and inspire—from anywhere. Apple technology empowers faculty and staff with the best tools to do their best work. Here's why:
Apple products are great for classrooms, lecture halls, study areas, and more. With AirPlay®, educators and students can quickly connect an Apple device to Apple TV wirelessly, turning classrooms and lecture halls into vibrant and engaging learning spaces. And for online learning environments, the ability to share screens and see students' faces in stunning high definition makes virtual classrooms seamless and more personal.
Mac and iPad are compatible with apps and workflows that faculty and staff depend on every day, beginning with built-in apps—such as Pages®, Keynote, iMovie, Mail, Calendar, Notes, Reminders, and Messages—and extending to third-party apps—such as Google Workspace for Education, Microsoft Office, Canvas, Dropbox, and the entire Adobe Creative Suite. These apps and software are not only the foundation of innovative assignments and activities in higher education, but they're also the same tools that many students will use in their future careers.
Apple products are also powerful tools for conducting cutting-edge research, including collecting data, performing advanced analytics, and designing solutions to some of the world's greatest challenges. From experimenting with innovative ways to grow food to researching some of the world's most challenging diseases, higher education faculty are using Apple technology and apps to drive change that positively impacts people's lives. Colleges and universities that have successfully created engaging learning environments, as described in the previous section, tend to have three key components in common: robust professional development for faculty, flexible engagement tools, and a focus on continuous innovation.
Apple technology has helped us to miniaturize our innovations and make them user friendly and affordable for everyone. That’s incredibly powerful.
Spotlight
With Apple technology, researchers at Colorado State University's Energy Institute are building scalable solutions to help tackle health issues related to air pollution.
Dr. John Volckens and his team of engineering students are creating technologies that empower people—from asthma sufferers to first responders—with information to improve their health and wellness.
Apple technology is at the core of their innovations. Using the power of Mac, they create, design, and build personal, wearable air sensors that "breathe in" and measure the user's air quality.
Volckens's students develop custom iOS apps on Mac using Swift that interpret data from the sensor and make that data accessible on iPhone, so individuals and families everywhere can make better, more-informed decisions about their environment and health.
Learn more about how Dr. Volckens and his team of grad students are making a difference.
Leading higher education institutions recognize that professional development and training are key to supporting faculty in making the shift to student-centered instructional models. Faculty inevitably have different skill levels, and successful initiatives include formal professional development to share best practices and provide training on how best to engage students in a variety of settings. Though instructional approaches may vary by subject matter, course size, engagement modality, and other factors, training likely needs to include considerations such as:
Synchronous or asynchronous: Does the content need to be live, or is it suitable for on-demand learning?
In person or online: What are best practices for creating an engaging online learning environment? How can faculty create a seamless transition between in-person and online experiences in a hybrid environment?
Class structure: When is it best to pivot between large groups, small groups, and one-to-one settings? How does this impact the optimal instructional model?
iPad is a lifesaver for us — it provides us with everything we need. Within our on-campus, hybrid, and online environments, we are able to teach music lessons, hold studio classes and recitals virtually, and see assignments through to completion.
In addition to training faculty on how to develop engaging content, successful initiatives also explore new tools to improve the distribution of faculty content and encourage interactive learning experiences. This could include an emphasis on creating more interactive content for asynchronous learning, or just experimenting with more interactive tools for video conferencing and real-time group engagement.
Many of these tools exist within a learning management system (LMS) or third-party app such as Canvas. Faculty might need to experiment with new tools to discover what works best for their unique situation.
Driving innovation in today's learning environments is an iterative and interactive process that requires a growth-oriented mindset of continuous improvement. We're seeing leading institutions deploy mentorship programs and feedback loops with faculty and students to capture insights, measure impact, and innovate the overall learning experience.
Bowdoin has long been committed to providing students access to the resources necessary to excel in and beyond the classroom. Our Digital Excellence Commitment levels the playing field for all students and ensures that they have the tools and opportunities they need to learn and lead in our increasingly digital world.
Bowdoin College's Digital Excellence Commitment (DExC) was created to level the playing field so that every student fully benefits from the technology that plays an essential and growing role in the learning experience at Bowdoin.
DExC provides all students with a 13-inch MacBook Pro®, an iPad, an Apple Pencil, and access to a full range of course-specific software designed to advance learning and inspire innovative teaching.
DExC builds on the success of the MacBook component of the Geoffrey Canada Scholars program, which helps students thrive regardless of their economic backgrounds. DExC is also the next iteration of Bowdoin's iPad initiative, which was developed to ensure that every student has consistent access, dependable support, a shared learning experience, and the tools they need to collaborate, innovate, and succeed.
The iPad initiative has improved students' learning experience in many ways, including by giving students and faculty the ability to take handwritten notes; perform visible live calculations, graphs, or sketches on a shared whiteboard; compose non-Roman alphabet script (whether for displaying, collaborating, or correcting); record lectures and videos or capture images with an enhanced camera; experiment with interactive 3-D instructional models; and move to electronic lab notebooks in specific disciplines.
The breadth of the iPad initiative's benefits has spanned the curriculum across an array of courses and disciplines. The school continues to offer iPad and Apple Pencil and has expanded computing capabilities with MacBook Pro.
