Amy Bravo, assistant dean of NYIT’s Office of Career Services, helps coordinate a wide range of service-learning opportunities grounded in technology.

Technology, Service-Learning, and Experiential Education

Seven years ago, NYIT offered 87 courses online and 206 courses used Blackboard. Today, there are 210 online courses, and every NYIT course has a Blackboard shell. Whether courses are fully online, blended, or predominantly lecture-based, Glazer says their success—measured in terms of learning outcomes and student engagement—often hinges on the amount and quality of opportunities that allow students to participate and interact with the professor, classmates, and course materials.

The blended format is gaining ground in 30 sections of NYIT’s core courses. Nicholas Bloom, chair of interdisciplinary studies and director of NYIT’s Discovery Core Curriculum, says all first-year students are expected to use Blackboard. For every two hours in class, another hour is spent online.

“It’s really pushing them to engage with technology, not just receive it,” says Bloom. “This is the future. It’s about figuring out and owning the technology.”

He adds that while some students value the increase in technology requirements, others who are accustomed to lengthy lectures and note-taking might initially struggle.

“Blackboard is an interactive model—you have to put your work up, find your way through the system, and understand how to use it,” he says.

Yet the technology is more than a course delivery tool. Through efforts by Bloom and Amy Bravo, assistant dean of NYIT’s Office of Career Services, several interdisciplinary seminars and core courses also include coursework and assignments based on themes of technology and service.

“They’re looking at technology from multiple disciplines,” says Bloom. “From an anthropology discipline, what is the impact of cellphone use? In politics, what is the influence of technology on an election?”

The diverse service-learning projects in 12 current courses are grounded in technology: one group of students is creating anti-bullying online games and public service announcements for the Child Abuse Prevention Society. Another is developing instructional guides to help immigrants with computer literacy, and a third is building social media campaigns for an organization that helps families and children with cancer.

“We’ve quadrupled the number of classes that offer service-learning,” says Bravo. “This is not volunteering. It’s project-based learning for the public good to address a public problem or a social issue.”

In one of the most ambitious examples of service-learning, 25 NYIT students promoted science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at a Harlem, N.Y., elementary school. The project was the focus of the Career Discovery Course for first-year engineering students, says Jim Martinez, Ph.D., assistant professor of instructional technology in NYIT’s School of Education, who oversees the course with Associate Professor Richard Meyers of the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences.

Some students observed classroom lessons at P.S. 241 and determined how teachers can enhance them with multimedia content, new explanations of STEM concepts, or questions that help younger students grasp complex ideas. A second group of NYIT students examined the school’s technology infrastructure to recommend improvements to deliver lessons. A third group produced a video documentary for an end-of-semester presentation with the elementary school students, their parents, and teachers at the NYIT Auditorium on Broadway on the university’s Manhattan campus.

“I have definitely enjoyed this way of learning,” says Preston Volman, a computer science major. “It is very handson and for someone like me—a student who has had little work experience prior to college—it is really giving me a feel for what it’s like to go into a job and hit the ground running.”

Volman adds he was happy to provide assistance to the Harlem school.

“These kids are learning concepts that I would never have fathomed in elementary school,” he says. “We want to give them quality education, regardless of their geographic location.”

Martinez says the project offers several benefits for NYIT students: a groundlevel view of challenges young students in some urban neighborhoods face; a chance to develop a spirit of volunteerism; the opportunity to improve STEM teaching on the elementary school level; and communications experience.

“The real point is that our students will get used to asking people questions about their lives, needs, and issues, which is what you want a good engineer to do,” says Martinez.

Evaluations of the NYIT service projects, blended courses, and project-based activities will yield crucial assessment data about learning outcomes. Educators agree that standard lectures still have a place in the university. But the delivery methods, infusion of technology, and increased interactive exercises are disrupting the traditional way of teaching and learning. “Our job as educators is changing,” says Glazer. “We’re not just providing the information. We’re helping our students learn how to find it, organize it, and use it. We can’t pretend to stand in the front of the room and know everything.”

“It’s revolutionary in a sense,” adds Bloom. “We are upending this idea that the class happens at one place at one time. Now the class happens in the classroom, online, in a service project, and elsewhere. I think this is just the beginning.”

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