Poulton and Kemeny worked closely with a group of campus faculty and professionals who developed a grant supporting the use of preceptors in the classroom. The preceptors act as guides to help students gain accessibility to course material and answer questions. The UA preceptor program was launched in the fall of 1998 and quickly expanded to include nearly 200 undergraduate preceptors serving 4,500 of their undergraduate peers. These accelerated students must have their assignments done in advance to be able to assist other students. Poulton said all the preceptors benefit from the learning process and teaching experience.
Preceptors are one of the first places a student can go for help.
101 course had 12 preceptors that served nearly 130 students last Spring. They were key players in the computer component of the course. Virtually the entire course is available via the web, including lecture material, course content questions and lecture slides. This environment allows the students to work at their own pace and devote as much time as they need to course material. Course projects make it necessary to build a home page and create animation files.