In doing so, they solve curricular needs with interactive multimedia tools that require them to incorporate a deeper understanding of cognitive development into their teaching. They themselves learn and teach collaboratively with other faculty trainees and mentors who are also restructuring their teaching methods. The ultimate beneficiaries of this effort will be the students who learn how to learn more effectively. Training begins with an intensive course at the interactive multimedia training facility and continues at the participants' own academic work settings where they can study, practice, and author materials with the guidance of faculty mentors. These mentors support the clusters and help develop their proficiencies with the technology for several semesters.
Training emphasizes the authoring of projects that can be used immediately as class lessons.
Participants are encouraged to disseminate these projects as products of pedagogical scholarship. We have successfully trained 65 faculty in the 2 years of our project. We expect that other institutions will be able to imitate both our training philosophy and our administrative structure. We have collected hard won wisdom about how to re- train highly skilled educators, how to nurture that transition, and how to reward it.