The Mellon grant budgets for nine $5,000 projects focusing on the use of technology to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of the Freshman Preceptorial course. This is not an exhaustive list but is designed to stimulate thinking. We have the ability to award three grants of up to $5,000 per grant for a faculty or groups or faculty to work on these projects. Perhaps these 8 will provide some starting points for projects.

1. Put together a web-based (or other easily accessible) set of materials designed to help instructors become familiar with topics or readings in which the preceptors' group has little expertise. The obvious example is the Koran, but there may be others. This would allow instructors to venture into such readings with less trepidation. There could be two sets of materials, one for use by the class, another for the instructor. The second set could include potential paper topics, tie-ins with other material, etc.

2. Organize a mini-course for "faculty teaching faculty" which integrates small-group sessions with an evaluation of materials from the web or other multimedia sources. This would be particularly useful when we have an instructor or instructors particularly knowledgeable in some readings (e.g., the Bible, Hamlet, the Gita) who would be willing to conduct what amounts to a small seminar for faculty with little or no training in these texts--supplemented by a rich set of materials that could be available concurrent with the teaching. These sessions could be documented with digital audio or video which, with the materials, could be made available to subsequent preceptors.

3. Develop an integrated approach to teaching an entire packet, complete with supplemental materials, web resources, films, or whatever.

4. Pilot the use of a web- (or at least computer-) based assessment package designed to measure student learning in a packet--what students know when they finish vs. what they knew when they started. We have rarely measured with any precision what students actually learn from a course or even a single packet.

5. Develop a comprehensive set of writing assignments for a packet or packets (probably more than one), designed to work explicitly on students' content-based writing skills. These assignments could include one or more collaborative writing projects using a software package like CommonSpace

6. Find a way of integrating a research paper, project, or presentation with one or more of the modules--we might want to talk about this as an alternative to one of the standard papers. In order to honor the spirit of the Mellon grant, the research or presentation of the papers or projects should make use of technology. For example, students could critically evaluate web-based or film or video resources.

7. Integrate "chat-room" exercises into coverage of FP material. This could involve a single section of FP, multiple sections, or even discussions between Union FP students and students at other institutions.