The Visible Knowledge Project was a five-year, four million dollar project aimed at improving the quality of college and university teaching through a focus on student learning and faculty development in technology-enhanced environments. With more than 70 faculty from 22 campuses engaged in the scholarship of teaching, the VKP was among the largest research projects in the country on technology and learning, and one of the largest in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary culture fields. Viet, the lead investigator, and his colleagues, George Sanchez, Mark Kann, Jane Iwamura, received a $75,000 grant to research teaching with multimedia and other innovative practices.
VKP placed questions about the integration of technology within a broad context of faculty inquiry into student learning and innovative practice. With its truly national scope, VKP represented a unique combination of theoretical and practical explorations, in both local and virtual contexts. The participants captured the models, resources, and cases in web-based, video, and print materials were disseminated through a variety of venues, beginning with the Crossroads of Teaching and Learning site, (part of the American Studies Crossroads site, already an internationally established site for teaching and learning materials in American Studies and related fields). VKP built on already established faculty networks built through the New Media Classroom Program (sponsored by the American Social History Project) consisting of eight regional centers and more than 300 faculty, the Crossroads Project network of American Studies Programs and American Studies Association members, and through partnerships with other key related multi-institutional, national conversations, including the “campus conversations” on the scholarship of teaching and learning of the Carnegie Foundation. CNDLS continues to build on this work in a number of ongoing projects, both at Georgetown and in collaboration with partners at other institutions.
The January 2009 issue of Academic Commons features a synthesis of findings and a set of case studies from the Visible Knowledge Project. Further information about Viet’s contribution on the project can be found on the VKP site.
