Peggy Cain

PhD., University of Wisconsin, Madison
Adult Education
Areas of Specialization: diversity, adult education, and foundations of education

Peggy is a constructivist teacher. "I discovered through the grant that there were technologies that supported a constructivist approach to teaching, and I began to use them?that's when I discovered technologies could support the way I teach."
When asked to describe her experiences with the PT3 Grant, Peggy said, "The most positive have been two kinds of experiences: one is sharing ideas with other faculty members that have worked with the grant. I want to experiment and share what I've done and get ideas for what else I might do. And the other piece is that my students get excited about it."
Because of the PT3 Grant, Peggy and her undergraduate and graduate students now use a variety of technologies. Peggy's students are shooting their own digital video and editing it for multimedia presentations. "In terms of student learning, they learn the technology skills because in my classes we're directly teaching those skills. Another thing is, they are having to think about what are the most effective ways to communicate information because they have a greater range of media to choose from now."

Peggy now uses the SmartBoard, WebCT for discussions, Inspiration for concept mapping, more videos, and has books on E Reserve at the library for her students.

As to how technology will continue to affect her and her students: "I think for me, it will continue to be a challenge in terms of improving and using tools to improve my teaching. For my students, I think it will help them in terms of jobs when they go out. And if they have access to the technology in their schools, I think it will help them be better teachers. I think it will help them improve their students' learning. The big question for me is "Will they have access? Will they have the best tools? I think that good teachers will continue to find the tools that they can use to increase student learning, that they'll continue to push to have access to those tools and will continue to use them."