He assisted in substantially developing the mobile learning program, has dramatically increased participation in faculty training programs, and worked to foster a digital publishing culture on the Lynn campus that has led to a book-free campus store. He’s also helped ensure that the university’s degree programs, in their entirety, are powered by iPads. An award-winning faculty member, Petroski knows firsthand the benefits and the challenges of teaching and learning via technology. He has been a champion of Apple technology on the Lynn campus, in addition to speaking on the best practices of teaching with Apple technology at other institutions. A spokesperson for educational innovation and best pedagogical practices for integrating technology, Petroski is focused on improving the experience for both his colleagues and the Lynn University student body.
Tasked with “making sure there was a solid academic reason” for the ways they used the technological tools at Lynn, Petroski quickly realized his effectiveness would be multiplied if he worked with faculty members and not just students—in that way, he could reach the entire student body. He just had to help his colleagues with a “little shift in attitude,” so they would recognize that giving students more control in the classroom would pay off in increased engagement and more effective learning.
Reimagining Higher Education
In fall 2013, Lynn University launched its iPad-powered learning program, a brainchild of President Kevin M. Ross and CIO Christian Boniforti. The initiative focused on iPad minis and Apple technology to deliver the university’s Dialogues curriculum in innovative ways. In the initial phase, Lynn issued over seven hundred iPad minis to undergraduate first-year students and transfer students.
With the help of their colleague Mike Petroski, Lynn faculty embraced the Apple ecosystem, using it to revitalize their teaching and create their own interactive textbooks, which students could download for free. With the new, media-rich environment, the student learning experience was also vastly improved. In fact, early feedback from both faculty and the students was so positive that it encouraged Lynn to commit to expanding the program to include all undergraduate day students, as well as Ed.D and MBA students. In 2014, they also converted all courses from the Blackboard management system to iTunes U, with the goal that by 2015, all Lynn students would be using an iPad and iTunes U.
In just two short years, Lynn effectively reimagined the university experience for a generation of students. Meanwhile, employees across the Lynn campus fully invested in the changes and worked to offer their own contributions. It was important to Lynn that they all share a unified vision for the ways this technology could transform education, and Petroski was crucial for bridging that gap. The success of the program was due in large part to full faculty buy-in for this project, as well as thoughtful leadership.
Faculty, staff, and administration attended training sessions and worked with Apple; many spent their nights, weekends, and vacations developing the Multi-Touch books and revising lesson plans. Petroski is the first to say that this was a community effort with every team member giving his or her all to make this vision come alive. In just a few years, President Ross and his team have redefined the modern university. In recognition of evolving college students, they launched a three-year bachelor’s degree program as well as a “3+1” degree plan, which combines a bachelor’s and master’s in a four-year program. They have improved their classroom facilities and accommodations to support their academic goals as well.
Lynn has an extensive, tablet-based learning initiative, which uses Apple technology to deliver their “Dialogues” core curriculum, as well as faculty-produced e-books. In taking these steps, the Lynn faculty and leadership have used the iPad initiative to enhance student performance by utilizing technology to engage dialogical learning, a primary tenet of Lynn’s curriculum. Because of the faculty’s dedication to these initiatives, and due in large part to Ross’s leadership and Petroski’s devotion to the project, Lynn was designated an Apple Distinguished School, a honor reserved for institutions that have fully embraced technology as a means to improve student success.
The iLynn Program
In the fall of 2015, Lynn introduced the iLynn Program, which enables students to work toward degrees at their own pace via an iPad-powered curriculum and freedom to complete the courses on campus, online, or a combination of the two. In radically reducing the cost of online tuition, Lynn opened doors for non-traditional students who may not have considered a private education experience based on cost. Yet, Ross is quick to point out that cost savings were only a fraction of the equation. He’s more focused on the faculty adoption of the technology and the engagement offered by the rich mobile content as well as the mobile nature of the program.
News of the success of the Lynn program has spread so rapidly, in fact, that they needed a way to efficiently respond to an influx of national and international inquiries. To respond to those requests, they developed the iPad Institute, a place for administrators or faculty to visit and learn firsthand how they can transform their teaching and learning in similar ways. Speakers include CIO Boniforti, who covers the Information Technology infrastructure, from deployment to support; Gregg Cox, the Vice President for Academic Affairs who covers faculty engagement; and—of course—Petroski who discusses faculty training, as the Director of Faculty Development. Attendees even have an opportunity to observe the technology in use by visiting Lynn classrooms and meeting with individual faculty members, who share ways they use the technology within their own disciplines. Petrsoki has also trained faculty members of colleges in Ireland and Japan.
Tools for Professional Development
With Petroski’s leadership, Lynn radically expanded their professional development opportunities to fully support faculty while they transitioned to this new normal. Lynn conducted hundreds of new training sessions as the changes were unfolding. Fall 2015 marked the third year of iPad training for faculty members at the start of the academic year, a weeklong session that left faculty members adept at using the iPad mini and Apple technology for their teaching. In the coming year, that same training will be available to all adjunct instructors as well, either on campus or via an iTunes U course designed for them.
Dr. Sanne Unger, Assistant Professor for Dialogues of Learning in the College of Arts and Sciences, notes that Petroski has been working behind the scenes for years to “make everything happen for faculty who are in the trenches.” She credits Petroski for the low levels of anxiety among faculty when faced with new technologies, as he has always been focused on making sure the technology is useful for the ways the faculty wants to teach.
Unger further notes that Petroski’s faculty development classes are focused on the pedagogical benefits. As such, they are not focused on making the technology just fit their old methods of teaching; while the tools and apps can help in “old school” kinds of ways, faculty are most invested in what the technology allows that they couldn’t do before. They want to see how iPads will “enhance their teaching,” and they stay closely aligned with the people in Educational Design to ensure these tools don’t just become “glorified notepads” for the students.
For instance, in her recent J-term class on language and culture, she found webcams across the globe and had students immerse themselves in that language and culture with the immediacy of the technology. They were able to study various cultures in a way that only technology could allow. Students can also connect videos to readings in a powerful way, and—just as importantly—she knows the practical issues of technology integration won’t be an issue that compromises their time in class because every student has the same tools with which she is familiar.
Joe Ingles, an Assistant Professor in the College of Business and Management, notes that Petroski’s sessions are so effective because he’s “not afraid to tell people when they are messing up,” but that he is also the one who will stay to help until the problem is resolved. Considering Petroski his mentor, Ingles said he tries to emulate the way Petroski presents himself in these training sessions.
Ingles shares that Petroski is quick to explain that the technology is not a replacement for educators. Like a carpenter would determine the best tool for any given project, educators make conscious and thoughtful designs about the best way to use the tools at their disposal in order to work toward the higher-order critical thinking skills they need. “If you’re not there guiding them, they don’t get anything,” he adds. “They still need a living, breathing professor.” The primary benefit, as he sees it, is a classroom of more engaged students. It has not only changed the way he approaches his teaching, but it has “changed the way they interact with me as well.”
As an educator, Petroski particularly enjoys the immediacy of the results when polling students about what has been learned at the end of a day in class. Rather than waiting until a test or—worse still—until after a student has finished a course and missed key material, he can use technology to determine immediately what wasn’t effectively covered. He explains that technology is “more willing to shift based on what students need.”
Moving from Minis to Pros
At Lynn, the iPad minis marked students’ first experience with the program. Each mini came pre-loaded with a suite of apps focused on engagement, organization, and productivity—from note taking, to faculty-produced texts, to reminders. Students quickly embraced the mini as a learning tool, with nearly one-hundred percent saying they believed the mini would help with their learning, and about three-quarters saying they believed the Multi-Touch books to be more effective than traditional books. All of the core 100 and 200 level Dialogues courses used faculty-written Multi-Touch books, and every major developed several Multi-Touch books as well.
As the technology was fully integrated, professors were not only redesigning their courses; many redesigned the way they teach, using the iPad mini initiative to revamp their approaches to the core curriculum. Because both the iPad mini and the Dialogues core curriculum are designed to prompt in-depth discussions as well as collaboration in learning, educators have an opportunity to let one inform the other. Faculty discovered that the iPad mini has been a valuable tool in improving student writing, as they have used the apps to help students learn to outline, a task that has proven challenging in the past.
The iPad mini has also proven helpful for helping students comprehend the readings. Though the readings did not change, the approach is now different—it’s more experiential, with students experiencing the readings through a variety of ways, which offers multiple methods for understanding and comprehending the material. Petroski notes that just recently they have started upgrading all students from the iPad minis to iPad Pros, which is more like a miniature laptop, with all of the features of a laptop (including a keyboard) and Office365.
Now, when they are in the process of making the move from the iPad minis to iPad pros, instead of worrying about how new technology will affect their classrooms, Unger notes that her fellow faculty members are just eager to get their hands on the new tools. Student Chase Cohen, a second-semester freshmen, adds that students are every bit as excited as their professors for the updating to iPad Pros. Though Cohen acknowledges that there can always be a degree of trepidation when encountering any new technological tool, as it connects to academic success, he immediately took to the new product, playing with the added features, particularly the split-view which allows for viewing the digital textbook and notetaking simultaneously. Adding that he believes his excitement is shared by other students, he notes, “I’m not one to be afraid— I’m one to embrace.” He is certain that even those who may be intimidated by the new tool will “soon be converts.”
APrivate University Experience at a State University Price
Last fall, Lynn President Kevin M. Ross announced that Lynn had reduced the cost of LU tuition by a full twenty percent, because of Lynn’s investment in using iPads to improve student engagement and reduce textbook costs by a staggering degree—up to ninety-five percent in some cases. The goal was to create a private university experience at a state university price. They have also launched Lynn University Digital Press, a digital publisher designed for iTunes U-enabled academic curricula (as well as the iPads used by all Lynn students).
With this development, faculty members can create the texts they use in their classrooms—thereby increasing student and faculty engagement with content—while also dramatically reducing textbook costs for all students. Along with these practical and pedagogical benefits, Lynn has enhanced its sustainability efforts by supplanting common printing, inventory, and shipping practices with digital content that can be immediately accessed.
