As professor Fellow for Technology, Eric Bauer uses head-to-head interviews to surface real education needs and helps to meet the gap between the academic experience and the technological strategy of the campus.
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Understanding how technology supports teaching begins with understanding people who use it.
This was the subject of Eric Bauer’s first year as Fellow Fellow for Technology: listening to teachers, amplifying their perspectives and helping to align IT services with academic needs.
Deputy Professor of Biology, Bauer entered the teaching three -year scholarship in August 2024. He served as a connection between teachers and the information technology office (IT), offering an overview of how technology can improve the teaching, learning and success of students.
“The teachers and this bring different forces to the table, but we work towards the same objective: to support the students,” said Bauer. “This role helped me see overlapping and find new ways to collaborate more intentionally.”
Since his appointment, Bauer has led more than two dozen individual interviews with teachers from Elon College, at the College of Arts and Sciences. Its objective: to understand how the instructors use technology, where challenges emerge and how it can better support their work. He now extends these conversations to include communication schools, the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education and the School of Health Sciences, creating a wider image of educational technology through campus.
“The objective is not to offer immediate answers,” said Bauer. “It is a question of surfaced the perspectives which can help to better understand where the technology meets the needs of teachers and where there is room to develop.”
An emphasis on student learning and emerging technology
While teachers’ conversations remain at the heart of Bauer’s work, he also explores how emerging tools – in particular AI – can extend academic support to students.
It is in the early stages of collaboration with learning assistance, investigating how technologies like generating AI could help students develop fundamental skills such as time management, study strategies and information control.
“I saw how hard the students find it in basic academic habits, especially during their first year,” said Bauer. “If we can use tools like AI to help them strengthen these habits from the start, it could have a real impact on their academic experience.”
Bauer is also in conversation with teaching and learning technologies (TLT) and other IT teams on the evolution of the role of AI in platforms like Moodle 4.5. Although teaching and learning technologies have chosen not to allow moodle moodle generating features at the moment, Bauer is seeing the value of the way TLT adopts a thoughtful approach to ensure alignment with Elon’s principles.
His exploration of the generating AI aligns with this intentional approach, because he seeks to better understand which tools support learning and where the advice can help teachers consciously integrate them.
As with all its work, the emphasis is not placed on the pursuit of new tools, but on the identification of technologies solves the real problems and align with the values of Elon and the teaching objectives.
A connector between teachers and
Bauer’s experience as a Educator and researcher informs his approach to the stock market, as is its prior use of educational technologies such as 3D printing, Microsoft 365 and adaptive test platforms.
Thanks to his role, he has acquired a deeper appreciation for the scope of his work and what is happening in maintaining the digital infrastructure on which teachers count every day.
The scale and complexity of computer science have been revealing. Most teachers only interact with tools such as Moodle or Microsoft teams, but there is an entire infrastructure that takes place behind the scenes. Learning more about this has deepened my appreciation of the role he plays in our work.
Eric Bauer, assistant biology professor and teacher researcher for technology
“Eric brings a prospect of earth,” said Kelly Reimer, principal director of teaching and learning technologies. “He poses the types of questions that connect tools to real educational challenges. This is what we are looking for: someone who could help reject the strategy with daily practice. ”
This bridge works in both directions. Bauer helps IT teams understand the workflows and the needs of teachers while helping teachers better understand how IT systems are built, maintained and deployed on the campus.
Ahead
Bauer joins a line of preceding teachers for technology, notably Kyle Altman, associate professor of physics, who helped lead Elon’s transition to hybrid education during the COVVI-19 pandemic. Other former scholarship holders include:
- Todd Lee, professor of mathematics;
- Antonio Izzo, associate professor of biology
- Randy Piland, lecturer in communication design.
In the future, Bauer will continue to raise awareness in university schools, will contribute to professional development programming and will support conversations concerning responsible use of students focused on students.
“There is a real feeling of collaboration between computer teams,” said Bauer. “They were incredibly welcoming and open to conversation. I am delighted to continue to learn and continue to establish links that help us all do our job more effectively. ”
Functional members who wish to connect with Bauer on class technology, digital tools or educational support are encouraged to contact him. It welcomes conversations with colleagues from all disciplines and perspectives.