Instructor Voices

Written by: CITL’s Shenika Glover and Robert Baird 

Media Producer: Bob Dignan, CITL

View the full mini documentary: Merging Textiles and Technology 

Professor Chiara Vincenzi, a CITL Fellow and Clinical Assistant Professor at the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, partnered with the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) to incorporate technology such as Adobe Creative Suite, Open Brush, CLO3D, 3D Printing, and Virtual Reality to rethink the art of fashion design. In her courses, students are encouraged to learn fashion fundamentals then gradually integrate digital software to bring creations to new levels. Read the full story here: Merging Textiles and Technology

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Modern dancer Loïe Fuller became famous in early 20th century Paris for her “Serpentine Dance,” which she performed while enveloped in a long, flowing skirt that she twirled around herself.

Fuller’s dance comes to life again through an avatar in a virtual reality game called “Master Dancer,” developed by John Toenjes, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dance professor, composer and the music director for the dance department. The game teaches basic dance movements as well as the history of Fuller’s influence in dance. 

Read the full story: Virtual Reality Dance Game 

I’m experiencing this wilderness while sitting in a studio at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I’m surrounded by students wearing virtual reality goggles, all of whom are part of political science professor Robert Pahre’s Environmental Politics and Policy class.

Pahre also teaches Politics of the National Parks, and he is currently developing a course on Environmental Politics of the Midwest. He uses VR videos to allow his students to see wilderness sites. Read the full article here.

By John Turner

Earlier this semester, 30 students from Gies College of Business traveled to the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, where they watched kids playing soccer, observed a traditional Syrian meal, and listened to a young girl share her experience of life in the camp. Or … at least, it felt like they did.

In reality, the students were sitting at the Innovation Studio at the University of Illinois’ Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, taking part in a virtual reality experience designed to help them develop a better sense of empathy. Those students – mostly upperclassmen in accounting, finance, business, and other related studies – will soon be entering a business world where artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly larger role. So why do they need to cultivate empathy? According to Vidya Haran, teaching associate professor of business administration at Gies Business, the answer is simple: empathy is everything. Read the full article here.

By Sharita Forrest

In an innovative food science course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, students wandered through street markets in Veracruz, Mexico, and Taipei, Taiwan; and toured a coffee plantation and artisanal chocolate factory in a mountain village — all without leaving the Illinois campus.

By leveraging 360-degree video and virtual reality technologies along with collaborative projects by peers at partnering universities, the course immerses students in intercultural learning similar to what they might experience through study abroad. Using an approach known as collaborative online international learning, or COIL, the course creates global classrooms that allow faculty members to share teaching responsibilities, while their students work together — synchronously and asynchronously —  on learning projects. Read the full article here. 

Written by: CITL'S Killivalavan (Killi) Solai and Alexander (Alex) Dill

Photos by: CITL's Alexander (Alex) Dill, Andrew Phanor, and Jacob Beinborn

Remarkable innovations often begin with a simple conversation, not a grand plan. At the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, such a conversation started the XR Liver Surgery project that can redefine how surgeons learn one of medicine's most precise procedures. Read the full article here.