UW-Madison School of Nursing CAS E STUDY Challenge Eliminate traditional lecture halls and move to active learning classrooms in one of the nation’s leading nursing schools. Solution Harness Crestron collaborative technology to control and automate sophisticated new learning environments. Total Transition University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing eliminates lecture halls Having taught for most of my career, I can tell you Technology is transforming higher education, but perhaps nowhere is that change more evident or exciting than at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing. this is a totally different level of engagement... Students get far more involved with faculty and with each other. They’re learning collaboration, teamwork and the ability to Over the last five years, a team headed by Dean Katharyn A. May has been working to set up “a quick and massive transition” to active learning methods for all of the School of Nursing classroom instruction. It’s a promise they made good on last August with the opening of Signe Skott Cooper Hall, the School’s new home. “It’s wonderful and a little bit scary,” says Jerzy "George" Jura, Director of Academic Technology. “We don’t really have traditional lecture halls anymore. Every classroom designed for more than twenty people includes the best available tools for team-based, interactive, problem-based learning, rather than the more traditional lecture-centered approach.” solve problems they have not seen before.” — George Jura UW-Madison School of Nursing Behind this large and very successful transition is Crestron collaborative technology, including Crestron control, DigitalMedia

Active learning and nursing In recent years the leading nursing schools have taught in three interrelated settings: classrooms, simulation labs, and clinical settings. Students have thus benefited from traditional instruction, hands-on practice with patient manikins and guided work with real patients in clinics and hospitals. The UW Madison program continues this successful model with partnerships with local hospitals and a large, advanced simulation lab with hospital and home-health settings, and an advanced, digital mediabased video recording system that allows students and instructors to review...

A tiered seminar room Students are required to bring laptops to class, which they may use to access background material from the instructor, do online research, or simply take notes or create a presentation from their discussions. Most often the instructors will ask students to share their ideas with the class, and each type of classroom includes technology to help them do so. Each classroom includes a Crestron graphics engine and large touch screen that instructors can use to mark up computer and video images to better make a point. in groups with those at the tables behind them. When the do...

One of the 153-seat ALCs and its control screen Crestron DMPS-300-C presentation system – which acts as the table’s local switcher, control, and audio system – to switch that laptop to the Sharp display. There’s no need for any kind of control panel for the student groups. They press one button if they want to talk and another if they want to show their computer screen to the group. From a 24” Crestron touch screen, instructors can choose whether their own or student visuals go to the projection screens and the student screens, and they can annotate over those images. A DM 32X32 switcher allows...

Mid-sized ALC with laptop inputs and 'show-me' buttons of each class. You are walking around the whole time, paying close attention to your students. It’s physically and mentally demanding.” It’s especially tough at UW Madison, he adds, because most of the faculty are practicing nurses. “They can’t just walk in and start teaching. There’s a great deal of effort needed to be successful.” For that reason, the School of Nursing provides four full time academic technology specialists –Jura’s group– to help faculty best use the new technology and prepare activities. This group is in addition to the...