Meet the Project Director
The TutorCast project is being led by Dr. Rebecca LeDocq. Dr. LeDocq received her Ph.D. in 1991 from the University of Iowa. Since then, she has been a member of the Mathematics Department at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse where she is currently an Associate Professor. In addition to publishing papers on her research in Commutative Ring Theory, Dr. LeDocq is actively involved in faculty governance, and played an integral part in the creation of a writing-in-the-major program within the Mathematics Department. In recent years, she has been involved in research and projects focusing on the use of new technologies to enhance student learning, faculty development issues involving technology, and preservice teacher education. Her current interests include the development of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) of preservice teachers.
In the past couple of years, Dr. LeDocq has become very involved in research and projects relating to technology, teaching and student learning. Since the Fall of 2006 Dr. LeDocq has been involved in the PRAXIS Wisconsin Project as a faculty mentor. Recently, she has co-written two peer-reviewed proposals that have been accepted at upcoming conferences. One is for a workshop presentation on podcasting at the Collaboration for Advancement of College Teaching and Learning Spring 2008 Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota. Along with Dr. LeDocq and two other faculty members, three undergraduate students from UWL will be involved in the presentation of the workshop. The second is for a paper presentation at the SITE 2008—Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference in Las Vegas in March 2008. The latter paper will be published in Conference Proceedings, for which there was a 20% acceptance rate.
As director of the project, Dr. LeDocq is in charge of problem selection, organization of the tutor training, and specific review procedures for the podcasts. In addition, she works with the staff of the IIURL (Institute for Innovation in Undergraduate Research and Learning) to create tutorials on how to create TutorCasts and designs the webpages that students will access. An important aspect of this work will be creating and maintaining a way to facilitate communication between the Peer Tutors, tutors and faculty teaching the courses.