Program Overview
The Student Instructional Technology Assistant program exists to support faculty, graduate students, and staff using instructional technology at the University of Iowa. Graduate and undergraduate SITAs are assigned to work as consultants either in Instructional Services or in designated cooperative units across campus. The SITA program draws on available resources from Instructional Services in their work supporting instructors. Through a proposal process, divisions, departments, or individual instructors may apply to receive assistance from the SITA Program.
For more information about the SITA program contact Kyle Gassiott (kyle-gassiott@uiowa.edu, 335-5627).
Ways that SITAs work with Instructors
- One-on-one appointments: In order to best serve instructor needs, the SITAs make individual appointments with instructors. This allows them to have personalized training and support that suits their unique projects and circumstances. These meetings can be held at the instructor's office or in our consulting studio.
- Group Training sessions: Through relationships with the SITA program, departments may set up group training sessions for instructors. These sessions include group ICON training or training in other web-design tools and software.
- Mix of instructional design advice and production work: The emphasis of the SITA program is training and pedagogical advice. However, SITAs can also undertake production work, such as scanning, document preparation and uploading, and other tasks. The primary goal is to get instructors over the initial “hump” involved in reaching their technological goals. This might include helping a faculty member set up a website that he or she will later maintain, converting VHS tape to DVD, or learning to use collaborative tools like Wikis.
- Introduce instructors to available resources: After the collaborative partnership ends, instructors and/or departments will no longer have regularly-scheduled, one-on-one appointments with SITAs. However, hardware, software, and further consultation remain available at Instructional Services
