Jenzabar is One of the "Great Things" at Bluffton College

Committed to both academic excellence and technology learning solutions, Bluffton College is precisely the sort of place where you'd expect to find Jenzabar.

Originally known as Central Mennonite College, Bluffton was founded in 1899. Noah C. Hirschy, the first president, issued a call to action that has resonated throughout the past century in northwest Ohio. "Let us expect great things!" Today, Bluffton is ranked in the top tier of Midwestern liberal arts colleges by U. S. News and World Report.

Bluffton students (just over 1,000) benefit from the school's intimate community atmosphere and values. Students enroll at Bluffton to pursue a wide range of interests, a total of 38 different majors. Hans Houshower, Bluffton's Director of Technology, notes that, "Bluffton is committed to a 'people-first' approach to integrating technology, in that we are always working to implement strategies and tools that support our distinctive liberal arts mission and values."

Given Bluffton's enthusiastic commitment to making technology an important part of the liberal arts experience, and the fact that Yahoo! ranked Bluffton among the nation's top 60 "most wired" colleges, it's no surprise that the college turned to Jenzabar to support its core academic programs and a novel team-based learning program. In the fall of 2000, the college acquired Jenzabar's uniquely integrated portal, course management and administrative software. Indeed, Jenzabar, according to Bluffton faculty, is one of the "great things" happening there today, and an everyday practice in Bluffton's special Learning Circles Program, a team-based learning experience that integrates technology skills across the curriculum.

Team-based learning works this way. Faculty and students divide into teams of five (one faculty member and four students), who then use everything Jenzabar has to offer to develop their own learning programs. The college provides team members with a portable computer which makes it possible for them to connect anywhere on campus. The small campus has more than 16500 network connections, in classrooms, residence halls, and common areas.

Team members use discussion forums regularly. The Learning Circles forum is the recognized place to post questions and respond, and forum participation is a class requirement.
"With this collaborative teaching-learning approach, all team members must register their thoughts on-line," says Dr. Peter Terry, Bluffton's Director of Instructional Technology. "Many bright, articulate people need time to think things over before participating. With the Jenzabar forum, they have time to come up with intelligent contributions that influence the entire class." In addition, Terry uses these student postings to develop additional topics for online and classroom discussion. "This is my first experience with grade book software or a portal, and I'm finding Jenzabar easy to use," says Dr. Cheryl Fortman, associate professor of Education, who has used Jenzabar for two classes at Bluffton.

Dr. Fortman uses Jenzabar in an unusual way for an introductory education course for first-year students. An auxiliary registration program has been set up so that students with various education majors and students who wish to form sub-groups, can be registered easily without interrupting the normal registration process. Those students can then receive all information pertaining to their interests and needs. The information can be conveniently deleted when the project is completed.

Though Dr. Fortman feels the process of posting assignments could be easier, she has praise for many of the advantages Jenzabar offers. "Announcements can be made easily, both college-wide and for individual classes," she says. "It's easy to e-mail students all at one time and for individual classes. And it's very easy for students to post their own pictures in the class rosters."

Many of her students, in turn, have acknowledged the ease with which they are able to find good web sites through the Jenzabar web links.

Dr. Lucia Unrau, a professor of music at Bluffton, says, "I like Jenzabar because it makes students think about things in new ways. One of the earlier concerns we'd had when we were considering using this sort of portal was that there wouldn't be enough people-to-people talking, but we've found there's actually more now, and in much greater depth." Since she can post assignments and tests anytime, Jenzabar also leaves her with more class time for discussion.

Peter Terry also notes that Jenzabar is a significant asset in helping Bluffton achieve its goal of engaging a new generation of students more effectively in the learning process. "We love to use Jenzabar with first-year students, because it's what they always dreamed college would be like - immediate access to information through media, web, audio, streaming right into the classroom."

Before we purchased Jenzabar, we tested another online system," says Dr. Terry. "It was sluggish and online discussions were not intuitive. We piloted courses using some other course management systems, but they didn't offer everything we were looking for. Jenzabar has met our needs in all major respects. It's difficult to get everyone to agree on one product, but I believe that our faculty members are realizing the value of one-click student access to standardized course resources that are integrated with our student information system. Jenzabar offers exceptional power for an affordable investment in both technical training and financial resources."

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