This module addresses ways of crafting digitally inflected activities for undergraduates and graduate students and for reconsidering pedagogical approaches to classroom teaching.
Outcomes:
- Increased understanding of digitally inflected pedagogy and different approaches to teaching and learning digital methods and skills.
- Ability to plan at least one digitally inflected activity to integrate into a course.
- Ability to draft ideas for digital undergraduate-level culminating projects appropriate for your field.
Readings
- McClurken, Jeffrey W. “Teaching and Learning with Omeka: Discomfort, Play, and Creating Public, Online, Digital Collections.” In Learning Through Digital Media: Essays on Technology and Pedagogy. Media Commons Press, 2011. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/artoflearning/teaching-and-learning-with-omeka/. ♦ Estimated Read Time = 25 minutes
- Nowviskie, Bethany, Jeremy Boggs, and J.K. Purdom Lindblad. “Praxis.” In Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities, Concepts, Models, and Experiments, edited by Rebecca Frost Davis, Matthew K. Gold, Katherine D Harris, and Jentery Sayers. MLA Commons. Accessed February 10, 2017. https://digitalpedagogy.mla.hcommons.org/keywords/praxis/. ♦ Estimated Read Time = 13 minutes
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Kee, Kevin, and Shawn Graham. “Teaching History in an Age of Pervasive Computing: The Case for Games in the High School and Undergraduate Classroom.” In Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology, edited by Kevin Kee. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dh/12544152.0001.001/1:7.2/–pastplay-teaching-and-learning-history-with-technology?g=dculture;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1. ♦ Estimated Read Time = 35 minutes
Questions to Consider
- McClurken challenges teachers to engage students in becoming literate in using, and learning to use, new digital tools or methods. What are the pedagogical reasons behind pushing students to feel “uncomfortable, but not paralyzed” when learning something new?
- Nowviskie et al. define a praxis-oriented pedagogy and offer examples. How could this approach to teaching fit in with your current or future courses?
- Assessing digital assignments can be challenging. Does the approach outlined by Kee and Graham for designing and assessing game-based assignments address your own anxieties about creating digital assignments and projects for your students?
Resources
For new articles about online teaching, teaching digitally inflected courses, and special topic issues, check the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) at https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.
Activities
Activity 1:
Review some of the examples of digitally inflected activities for undergraduates and graduate students in these resources:
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- Jeffrey McClurken’s Digital Pedagogy Workshop Sessions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b1S7JlB6WPPpAQ4X-DSycQp5aL9biAJL64ZwTd5lb54/edit
- Assignments in JITP, such as those in Anne E. Pfister and David Wilson’s (University of North Florida) anthropology survey course: https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/observations_through_photovoice/
- Dwayne Dixon’s final project for a first-year class in media and anthropology: “Imagining the Essay as Digital Assemblage: Collaborative Student Experiments with Writing in Scalar.” Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments 1, no. 1 (December 31, 2016). http://thepromptjournal.com/index.php/prompt/article/view/13/11
- Ethan Watrall’s Introduction to Archaeology course assignments, including blog posts and contributions to the Digital Encyclopedia of Archaeologists: http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp203h-ss16/
Activity 2:
Plan a specific digital activity to incorporate in a course you are or will be teaching in an upcoming semester. How might you craft a final project for undergraduates that goes beyond a traditional paper? Consider incorporating one of the tools you have already learned to use in previous lessons, such as:
- Ask students to set up their own blog early in the semester and to post reflections or assignments to the blog.
- Invite students to review a digital project or game.
- Ask students to contribute to an online research or crowdsourcing project.
Project Lens
Please review Associate Professor Shawn Graham’s Winter 2016 digital history course syllabus: “Digital History Methods as Public History Performance,” https://shawngraham.gitbooks.io/5702w-winter2016/content/index.html.
- Graham’s entire course syllabus is available online. If you wanted to create a site similar to Graham’s, how might you do so? (Hint: Read item 10, “Colophon: About the Course Website”). How else might you create an open course website?
- Review the final project assignment at https://shawngraham.gitbooks.io/5702w-winter2016/content/final-project.html. How might you craft a final project for undergraduates that goes beyond a traditional paper?