Digital Pedagogy workshop at Santa Clara University, April 10, 2017
The Tool Parade can be accessed here: http://anitaconchita.org/dh-tools-across-disciplines/
1. Digital Humanities Tools
Across Disciplines
Anne Cong-Huyen
aconghuy@whittier.edu
April 8, 2017
“Cat on Mac,” by Wendy Seltzer via Flickr, CC-BY-2.0
3. The Digital Humanities
and/or
Digital Liberal Arts
Cats being instructed in the art of mouse-catching by an owl, Lombard School c. 1700. Public Domain image.
4. Digital Liberal Arts
• First, Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) is inclusive of the entire arts
and sciences spectrum, from the humanities and performing
arts to the social sciences and the natural sciences…
• Second, DLA is explicitly residential and dialogical…DLA is
from the outset concerned with the integration of technology
into the everyday life…
• Third, DLA is as concerned with pedagogy as it is with
research, pursuing models of research and service based
teaching that characterize small liberal arts colleges today.
Rafael Alvarado, “Start Calling it the Digital Liberal Arts”
“How to beat his iPad game – sit on it” by Kelly Reaves via Flickr, CC-BY-ND-2.0.
7. “…the closer we can bring our students to the real
sources of knowledge — the ancient texts, the
archaeological remains, the papyri and parchment —
and the real reward of scholarship — the joy of
producing a piece of work that one knows will be
discovered and read with interest and pleasure by
people we may never meet — the closer we can
bring students to the experience of being true
scholars, working beside other scholars, the more
enthusiasm we find.”
Christopher Blackwell and Thomas Martin,
“Technology, Collaboration, and Undergraduate
Research.”
“kitten” by Flickr user unbunt, CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0
8. Design Thinking in Pedagogy
Risk Fail Learn Innovate
Adapted from Jennifer Sparrow
10. Getting Started
1. Start with an existing course
2. Let your teaching practices determine the tools
3. Teach a few (digital) things well
4. Scaffold everything
5. Integrate
Adapted from Ashley Sanders
11. TOOL PARADE!
Tools to Test in Your Classes
http://anitaconchita.org/dh-tools-across-disciplines/
Cats Suggested as the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public Domain image
12. Developing Your Assignment
or Project
1. Learning objectives: what will students learn?
2. Feasibility: How much can you ask students to complete?
3. Main elements of the assignment: how will they learn it?
4. How will the assignment will be assessed: how will you know what
the students have learned?
5. Where will the assignment fit into the syllabus and your broader
course goals?
6. What tools, skills and resources do students (and you) need to
complete the assignment?
7. What kind of support will be provided, by the instructor and by
others (e.g. librarians, instructional technologists, and community
members)?
8. What challenges do you foresee in making the assignment? how
you might address them?
Adapted from Lisa Spiro’s “Case Studies of Digital Humanities Pedagogy” (2013)
Digital Humanities (rooted in Computational Humanities) field of humanistic practice that uses digital tools and methods to answer humanities questions. In more recent years we also see the use of humanities methods and modes of inquiry to interpret computational data. In the past decade or so, Digital Humanities has developed into a formidable field, and has managed to be one of the few humanities fields in which investment has grown: increased hires, institutionalization, and grant funding.
Digital Liberal Arts, grew out of Digital Humanities, but has positioned itself as a broader, more inclusive curricular innovation that centers digital practice as a method for helping students to develop within a liberal educational model that prepares them to deal with “complexity, diversity, and change” (AACU, LEAP-Liberal Education & America’s Promise).
AACU Identifies these as “teaching and learning practices” that help “increase rates of retention and student engagement”
First-year Seminars and Experiences
Common intellectual experiences
learning communities
writing intensive courses
etc.
Of particular interest:
Collaborative Assignments and Projects
Undergraduate Research
Service Learning
Capstone Courses and Projects
The challenge:
Balancing the imperatives behind the high-impact education, and integration of digital tools and practices so that in the end they both work together to best serve student learning and development
What I want to suggest here today, is that when working to develop digital assignments, research projects, that we’re considering the following:
Promoting undergraduate research
Help students develop digital literacies
Promote play, collaboration and problem solving (all skills that we want students to be able to take with them into future work places)
Foster digital citizenship
It’s not just a matter of adding tools to our classes. It’s easy to add tools poorly.
Additional 21st Century Literacies, what been called “Digital well-being” (Cathy Davidson and Howard Rheingold)
Attention
Dealing with info glut
Identifying fake news
Collaboration
Narrative, storytelling
Critical consumption of information
Learning, unlearning, and relearning
Controlling digital data
We all know that teaching is hard. It is iterative, and it is more so when you attempt to take on digital pedagogy.
Just know that you are taking a risk with each innovation, however small, and with risk comes the possibility of failure (but also success!), but either way, you will learn, adapt, and try again.
Assessment! We hate this term! But check in with your students! They can offer valuable feedback about what works, what needs more time, more development, etc. Involve them in the teaching and learning process. (notes)
Start small!
Depending on how you teach, it may not may sense to use certain tools. If you already ask your students to annotate readings, then digital, collaboration tools like Hypothesis may be a good fit!
Balance the skills needed with course content. Sometimes a large project may require too much of you and your students, so it’s ok to use one tool/skill well over the course of a quarter. Ideally, this would be an opportunity for students to apply disciplinary knowledge, the tool should extend the learning of the content, and help build transferrable skills that they can build on later.
5. Integrate skills and concepts into your larger course structures, department, curriculum
