Teaching with digital Media (Graduate level)

Course Description

How has technology changed student writing, writing practices, and ways of learning, and how does this (or how should this) influence the way we teach? This is a course in writing theory and pedagogy developed specifically for graduate instructors. In this course, you will examine ways in which technology and new media can be integrated effectively in educational settings for the enhancement of teaching and learning. Over the semester, instructors will develop general course plans and assignments in the context of larger discussions about rhetorical principles and pedagogical practices. We will learn how to integrate technology with and without networked classrooms, and in ways that can be accessible for a range of learning styles. We will also learn about designing online courses and discuss the many possible futures of teaching as a profession. 

Objectives

You will learn about and discuss:

  • Digital tools and techniques that can be integrated into your classroom practice.

  • How to approach your classroom with the understanding that not all students will have experienced the same kind of access (and how to compassionately and practically address

  • Current scholarship and literature on digital composition pedagogies.

  • Practical ways to keep up with trends in industry and education.

Goals

You will practice techniques for:

  • Leading effective in-class workshops.

  • Teaching for accessibility.

  • Building a syllabus and portfolio that effectively integrates technology into learning objectives.

Major Assignments

Unit I: Media

We will begin by exploring some digital tools that can be used to build assignments.  

Building a shared teaching resource: Throughout the semester, everyone will be responsible for compiling a list of tools, articles, assignments, and inspirations in a shared class resource. Think of this like a class journal, which you should add an entry or two every week with a brief overview of what you’ve found. This will be an ongoing research project, the point of which is to see what’s out there and what other people are doing.

 Short Assignment 1 : Tool Demo

Find a digital tool that could be used in a class, demo that tool, and explain or speculate as to how it might be useful. The DiRT Directory is a good place to start (dirtdirectory.org). You should have enough material to fill about 10 minutes.

 

Unit II: Assignment Building

What makes a good digital assignment? Effective online assignments and activities typically take advantage of the web as a learning environment, are transparent in their motives and articulate a clear rationale, connect multiple parts of the course, and so on.

Short Assignment 2: Reverse-engineer a project/assignment for an online course.

Find a digital text (broadly construed) and reverse-engineer an assignment to fit that text. For instance, you might look to a webtext in Kairos and think about how you would assign something similar. What tools would you need to use or teach? What would the general parameters or outcomes be? This should be an assignment that would fit into an online course (how would the assignment and description be different for online learning environments?).

Unit III Assessment

When we teach with technology, assessment can be an entirely new skillset to develop. Traditional papers are easier to assign parameters or “evaluate” than non-traditional ones, and even then, traditional evaluation has long been shown to further marginalize underrepresented students. We will think about what it means to “assess” digital work, and what that could look like in a way that will prepare students for professions where they will undoubtedly use digital media of some kind. At the same time, teaching digital media in a liberal arts classroom can provide students much more room to experiment.

Short Assignment 3: Build a rubric and a contract for an assignment with some kind of multimodal component (podcast, video, infographic, etc). If you want, you can build off Assignment 2. How would you approach assessment of digital work in a way that promotes student learning and growth?

Short Assignment 4: In this unit you will also write a teaching (with technology) statement. This statement should be a 1 page statement you can include with your materials when you apply to jobs, or it might be something your website. It should address how you approach diversity and inclusion, which always includes accessibility.

 

Final Writing Project

Build a Course | For the final project, you will create the materials needed for an undergraduate writing course (or another course in your discipline). The goal of the project is to design a class that integrates technology to enhance both teaching and learning. You might teach this class, or can include the overview in a future teaching portfolio. This can be an in-person or online course.

This assignment will be evaluated on general construction and attention to detail, integration of technology in effective and inventive ways, the way assignments build on one another to create

You will create a syllabus that includes:

  1. An overview for the course that gives it context.

  2. Learning objectives, and course goals.

  3. Project descriptions and rubrics for all major assignments. These must be fully developed and explicated.

    • Each assignment must also include an explanation of the ways the projects will be assessed.

  4. A week by week schedule that provides information on the arrangement and pacing of projects, activities, smaller assignments, and so on. You can organize this as a calendar, as a set of modules with details about activities in each session, and so on.

  5. A two-page reflection on decisions you made for this course you’ve designed and why.

 
 
 

Readings

Benjamin, Ruha. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code.

 Halpern, Orit. Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason Since 1945. Duke University Press, 2015.

 Williams, Sarah. Data Action: How to Use Data for Public Good

 Inoue, Asao. Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future. WAC Clearinghouse, 2015.

Excerpts and articles:

Haas, Angela. Race, Rhetoric, and Technology : A Case Study of Decolonial Technical Communication Theory, Methodology, and Pedagogy. JBTC 26: 277, 2012. 

Lutkewitte, Claire. Multimodal Composition: A Critical Sourcebook. Bedford St.Martin’s. 2013.

Mehlenbacher, Brad.  Instruction and Technology. MIT Press. 2010.

Tate, Gary (ed.)et al. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Oxford. 2013.

Wysocki, Anne, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Utah State. 2004.

As part of the class, we will build a shared teaching resource in Google Drive that everyone will add resources to. I encourage you to browse recent issues of the following journals: CCC, Kairos, Computers and Composition, Enculturation, TESOL, and so on.