Developing Communities of Practice through Digital Pedagogy

Transcript

2. Presenters • Lisa Rhody, Deputy Director, Digital Initiatives, CUNY Graduate Center • Filipa Calado, GC Digital Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center • Yuxiao Luo, GC Digital Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center • Connor French, GC Digital Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center • Param Ajmera, GC Digital Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center • Dimitris C. Papadopoulos, NEH CARES Digital Humanities Instructional Technologist, Division of Humanities and the Arts, The City College of New York • Yolande Brener, Adjunct Assistant Professor, English, The City College of New York • Debra Williams, Adjunct Lecturer, English, The City College of New York • Janelle Poe, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Black Studies, The City College of New York
3. Developing Communities of Practice through Digital Pedagogy Presenter names: Lisa Rhody, Deputy Director, Digital Initiatives Filipa Calado, GC Digital Fellow Yuxiao Luo, GC Digital Fellow Connor French, GC Digital Fellow Param Ajmera, GC Digital Fellow GC Digital Initiatives cuny.is/gcdi | @cunygcdi gcdi@gc.cuny.edu GC Digital Fellows digitalfellows.commons.gc.cuny.edu @Digital_Fellows
4. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI What is GC Digital Initiatives? The Graduate Center Digital Initiatives (GCDI) builds and sustains an active community around the shared idea of a “Digital GC,” where scholars and technologists explore new modes of inquiry that integrate digital tools and methods into the research, teaching, and service missions of the institution. Emerging digital technologies offer opportunities for expanding scholarly practice and public engagement, and GCDI represents a diverse constellation of people, projects, labs, and collaborations pushing the boundaries of existing scholarly practice through the skeptical, reflective, and innovative incorporation of digital technologies.
5. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Digital Humanities Research Institute 2020-2021 Digital Fellow: Filipa Calado
6. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Teaching participants the basic skills in the Command Line, Git/Github, Databases, Ethics, Python, and more, to empower them to develop their own digital projects
7. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Next Steps: • Creating a Virtual Institute, with 30 participants from 15 institutions. • Open-access, online courses to be tested in DRI Workshop Series, 2021. So far… • Entirely redesigned curriculum to harness affordances of online learning. • Piloting the revised curriculum at our institution’s Digital Research Institute, Winter 2021
8. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI How do we teach digital skills to a beginner audience online, while staying true to our practice of face-to-face, communal learning?
9. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI D4PG (Data for Public Good) D4PG 2020 Fellow / Digital Fellow: Yuxiao Luo
10. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI About Us and What We Do • Spring 2020 Cohort: an interdisciplinary group of MA and PhD students at the CUNY graduate center. • What we do in D4PG: use data for public benefits by applying tools and techniques that are generally used in business applications. • Why we do D4PG ◦ Public interest ◦ Data potential ◦ Experience cumulation ◦ Team collaboration ◦ Capability improvement
11. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Report on COVID-19’s Impact on CUNY Students • Data sources ◦ Student Experience Survey (CUNY Institutional Research) ◦ Audited Financial Statements (CUNY Financial) ◦ NYS Unemployment Data (NYS Department of Labor) ◦ Education Data Explorer (Urban Institute) ◦ ... • Multi-dimensional analysis of COVID-19’s impact • Phenomenon identification and preliminary predictions ◦ Ex., COVID-19 → unemployment rate → student enrollment/one-year retention.
12. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI D4PG 2021: Covid Tracking Project • Partnership: partner with a volunteer organization launched by The Atlantic : Racial Digital Tracker. • What to expect ◦ Continue working on Covid-19 data (with a focus on race and ethnicity) ◦ Skills: ▪ Data entry ▪ Data infrastructure knowledge ▪ Web development • Application Form for D4PG 2021.
13. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Working groups 2020 Digital Fellow: Connor French PUG GIS DVG Sound R User Group Python User Group GIS Working Group Data Visualization Group Digital Archives Research Collective Sound Studies and Methods Working Group
14. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI How do we maintain community remotely? • Disconnect • Mobility • Zoom fatigue
15. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI • Discussion group • Pre-meeting readings • Guided tutorials • Themed series • Cloud-based coding Solution- listen to your community PUG • Communal approach • Members bring their problems and ideas Sound
16. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Digital Archives Research Collective Digital Fellow: Param Ajmera Digital Archives Research Collective
17. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI What is DARC? • Interdisciplinary collective of researchers working with digital archives. • Community invested with discussing new ways of using and building digital archives. • Activities include: ◦ DARC Wiki - cuny.is/darc-wiki ◦ Workshops - Omeka, Oral History Recording ◦ Speaker Series ◦ Open Forum Meetings
18. GC Digital Initiatives || cuny.is/gcdi || @CUNY || GC Digital Fellows || cuny.is/digitalfellows || #CUNYGCDI Pandemic-Induced Changes • Access to archives became severely affected. • Pivot to helping researchers work with digital archives: ◦ More Open Forums ◦ Contacting archivists ◦ Building relationships with scholars at other universities ◦ Data Mining, Data Visualization, Metadata Analysis ◦ Workshops emphasize remote work: ▪ Working with HathiTrust Data ▪ Getting Good (Enough) Audio Recordings
19. Building Digital Humanities Pedagogy Resources at the City College of New York Dimitris C. Papadopoulos Ph.D NEH CARES DH Instructional Technologist https://dhccny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ dpapadopoulos@ccny.cuny.edu @dimaterialist This presentation has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
20. • Project title: “Retention and Professional Development of Adjuncts in a Covid-19 Instructional Environment at the City College of New York” (July - December 2020). • 25 Adjunct Professors • Support in integration of digital humanities/digital pedagogy tools, re-design of syllabi, course development The NEH CARES digital pedagogy project at CCNY Project Coordinator: Renata Miller, Deputy Dean, Division of Humanities and the Arts, CCNY
21. DH Pedagogy Support and Resources at CCNY https://dhccny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ • NEH CARES DH Workshop Series (text analysis, editing, publishing, digital collections / media in class spatio-temporal data, digital project sustainability) • Digital project review sessions • One-on-one consultations • A-Z Resources / Guides / Lists of Tools • Tutorials
22. • 8 workshops, ~ 100 participants • new course websites • special projects (e.g. Omeka websites) • networking / exchange across fields and departments • feedback from faculty and instructors Support and community building through digital pedagogy: the experience so far
24. Digital pedagogy and the “new normal”: some takeaways • need to (re)introduce, (re)use, (re)discover existing resources and infrastructures available “at home” (e.g. CCNY Teaching and Learning Center, CCNY Digital Scholarship Services, CUNY Academic Commons, Open Educational Resources) • building communities of practice and support among peers, across departments and campuses • technology is not the end goal. Need to align to pedagogy approaches / learning objectives. More examples of digital tools and materials as used in class.
25. Digital pedagogy and the “new normal”: some takeaways • need to be aware of the fact that getting familiar with new digital tools or online environments is additional labor • emphasis on data literacy and digital skills (e.g. data management) as foundation for digital pedagogy / digital humanities projects • awareness of ethical issues (e.g. privacy, surveillance, anonymity, accessibility) in instructional technologies • need for (institutional) continuity and support
26. Building Digital Humanities Pedagogy Resources at the City College of New York Dimitris C. Papadopoulos Ph.D NEH CARES DH Instructional Technologist https://dhccny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ dpapadopoulos@ccny.cuny.edu @dimaterialist This presentation has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
27. Yolande Brener CCNY English Department English 21001 Writing for the Humanities and Arts FIQWS Creative Composition for Narrative Medicine
28. Connection without Classrooms • Maintaining connection with students • Students’ connection with each other • Not hearing/seeing each other in real time • Cameras and mics turned off in class • Accessibility of information • Communication both in and out of class
29. Combining Tools for Different Learning Styles • CUNY Academic Commons websites, with most recent announcements on home page • Video announcements (Zoom, Screencast-O-Matic) • Digital Stories Assignment (3 minute video stories) • Sharing select student work on larger forum (Academic Commons, Openlab, Wordpress)
30. Combining Tools for Different Learning Styles (cont’d.) • Voicethread • Accountability Groups • Whatsapp Groups (work better when student led) • Students interviewing each other • Student's Choice Assignment (including art, performance, video, with written description of process and intention)
31. Can Technology Fix Pedagogical Problems Caused by Distance Learning? • When working online, less assignments more practical • Instead of crowded modules, one or two self-directed tasks per week • Provide information in multiple modes: written, video, audio, spoken in class • Keep track of who speaks when • Reach out to silent members of class • Extended office hours, but within boundaries Examples of student videos and artwork submitted with written descriptions of their process
32. Debra Williams, 12/3/2020 Challenges and Solutions Assigning Research Presentations in an asynchronous classroom
33. Challenges Assigning Research Presentations In an asynchronous classroom • Students having the tools and self-reliance to present research digitally • Students engaging with other students’ research presentations • Creating an interactive asynchronous class that supports students drawing knowledge from each other Voice-over video presentations as an option? But what about supporting tools and engagement?
34. A A Social Annotation and Notes Tool for Web-base Applications as a Solution Incorporating hypothesis.is with a web-base application like Google Drive for student engagement and interaction: • Convert/Export voice-over presentation as mp4 or m4v file format • Upload file to Google Drive • Use hypothes.is to comment/peer-review presentations played on Google Drive
35. Other useful tools and support features Annotating Close Reading of Text Centralize Location for All Student Annotations
36. Students learning and navigating multiple applications and technology: Blackboard / Zoom / Academic Commons / Google Drive / hypothes.is • Students are more adaptable to new technology Accessing technical tools and information to support students • Youtube videos as a resource for learning new applications/technology Take Away from Initial Concerns
37. Accurately Assessing Digital Accessibility for Your Course Janelle Poe Adjunct Assistant Professor Black Studies Program, CCNY
38. What is actually accessible? • Blackboard or CUNY AC Commons or Both? • Will Hypothesis and digital annotation tools help? • Using Timeline and other DH tools in web design?
39. Approach • Initial assessment (capability, ease, stability, assistance) • Provide descriptions, tutorials and walk-through • Assign multiple interactions (ungraded attempts at first, extra time to complete) • Reassess again and adjust
40. Methods • In-class surveys (Poll, chat, hands) • Office Hours • Individual meetings with students • Review in class multiple times; use recordings • Reassess again and adjust
41. Takeaways • Close consideration of class make-up (semester, tech familiarity, learning experience) • Allow time for familiarity (pre- & during semester) • Overwhelmed by new tech? If so, your students are as well. • What alternatives do you have to simplify the process and achieve your desired results?