In “Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 2” Jesse Stommel writes, “Digital pedagogy calls for screwing around more than it does systematic study, and in fact screwing around is the more difficult scholarly work. Digital pedagogy is less about knowing and more a rampant process of unlearning, play, and rediscovery. We are not born digital pedagogues, nor do we have to be formally schooled in the ways of digital pedagogy.”
I wholeheartedly support the notion of “screwing around” in all manner of intellectual work related to scholarship and to pedagogy. But this kind of “play and rediscovery” is not supported by the university’s attachment to rubrics, templates, and all manner of academic standardization. There’s nothing wrong with a shared understanding of important criteria or elements for syllabi, for example, but the rigid use of templates is intellectually deadening. And the branding of syllabi, with a big, block “M” or anything of the like, is like shouting from the rooftops that education is, essentially, a capitalist exchange.
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This is an important distinction that you are calling out here Margaret. I do think the digital pedagogy Stommel speaks of is very different than what those who look to standardize academic experiences are looking for from technology. The push to simplify and standardize for the sake of measurement and efficiency is very real and I agree with you the extremes become toxic.
I’ve had some colleagues who have worked for universities where faculty were really nothing more than facilitators. “Designers” create the courses and update them every term based on feedback from the students and analytics from the LMS. Faculty are given the syllabi that they are required to use and their course shells in the LMS come prepopulated with content. There are sections in the LMS where they can add content but no content can be deleted or reordered. They are basically given what I call a “course in a box” and they just run it based on some training they are given. But I think Stommel would argue that is not pedagogy. Maybe it is facilitation, I would still give it “instruction”, and in some circles they would even give it “teaching” – but pedagogy? No no.
Thanks for your response, Autumm. The scenario you describe of colleagues elsewhere is the stuff of nightmares, but increasingly common given the stresses and trends in higher ed, including the trend to replace tenure-track with non-tenure-stream faculty. Tenure and faculty governance protect academic freedom, including in the classroom realm, or are supposed to. The whole notion of a course in a box is antithetical in my view to both instruction and teaching, and certainly doesn’t model for students the kind of intellectual exchange that’s ostensibly at the heart of university learning.