As an instructor in a technical field – film and video production – the notion of digital pedagogy is always at hand. I not only want my students to learn technical and conceptual skills, but to develop a comfort with learning new tools and with learning how to teach themselves new tools. So, even in my film theory-based courses, I employ digital tools to support learning.
I also absolutely support the notion of play and tinkering Jesse Stommel outlines as key parts of education (which I also expand on in the article “Teaching Avant-Garde Practice as Videographic Research” forthcoming in the journal Screen) and which he connects directly to digital pedagogy. What is sometimes lost, however, in discussions of digital pedagogy, is what exactly are students learning? What do we hope they will come to understand, or what skills will they build, or what connections will they make because of their engagement with digital tools?
Certainly, philosophies of digital pedagogy encompass both teaching AND learning. Absolutely. And Stommel’s work on the subject is very committed to student learning.
My own goals for integrating digital tools are also rooted in student learning – I intentionally choose software or online service that allow students to perform a work of film analysis or close textual reading that otherwise wouldn’t be possible and that involve a very flat learning curve.
But, more often than I’d like, I find that the main skill my students develop is learning the tool, sometimes at the expense of the concept I want them to develop. In the worst cases, the students struggle so much with the technical aspect of the assignment that there’s little room left for the conceptual or analytical portion.
Although I want students to develop digital skills in general in preparation for living and working in a digital world, in the classroom, I don’t want the means for learning to stifle the learning itself.
As Stommel notes, his approach to digital pedagogy is rooted in critical pedagogy, which is about education as a form of liberation. Yet, because of the digital divide and other inequities our students bring to the classroom (and that we as instructors sometimes, often inadvertently, replicate in the classroom), digitality can easily produce the conditions of exclusion rather than inclusiveness.
That leaves a couple options: either skip the digital tools or, preferably, include the process of learning digital tools as a learning outcome in itself and design the course with that learning outcome in mind.
I’m not saying anything new here, I realize, but when we consider the liberating potential of digital pedagogy, I think it’s imperative that we return to the core goals of what we want students to learn in our courses. Often, we skip over the process of learning a tool as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. If we choose to integrate digital tools, especially with a student body who might come to us with a considerable range of technical skills, we must build in the digital learning as a foundational element of the class, made transparent and explicit, with the appropriate supports in place.
You are hitting on a lot of the big ones for me in this post, Jen. I think I mentioned this earlier but I’m shocked how often in instructional design we jump to content development, outcome mapping, and alignment without ever doing a learner analysis. I guess it is one part that does not need to be so formal – most instructors have some sense of this in their head – but especially when I ask about it (because it is not in my head) many of the faculty I’ve worked with over the years are a bit bewildered that I would start there.
I didn’t have internet at home for a bit when I started college so I became well acquainted with the library and the digital student resource center inside of it. I remember I had to take an online class once, because the course was not offered in any other format, but the only way for me to take it was to go to campus to have access the web – so much for flexibility.
I think an important part of critical digital pedagogy is being thoughtful about digital tools and yes that does mean sometimes not using digital tools. I also worry though because I think many times it means using tools that are easy and fun – and many times these are the ones with predatory intentions. They are easy and fun for a reason – they want to sell ads or otherwise track and create profiles of data.
There is so much to think about when designing with technology. It is really powerful and can just as easily put up barriers as it can build bridges. The key is to be aware and do your best to design for this.
Thanks for a great post that made me think!
Thank you for this thought-provoking post! You’ve managed to quite eloquently identify something I’ve been grappling with lately as I revamp my courses for the upcoming fall semester. Reflecting on the past few semesters, and in thinking about your blog, I’ve come to realize that while I’ve integrated writing skills into all of my classes (which does, indeed, “steal” time from learning content, but I’ve learned to rationalize this) I haven’t done the same with the handful of digital tools I ask my students to use. As you point out, by “skip[ping] over the process of learning a tool as a means to an end rather than an end in itself,” we do a great disservice to our students. This has pushed me to move beyond some of my “traditional” CJ learning outcomes and to feel more comfortable including some nontraditional outcomes (like learning to create a podcast) as ends in themselves!