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More active, more digital, more impactful (continued)

More active, more digital, more impactful (continued)

Can you provide a brief overview of the course?

Hodgson: In partnership with UITS Learning Technologies and the IU Archives, W171 invites students to explore a range of digital writing practices using the IU Bloomington campus as their grounding artifact. Students recreate key campus structures, buildings, and spaces in Minecraft EDU and design immersive experiences for visitors to our Minecraft EDU world(s).

Each of the structures built in Minecraft EDU includes layers of in-game content (embedded and/or linked to external web locations) related to student work throughout the semester: from personal connections to historical significance, from scrolling digital essays to playable audio/visual media.

Click here to learn more about the course, Projects in Digital Literacy and Composition.

In this issue

How do you prepare students to be active participants in this new environment?

Hodgson: The moment they walk in, the classroom looks and feels different. It's so big that for everyone to hear one another we have to throw around a talk box, a soft foam box with a microphone in it. There's a kind of playful attitude. Also, I explicitly lower barriers to success and de-stigmatize failure.

Rodak: Based on feedback from the first semester, I also encourage instructors to create ahead-of-time instructions for some of the things students will do that day. Have them ready in Canvas before or at the beginning of class. Basically, commit to preparing and posting documentation that lessens student anxiety about the technology or being a few steps behind.

What would you suggest for faculty looking to experiment on their own?

Hodgson: It really comes down to three approaches: What activities can you include to open up levels of engagement? What assets can you create to better provide instruction and guidance when you're not there or even when you are there? And then what kind of assessments can you invite students to participate in that are valuable for the field and discipline?

Project-based learning really takes off when you give students a problem to solve or have them deal with an issue—put an obstruction in the way and let them work through it with you as guide or coach or even serve as collaborator rather than just being the expert in the room.

Click here for a deeper dive with examples.

Rodak: We have so many faculty development opportunities at IU: I developed this idea in Mosaic, while thinking about active learning and learning spaces on campus like SB015. At the same time, the Digital Gardener Initiative helped me grow in digital space and digital thinking. And FACET (the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching) was an important part of this too, with its focus on high-impact practices not just on one campus, but throughout the university system.

Hodgson: I love to give access to the communities behind these ideas. The Digital Gardener Initiative has a fellows program, but we also have the Digital Gardener Summit every fall, which is open to anybody at IU. And it's a showcase of what digital literacy looks like across disciplines, ranks, and campuses. FACET also has many resources, including a collection of teaching stories.

Rodak: I would encourage people not to be daunted by the idea that a commitment to one of these professional development spaces will be overwhelming. They don't take as much time as you think they will, and they actually end up giving back to you with all these ideas and inspiration that come through being in connection with fellow faculty. It's a tiny investment that yields so much benefit. You walk away with a wealth of examples and germs of things that then grow in your own classroom and your own disciplinary thinking.

Resources

For collaboration and support, be sure to connect with:

To learn more about active learning spaces and communities at IU, visit:

For further reading and exploration, check out:

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dina Kellams, director of University Archives; Matt Decker, manager of Student Technology Computing; Chris Calabrese, assistant manager of Student Technology Computing; Tracey Birdwell, program director of the Mosaic Initiative; and Greg Siering, director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at IU Bloomington—all of whom have been instrumental and supportive in different ways. We couldn't have done this pilot without them!

The Connected Professor A fresh look at teaching and learning with technology at IU

More active, more digital, more impactful (continued)

Can you provide a brief overview of the course?

In this issue

How do you prepare students to be active participants in this new environment?

What would you suggest for faculty looking to experiment on their own?

Resources

Acknowledgments

Additional links and resources

More active, more digital, more impactful (continued)

Can you provide a brief overview of the course?

In this issue

How do you prepare students to be active participants in this new environment?

What would you suggest for faculty looking to experiment on their own?

Resources

Acknowledgments

The Connected Professor A fresh look at teaching and learning with technology at IU resources

Additional links and resources