Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

7.26.10 | Peer-to-Peer Pedagogy (P3) will be the focus of a workshop at Duke University on Sept. 10.

Sponsored by the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) with support from the MacArthur Foundation, the workshop will explore how digital technologies can encourage new collaborative teaching and learning models, such as crowd-sourced grading, online and peer learning, and the development of online-to-offline knowledge communities.

How can digital learning fulfill its visionary promise? And how can practitioners overcome barriers that exist in the traditions of the academy?

As the organizers note, “There is tremendous interest in collaborative learning methods—and a paucity of solid research in the pedagogy of collaboration. There is often active resistance to giving up traditional hierarchical methods of instruction, interaction and evaluation. Collaboration often occurs among those with similar disciplinary training, methodologies, assumptions, and personal backgrounds (racial or gender).”

Facilitators will ask participants to consider how their own work can benefit from diverse collaboration.

HASTAC co-founder Cathy Davidson will facilitate a panel of speakers, including:

• Anne Balsamo, professor of interactive media at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, who will discuss her work on tinkering spaces;
• David Gibson, executive director of The Global Challenge at the University of Vermont College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, who will discuss game mechanics;
• And Nils Peterson, assistant director of the Office of Assessment and Innovation at Washington State University, who will discuss his work at the Palouse Prairie School of Expeditionary Learning, a public charter school in Idaho.

(Also see Davidson’s related Spotlight post: “How to Crowdsource Grading”)

Registration is free and open to the public, but spots are limited, so sign up now.

You can read more about the preparatory work already underway by organizers on their wikispace, put together by the HASTAC Scholars who will facilitate the event.

The scholars are in the process of compiling and discussing a slew of provocative questions about digital learning research and practice that are worth listening in on, even if you are not able to attend the conference.

Topics being discussed on the wiki include: How can we make sure research in the digital humanities is inclusive? What value can researchers add by collaborating across disciplines? How can we use new collaborative models of evaluation and assessment, networking, and publishing? How can researchers collaborate with local communities? And how do we encourage the use of open access resources and involve “technology-shy teachers?”

HASTAC project manager Nancy Kimberly summarizes the workshop’s goal nicely in a blog post:

We hope, by the end of our day together, to be showing (not just telling) why we need to reconnect research, teaching, learning infrastructure, and real lived communities (both privileged and marginalized) if we are going to fulfill the promise implicit in the global, open web.

Join the conversation. Sign up now.