#ByteSizedPedagogy

It’s important to maintain a balanced teaching diet! Join us the first week of each month (typically Wed or Fri) for a free and open-to-the-public zoom series organized by the Scholars’ Lab and the Digital Humanities Center in the UVA Library. These sessions on digital pedagogy feature a mix of reading discussions and lightning talks introducing teaching topics, interesting approaches to the classroom, pedagogical concepts, and more. All in a bite-sized form that should still give you plenty to chew on. In the spirit of the #DHMakes Methodz talks, we’ll keep things snappy: 30 minutes, snacks encouraged. We will be gathering social media commentary using the #ByteSizedPedagogy hashtag.

Organized by Brandon Walsh presently. Past collaborators included Winnie Pérez Martínez, Rachel Retica, and Seanna Viechweg.

Upcoming Sessions

For AY 2026-2027, we will convene on (typically) the 1st Friday of each month at 9:00 PST/12:00 ET for 30 minutes to discuss a single publicly available text. Registration required to receive the zoom link.

Interested in participating in the future, either to share work or to be a fly on the wall? Please also fill out this form to keep up with us.

• August 7 at 9:00 PST/12:00 ET - “DH Ghost Towns: What Happens When Makers Abandon Their Creations” by Emily Gilliland Grover. Register here.
• 9/4- “Teaching the Digital Humanities to a Broad Undergraduate Population” by Alison Langmead and Annette Vee. Register here.
• 10/2- “Teaching Digital Humanities: Neoliberal Logic, Class, and Social Relevance” by James O’Sullivan. Register here.
• 11/6- “Teaching from the Middle: Positioning the Non–Tenure Track Teacher in the Classroom” by Jacob Heil. Register here.
• No December meeting
• No January meeting
• Stay tuned for spring 2027!

Past Sessions

• Teaching with historical/humanities data. Friday, 2/21/25 from 1:00-2:00PM EST.
  • Megan Brett, Manager for Collections Processing and Digital Initiatives at the Thomas Jefferson Library at Monticello
    • Blurb
      • Working with historical structured data sources. We’ll talk about some ways to approach transcribing historic documents into structured systems (spreadsheets or similar formats), including project planning, workflows, and some low/no tech starting points.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Megan R. Brett, “Thinking about historic structured data,” ByteSizedPedagogy, February 21, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17613/mjq69-r2165.
  • Emily McGinn, Digital Humanities Specialist at Johns Hopkins University
    • Blurb I have data, now what? Forming a research question from humanities data. We’ll discuss how to examine the data you have, form a hypothesis, and structure investigations within the bounds of the dataset.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • McGinn, Emily. “Asking Questions of Data: How to Think Like a Computer”. Knowledge Commons, February 22, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17613/zwcja-8bn05.
• On Making. Friday, April 4th from 1:00-2:00PM EST.
  • Jajwalya Karajgikar, Applied Data Science Librarian, University of Pennsylvania Library
    • Blurb
      • When we consider library services and patrons in higher education, we typically think of resources, databases, and other mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge. More difficult to encapsulate is the sense of community building that occurs in the library as an impartial space for technology, information literacy, and campus well-being. This is the function of many research data, digital scholarship, and maker-space centers within the library. This short talk elaborates on collaborative projects that facilitate the development of deep relationships with people on campus through Slow Process Making and Embodied Critical Making.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Karajgikar, Jajwalya.“Framework for Designing Qualitative Data Physicalizations through Loom Weaving” ByteSizedPedagogy Series. April 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17613/2dh0q-7ce27
  • Amanda Licastro, Head of Digital Scholarship Strategies and Visiting Associate Professor in English at Swarthmore College
    • Blurb
      • Interested in introducing your students to the world of #DHMakes? This presentation will review a series of scaffolded workshops aimed at making space for humanists in the Makerspace. With a focus on building critical collaborations across campus, audience members will gain practical tips on how to design hands-on, creative assignments with public-facing products. The culminating example will be an exhibit created by students in my undergraduate English course inspired by sci-fi literature, surveillance theory, and archival objects from Special Collections.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Licastro, A. “Making Space for Humanists in the Makerspace.” Knowledge Commons, 18 Apr. 2025, https://doi.org/10.17613/65jf7-w5p76
• On Making and Remixing Video/games. Wednesday, 5/14/25 from 1:00-2:00PM EST. Register here.
  • Andrew Ferguson, College Advising Fellow at University of Virginia
    • Blurb: I’ve been guiding students through learning video editing software to make and to mess up video footage.
  • Carlisle Yingst, Presidential Fellow in Bibliography at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri
    • Blurb: Making the digital analogue, or, analyzing a video game with paper, scissors, paste, and yarn. I’ll discuss my approach to developing an undergraduate workshop on video games, focusing on the parts of the workshop that presented students with analogue, concrete, hands-on ways of thinking about some of the more abstract concepts involved in digital media.
• On Failure. Tuesday, 6/24/25 from 1:00-2:00PM ET.
  • Pamella Lach, Digital Humanities Librarian at San Diego State University Library
    • Blurb:
      • Bringing back the joy in teaching: I’ve been reflecting a lot about what I don’t like about my pedagogy lately. This past semester I began experimenting with ways of refreshing my approach. I welcome the opportunity to share different ways we can rethink and transform our pedagogy.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Lach, Pamella R.“Bringing Back the Joy in Teaching.” ByteSizedPedagogy Series. June 24, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17613/w53ad-gja15
  • Lisa Tagliaferri, Head of Developer Education at Chainguard
    • Blurb:
      • Interdisciplinary teaching wins and fails: when it works and when it doesn’t. With tales from the digital humanities.
• On Process. Tuesday, 9/25/25 from 1:00-2:00PM ET.
  • Jennifer Isasi, Assistant Director of the Office of Digital Pedagogies and Initiatives and Director of the Digital Liberal Arts Research Initiative at The Pennsylvania State University
    • Blurb:
      • In my Foundations in DH course, students completed project documentation in lieu of a traditional final project, systematically recording the digital research processes they were already using in other classes or MA thesis work but that they had never formally documented. I’ll share the key challenges my multilingual students encountered when transforming invisible research decisions into transparent, sustainable documentation, and the collaborative strategies we developed to overcome them.
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Isasi, Jennifer.“On The Process of Teaching Their First Documentation,” #ByteSizedPedagogy Series. September25, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17613/3hpc2-c9b62
  • Sean Keenan, Educational Technology Specialist at Bryn Mawr College
    • Blurb:
      • Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning follows an instructional approach that asks students to take ownership of their own education through structured inquiry in a group exploration. I will share my own perspective on implementing POGIL strategies in short workshops and intensive settings as a non-instructional staff member, contrasting my experiences with traditional classroom applications.
• Surveillance and Contingency Thursday, 10/23/25 from 1:00PM-2:00PM EST.
  • Douglas Eyman, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University
    • Blurb:
      • Helping students (and faculty!) develop critical digital literacies is a task that we all should be engaged in, particularly so now that generative AI needs human data and human language to continue progressing. I find that many of my students don’t realize the extent to which they are being surveilled and how much of their lives are being tracked and turned into data for use by algorithms, both presumably benign, and those whose functions are more nefarious. In this presentation, I’ll talk a bit about a couple of assignments I use to help students better understand their positions in the networks they inhabit - ‘You Are Being Watched’ and ‘Data Detective’ as well as introducing some resources for better understanding and safeguarding data privacy (useful for all - not just students).
  • Cynthia Heider, Public Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania
    • Blurb:
      • Originally looking for a clever way to teach about the concept of contingency in a Digital History graduate course, I stumbled upon an assignment approach that also helped my students evaluate the way they approach scholarship production, as well as introducing them to the interactive storytelling tool Twine. In this presentation, I’ll talk about a particularly well-received hands-on lab assignment I developed utilizing Jason Helms’ multimodal work “Play Smarter Not Harder: Developing Your Scholarly Meta” and Gabi Kiriloff’s Programming Historian guide to “Interactive Fiction in the Humanities Classroom: How to Create Interactive Text Games Using Twine.”
    • Suggested Citation and Deposit
      • Heider, Cynthia. “Exploring Contingency with Twine in the Digital History Classroom.” #ByteSizedPedagogy Series. October 23, 2025. https:/doi.org/10.17613/sngr0-2yp88.
  • June 5 at 9:00 PST/12:00 ET - “Born Pedagogical DH: Learning While Teaching” by Emily McGinn and Lauren Coats.
  • July 1 at 9:00 PST/12:00 ET - “(Hard and Soft) Skills to Pay the Bills: A Both/And Approach to Teaching DH to Undergraduates” by Jonathan D. Fitzgerald.