Against Projecting: Planning DH Course Projects that Work for You

Crossposted to the Scholars’ Lab blog.

I was recently asked to give a workshop for the Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium on how to manage the logistics for semester-long course projects. The result was something I came to call “Against Projecting: Planning DH Course Projects the Work for You.” The goal of it was to take that question and really get to the underlying pre-issues that, if ignored, can make things in the classroom much more difficult. That is to say - before we even get to the how of digital course projects we need to think through why we want to include them, what resources we have to support the work, and what shape they will take.

Here’s the abstract:

Many instructors include digital projects as the logical final assignments in digital humanities courses. Doing so introduces a host of challenges, however, and it can become all too easy to feel committed to the idea of the digital project in a way that overwhelms our course goals, our students, and ourselves. From a practical standpoint, this workshop will explore ways to manage the logistics of planning for the incorporation of course-long digital projects into teaching. From a theoretical one, this session will examine our reasons for doing so and how better to fit our project plans to our teaching rather than the other way around. The session will be structured as a mix of lecture, discussion, and activities, and participants will come away with a clear sense of next steps for integrating digital projects into their courses. In our limited time, the workshop will aim to deliver a series of tools and activities that participants can take with them to work through as they plan their own courses. Topics covered will likely include learning goals, resource assessment, scaffolding, assignment strategy, and outcomes, all filtered through the lens of project management for teaching and learning.

DEFCon records all their talks, so if you’re interested in more you can check out the video on their YouTube page (also embedded below). It’s a fantastic community - highly recommend following thier work!