Speaking from my own experience in an English department and taking courses in different fields, graduate seminars tend to follow a pretty predictable pattern. Students are assigned to read a primary text—a novel, a volume of poetry, etc.–and one or more secondary texts—articles, chapters from one or more books, or a monograph (although this last one is rare, as Cathy Davidson has discussed). The seminar sessions themselves varied on the faculty member. It wasn’t uncommon for the faculty member to walk in and say, “Well, what did you think?” (What did I think about reading the complete Wallace Stevens in one week? Plus two articles? I don’t know. I really don’t.) Others would begin by discussing the secondary texts and then move on to the primary texts. Still others would encourage individual students to take the lead for a portion of the class, either giving an oral presentation or speaking about a paper that he or she had written and distributed ahead of time.
But if the discussion is around a few texts, around their close reading and their discussion by what can often be very small groups of people, what role is there for digital pedagogy—or even the use of basic tools like a podium computer and a projector? Obviously, one can use these tools for displaying films or images. These are certainly germane to the work and pedagogy of some of the department’s faculty members. And if one is working on electronic literature, then having a computer in the classroom is certainly advantageous. But what else is there?
I’d like get the collective thought power of our workshop attendees to think through how digital pedagogy could change the teaching of graduate students in the modern languages.
Lead photo: butcher block conference table / Brian Yeung / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
I have been teaching my graduate seminar on Space and Cultural in virtual reality (Second Life) for several years. It has been an interesting adventure since it allows students who are using the methods afforded by critical geography to study real spaces and their imaginary reproductions in the cartographic imaginaries of cultural creators to see how their one interventions in spaces they are creating virtually can have unintended consequences.
I’m teaching my first graduate seminar in the spring, and I’ve been wondering how and whether to incorporate digital pedagogy––this will be a really well timed session for me!
If we could extend this topic to seminars in English as well it could be useful to me.
I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t extend the subject to talking about the range of pedagogy that happens in languages. Undergrad seminars tend to have much the same pedagogy as graduate courses, and so they are ripe for inclusion in this discussion.