#teachingbydesign: Cultivating Critical Digital Literacy

Biographical Sketch

Ashlyn C. Walden is a Senior Lecturer in the University Writing Programs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In addition to teaching First Year Writing, She also serves at the Associate Editor of RE: Composing, A Writing Studies Journal, a homegrown text used in UNCC's FYW course. Research interests primarily include: fostering inquiry-based research in the writing classroom, digital composition and design, and Universal Design practices. To extend these interests, Ashlyn maintains active professional development affiliations with the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE), assisting its publication outlet ROLE with the layout and production of the first ePublication.

Cat Mahaffey is a Senior Lecturer in the University Writing Program at UNC Charlotte and a PhD student in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric (TCR) program at Texas Tech University. She also serves as a Quality Matters Associate Faculty Fellow (QMAFF), creating faculty workshops for best practices in delivering online writing instruction. Her other research interests include digital literacy, technical and professional writing, and accessibility. An active member of the Writing Studies community, she maintains regional and national professional affiliations, most notably with the Council of Writing Program Administrators and the OWI Standing Group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).

Type of Presentation

Panel submission

Brief Description of Presentation

This presentation explores missed opportunities in modeling digital literacy through instructional design. More specifically, our presentation will suggest ways for faculty and students to (1) identify the barriers in digital reading and writing, (2) consider the quality and type of digital compositions, (3) find space to practice, engage, and sometimes fail while navigating new media territory, (4) complicate notions of digital composing in ways that critically assess digital footprints, and (5) develop flexible digital composing strategies to evaluate the conventions of the writing situation.

Abstract of Proposal

With ever-increasing digital workspaces and technologies, we have reached a point where almost every field of study requires some level of digital composition. Whether it’s a multimodal essay or a slideshow, college students in every major are composing digital artifacts. Furthermore, the shift to learning management systems (LMS) like Blackboard and Canvas means that instructors are contending with the affordances and constraints of delivering course content online. The question then becomes: how do we deliver meaningful content in ways that enhance rather than hinder students’ learning? Beyond school required LMSs, Hewett’s (2015) research suggests that an additional barrier lies in avoidable disconnects between what instructors ask students to do and how they ask them to do it. In other words, instructors often fail to consider how their own written course content is “part of their instructional art … [as] the text becomes the teaching” (Hewett, 2015, p. 171-72).

This presentation explores missed opportunities in modeling digital literacy through instructional design. We hope to build critical literacy practices that students can transfer into the real-world spaces they compose in. More specifically, our presentation will suggest ways for faculty and students to (1) identify the barriers in digital reading and writing, (2) consider the quality and type of digital compositions, (3) find space to practice, engage, and sometimes fail while navigating new media territory, (4) complicate notions of digital composing in ways that critically assess digital footprints, and (5) develop flexible digital composing strategies to evaluate the conventions of the writing situation.

Location

Session 5D (Habersham, Hilton Garden Inn)

Start Date

2-23-2019 10:15 AM

End Date

2-23-2019 11:45 AM

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Feb 23rd, 10:15 AM Feb 23rd, 11:45 AM

#teachingbydesign: Cultivating Critical Digital Literacy

Session 5D (Habersham, Hilton Garden Inn)

With ever-increasing digital workspaces and technologies, we have reached a point where almost every field of study requires some level of digital composition. Whether it’s a multimodal essay or a slideshow, college students in every major are composing digital artifacts. Furthermore, the shift to learning management systems (LMS) like Blackboard and Canvas means that instructors are contending with the affordances and constraints of delivering course content online. The question then becomes: how do we deliver meaningful content in ways that enhance rather than hinder students’ learning? Beyond school required LMSs, Hewett’s (2015) research suggests that an additional barrier lies in avoidable disconnects between what instructors ask students to do and how they ask them to do it. In other words, instructors often fail to consider how their own written course content is “part of their instructional art … [as] the text becomes the teaching” (Hewett, 2015, p. 171-72).

This presentation explores missed opportunities in modeling digital literacy through instructional design. We hope to build critical literacy practices that students can transfer into the real-world spaces they compose in. More specifically, our presentation will suggest ways for faculty and students to (1) identify the barriers in digital reading and writing, (2) consider the quality and type of digital compositions, (3) find space to practice, engage, and sometimes fail while navigating new media territory, (4) complicate notions of digital composing in ways that critically assess digital footprints, and (5) develop flexible digital composing strategies to evaluate the conventions of the writing situation.