The Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology is both an annual event and a year-round online discussion of ways that faculty and staff are using technology to enhance teaching, learning, and research.
The Digital Pedagogy Badging Program in Philosophy is designed to provide direction and clear milestones for graduate students and other instructors interested in developing the skills and habits associated with digital literacy. It is structured in accordance with the timeline for graduate coursework, teaching, and research and it is aimed to promote the timely development of skills that contribute to overall success in each of these areas. The program is flexible enough to accommodate people within a wide range of prior experience and interest in using digital technologies. It aims to be structured enough to provide clear guidance, support, feedback, and community recognition for individuals at each step.
The badges focus on three central areas of teaching with technology: Digital Content Delivery, Digital Communications, and Reflective Pedagogy. Each of these areas is represented through badges that recognize, first, basic competencies, and then, more advanced proficiencies with respect to various modes of activity that are included within them. There is room for individual choice concerning both specific emphases within the badging system and specific means for demonstrating the skills it recognizes.
In this presentation, we will discuss the structure of the program, outline our rationale for developing it in the specific ways we have, share some preliminary findings from our pilot run, and explore ideas for connecting this program to other literacy initiatives. Audience participants will be asked to take part in a brainstorming exercise concerning the opportunities and challenges for developing similar digital pedagogy initiatives in other departmental and college contexts.
