I am not going to talk through the sessions we did – that is for blog posts for our AT blog. But I do want to make sure I capture what I learned in a couple of the other sessions I was able to attend.

Using Graphics to Teach QR Across the Curriculum (Lin Winton)

Abstract: The Quantitative Reasoning Encounter course requirement may bring to mind STEM courses, but students benefit most when they practice QR in a variety of disciplines over their four years. Creating and exploring images based on data is one way faculty can help build students’ numerical thinking and argumentation skills in courses that are not traditionally quantitative, and engage students who are more visually oriented or math-averse. While last year’s data viz workshop introduced a range of learning objectives that viz can align with and some teaching tips, this session will focus on short, concrete exercises that can weave QR skills throughout almost any class without sacrificing course content or requiring any specialized software. For faculty interested in dedicating an entire assignment or module to QR, there will also be examples of basic assignments that can be adapted to your course.

Example of Notice, Wonder, Connect Summarize, using 2 illustrations of Cargo Transit Times from Indonesia to Florida.
Notice, Wonder, Connect, Summarize

Here strategies were interesting; takeaway for me were

  • Slow reveal – use graphics to start with an image of data, talk about it and then take it to the next step
  • Notice, Wonder, Connect, Summarize – based on New York Times graphics – what’s going on in this graph. Difficulty for students is to separate our noticing (=describing_ and connecting = interpreting)
  • I Like, I Wish, I Wonder – feedback strategies for other student projects
  • Gallery Walk to review what others are doing
  • Visualize yourself
  • Remake a master work – use an existing model to create your own data visualization

I am adding the pdf of her presentation to our AT shared drive.

Digital Arts & Humanities Projects as Research Based Learning Opportunities (Austin Mason, Michael McNally, Victoria Morse)

Abstract: While an increasing number of courses offer small-scale digital assignments in the classroom, recurring courses that allow students to contribute to long-running Digital Arts & Humanities projects can provide deeper learning opportunities as well as more concrete skills in research methods, collaborative knowledge production and project management. This session will introduce the benefits of digital project-based assignments that persist through multiple runnings of a course, with students continuing to contribute content over time. Panelists will share their proven successes of digital projects anchored in recurring courses and suggest best practices for inserting students into ongoing collaborative research communities.

My takeaways: The different projects were quite interesting, and it looks like Austin Mason has put in a considerable amount of work to make sure these web sites are up to date. The sites discussed were:

The research aspect is quite interesting, and the Digital Humanities Assistants are helping with this – sustainability remains a real challenge.