BlendDLA
Program Summary
During “Maymester” 2018, The College of the Liberal Arts invited 7 faculty members to participate in a Blended Learning (Blend) and Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) course re-design program: BlendDLA 2018.
This program was born out of the college’s commitment to foster digital literacy in liberal arts faculty and students. A blended course is one in which some percentage of a residential class – anywhere between 25%-75% of the course content – is taken out of the classroom and performed online instead. Digital Liberal Arts emphasizes digital methods of knowledge production and dissemination throughout the liberal arts.
Faculty participants were be given the opportunity to incorporate digital technologies into their research and teaching in a collaborative and supportive environment. All courses were re-imagined to make more strategic use of Canvas and other web-based technologies both in presenting content to students and as platforms for students to publish their scholarly work digitally. Additional innovations included elements like 3D printing, Augmented Reality, Story Maps, Podcasts, and Service Learning projects.
Program Commitment
Modeled on the BlendLT program offered by Teaching and Learning with Technology, selected faculty were required to:
- Actively participate in the faculty development program, which included 5 weekly workshops;
- Dedicate 2-4 hours per week for preparation and follow-up activities;
- Work with an instructional designer (ID) and other resources to accomplish goals of redesigning a course to a blended or Digital Liberal Arts format;
- Share progress with the co-hort throughout their project development cycle;
- Compile and share evidence of success with the Digital Liberal Arts community
Workshop Schedule:
The BlendDLA workshops modeled collaborative and project-based learning approaches to reinforce links between coursework and real-world settings. In these engaging and interactive workshops, participants attended presentations, brainstormed ideas, and applied a number of course design strategies to the courses they planned to revise.
- Tuesday, May 8, 2018, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., University Park: Identifying your Blended and DLA opportunities
- Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 9:00 a.m.-noon, University Park: Matching Objectives to Assessments
- Tuesday, May 22, 2018, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., University Park: Utilizing Available Resources
- Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 9:00 a.m.-noon, University Park: Assessing Your Revised Course
- Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 9:00 a.m.-noon, University Park: Promoting Your Course
