While we often think about digital creative technologies in terms of course assignments and/or their potential impact on student learning and development, one of the most impactful areas in creative media higher education is how these technologies can augment and enhance teacher practices. From making videos instead of lectures (flipped classroom models) to creating more meaningful feedback loops between teacher and student, the technologies open up an array of pedagogical practices and maneuvers. Additionally, if one is still relatively new to working in digital technologies, taking up these kinds of strategies as part of one's pedagogy can be a deliberate way to facilitate one’s own development with a particular mediating practice (i.e., making a video about course content as a way of learning how to make/edit a video so as to help students with their own video assignments).

Thus, what I want to offer on this page are a few suggestions for using technologies to enhance one's teaching practices. More specifically, I want to talk about creating better feedback loops, enacting the paradigm (i.e., practice what you preach), and situating the technological as pedagogical (technology as pedagogy).

One of the gaming practices that I leverage as much as possible in my courses, no matter their focus, is trying to improve the frequency and meaningfulness of the feedback loops between the students and myself. To this end, I focus on pre and post class feedback practices as well as audio/video assignment feedback.

Pre Class Loops

Pre Class Loops include everything from building learning activities that help set-up a course discussion or practice to more general flipped class dynamics. While the learning activities can, in fact, invite digital creativity, it is the flipped classroom practices that is perhaps most well suited to working in creative technologies. For those who are unfamiliar with the flipped classroom concept, the basic principle is that instructors create video recordings of their lectures and have the students watch those videos outside of class, then the in-class time is devoted to student understanding. For those who are interested in employing this method, there are a variety of models and tips/guides already available online (a simple “flipped classroom” search yields an array of resources). But what I would encourage new practitioners to do is to think of these not only as formal course content engagements, but rather as a way to make contact with students for all manner of course related things. For example, I create small video notes about preparations for a class or produce short podcast-like recordings talking about readings or topics related to the course (including things students might not have been assigned to read). Not all of these less-formal elements are required, but I find that the more work I can do up front to situate the students in context and/or to connect them to/prepare them for a given content or set of practices, the more productive the class time can be toward extending the depth of that understanding or applying it in meaningful capacities.

If you are new to this endeavor altogether, I would say to download Adobe Rush on your phone or computer and just try recording yourself (vlog style) talking to students about something coming up in the next class. Don’t go too long—this is just an informal kind of roll out—and don’t worry about the polish and shine this first time, just get yourself out there and give it to them to view before class. I think you will be surprised by the reception and the way it impacts the conversation.

Post-Class Feedback

One practice that I do perhaps more than others is to create videos or audio recordings after a class. I use this as a way of continuing to respond to a line of inquiry, to discuss upcoming assignments, to identify additional considerations, to answer student questions, and the like. In fact, in many classes I reserve the last minute or two and ask students to write down (anonymously) on a note card any remaining questions they have or any element they would like to spend more time on. I use these “minute cards” as prompts, then, for the short videos. While these cards can also work to help frame what I need to revisit in the next class, they operate as a material feedback element that invites other modes of feedback. And when I see a set of topoi emerge in the cards, then much like the flipped classroom approach, I just turn on my recording device (often my computer, but occasionally my phone) and start talking as if I am talking directly with the students. Then I share that with them.

A/V Assignment Feedback

One of the best transitions I have made in the past decade has been to adopt an audio (or video) based approach to providing feedback on student work. This came about because (a) it was often necessary as I couldn’t mark-up a student video in the same way as a paper and (b) Chris Anson’s research findings indicated that a few minutes of audio or video feedback on a writing assignment is far more impactful than just offer written comments alone. Not only are students more likely to listen to all of your comments than they are to read all of them, but it humanizes the feedback in a way that contrasts with the detached sense of written assessment. Now, this practice does not work in all assignment situations, but if having students create digital projects of any kind, the audio/video feedback approach is quite effective. And here, again, much like with the flipped classroom and post-class feedback, I just turn on my recording device and talk my way through my notes on a student project. The key for me has been, as per Anson’s suggestion, to try to limit my comments to 3-5 minutes. I also highlight strengths of the works, include explanations for why I think certain things don’t work (including reasoning that aligns with disciplinary modes of knowing, doing, and making), and I tend to offer strategies for revision.

A practice I employ regularly, though not nearly as consistently as I should, is that of enacting the paradigm (i.e., practicing what I preach). And what I mean by this, in this context at least, is that if an instructor is going to ask students to create a video for a class or to make an Adobe Spark page, then the assignment handout itself should also be produced in that form. By using the very media central to the assignment to introduce the assignment itself, instructors underscore the importance of the mediation. Further, these other forms are often more readable/viewable on mobile devices than some traditional assignment handouts, which adds flexibility to the ways in which students can engage course materials.

In fact, no matter what the assignment, I always create a print handout/PDF that functions in traditional ways (primarily, if not exclusively, as text-based). But I also try to create the assignment in at least one other medium (often in that with the greatest affinity for the assignment itself). And, if time permits, I render it additional media formats as well. The reason is that students consume media in different forms at different times and having an assignment guide in multiple media forms simply makes the work more accessible.

Along these lines, I also encourage instructors to create a digital syllabus. These kinds of artifacts are simply more accessible and/or more readable on more platforms. And here I am not advocating for anything overtly sophisticated, as even just maintaining the course syllabus and course content in a university's CMS/LMS (Canvas, Blackboard, etc.) will add some of that digital flexibility. But building a digital syllabus and thinking about its design, layout, and the possibilities of its hypertextual engagement (via a site like wix.com or wordpress.com) can be a way to continue to both add a visual richness to the class from the outset and to develop one’s own digital literacy/digital creativity skills and abilities.

One of my primary orientations as an instructor is to situate the technology I intend to have students use as an integrated component of my pedagogy. That is, the technology in question operates as a pedagogical vehicle that I involve in the central practices of learning and engagement in the class. Thus, when I include a technology in the class (say Adobe Photoshop), it does not just manifest on one day and then disappear until the project is due. Rather, it repeats, at varying frequencies and with varying complexities, as we work through the course content and practices.

For example, one of my favorite in-class activities is to have students use Adobe Photoshop to produce a visualization of a key element or take-away from an assigned reading. Then, once these visuals are created, the students share them with the entire class and (time permitting) explain the image, the representation, and why that element/take-away is of particular value. This, then, serves to facilitate class discussion and does so in ways that seem far more engaging than just lecturing. The key in this particular example, however, is that I also give the students 4 rules:

• Rule 1: No words can be included in the creation (visuals only).
• Rule 2: The image must be completed and shared with the entire class (as .jpg or .png).
• Rule 3: If working in groups, the least familiar with Photoshop drives the machine; the others serve as coaches.
• Rule 4: Students must be prepared to explain the image to the class once they have sent it out; if we run out of time, they must send a written explanation of the image as well.

For an example of this kind of activity, visit Jaeheuck Jeong’s “Mediations” creation at TheJUMP+.

Now, while I do this activity most frequently with Photoshop, I also do this with Adobe Spark post in other classes and have done similar things with web-based authoring practices (from creating webpages for a course site to doing blogs/vlogs). The key is to identify the central technologies one hopes to include in a course and then devise ways that they can be utilized to help with the learning as much as with a singular project. This folds them into the culture of the class and reinforces the learning of the technology as a matter of course.

justinhodgson.com | @postdigitalJH | JH@LinkedIn