Learning Outcomes

Like with all assignment design, designing a digital pedagogy-based assignment should be driven by the learning outcomes. If you have already decided on the method (e.g., mapping) and tool (e.g., ArcGIS), designing or refining your assignment might be mainly a matter of selecting the desired learning outcomes and developing them further.

Related digital pedagogy learning outcomes include, but are not limited to, the ability to:

• Use digital tools to investigate scholarly questions

• Digitally present critical and creative scholarship

• Effectively organize information

• Navigate multiple literacies, e.g., information literacy, digital literacy, data literacy, and visual literacy

• Work collaboratively

• Manage projects

• Write for the web and/or public audiences

• Visually communicate

• Navigate intellectual property rights

• Comply with web accessibility standards

Guiding questions like these will help you identify learning outcomes:

• What literacies might students improve on or gain from this assignment?

• What communication, information organization, analytical, technical, and problem-solving skills does this assignment require?

• What will the assignment teach students about incorporating media (e.g., video and images) into their work?

• What will the assignment teach students about intellectual property rights?

• How will this assignment teach students to work in groups and manage projects?

After having identified learning outcomes, you can enhance them by creating more specific requirements. You can, for example, enhance an assignment's data literacy component by not just having students use datasets they can find but also having them create their own. This act of creation will give them a much deeper understanding of how datasets work. Another example would be having students create metadata for objects they incorporate into a digital exhibit. Creating metadata on top of writing captions will get students more engaged with the objects as it will require them to analyze them on multiple levels. An alternative to increasing specific and practical requirements is having students critically reflect on their work in the form of an essay, presentation, or by including a praxis component to their digital project that explains how they approached and accomplished their work (see praxis example).