Digital Humanities
The Spring 2019 Digital Humanities STE was co-led by Chris Johanson (Classics) and Miriam Posner (Information Studies). The seminar helped faculty and graduate students develop expertise in the tools and methods necessary to incorporate digital humanities projects and concepts into their classes. Faculty and graduate students brought their own expertise and interests to the seminar and worked on building DH projects into their existing classes.
The seminar began with an overview and history of the field, along with some exemplary digital humanities projects and assignments. Participants then discussed techniques for incorporating digital humanities projects into the classroom, including how to match pedagogical goals with existing tools, how to evaluate tools for use in the classroom, how to manage a range of skill levels, how to scale up student support, and how to assess digital projects.
Throughout, participants interrogated the existing lecture/seminar structure at UCLA and discussed ways to potentially adapt or transform it. Participants reviewed their own regularly-taught courses in light of how existing infrastructure might be brought to bear, how current classrooms might be utilized, and which new spaces and technologies might be necessary to stage these courses in future. Participants emerged from the seminar with two tangible outcomes: a revised syllabus that includes digital humanities-inflected assignments; and a collaboratively authored whitepaper that identifies gaps, resources, and opportunities in the university’s current support for digital humanities pedagogy.