COVID-19 has brought on many changes to the classroom, the most concrete of which is the shift from the physical classroom, to the virtual classroom. The scramble to move classes online has led to an increasing need for resources that discuss digital pedagogy. The need for discussion on topics that relate to digital pedagogy has never been as current as it is now. In this blog we will discuss on Digital Pedagogy, online courses, online teaching particularly in the field of Humanities.
Authors:
Tiina Airaksinen is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies. She is trying to understand how to create feasible solutions in online teaching and is very interested in research on digital pedagogy particularly within cultural studies.
Anna-Leena Korpijärvi is a Doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies with a passion for developing tailored digital learning activities for theArts and digital pedagogical solutions that support these activities.
What is digital pedagogy and how does it differ from pedagogy for contact teaching?
Digital pedagogy is often defined as the study and use of contemporary digital technologies in teaching and learning. This can refer to teaching conducted via Zoom, a MOOC course and anything in between. These types of teaching environments can appear distant and removed from teacher student contact, however online and hybrid teaching environments can and do include interactions between teachers and students as well as between students, it is somewhat different than traditional classroom interactions.
Digital Pedagogy may be applied to online, hybrid, and face-to-face learning environments. Different types of teaching technologies used in university level teaching that increases every year. COVID-19 and the resulting distanced teaching has only accelerated the amount of online teaching available at university level.
Digital technologies are relied upon to provide resources and support practices as well as learning platforms for class. Despite this, most teachers using digital teaching platforms and other tools, they are not necessarily knowledgeable on Digital Pedagogy.
It can be difficult to figure out things like what are the best pedagogical solutions for a course or what types of learning objectives and activities are the most suitable for an individual teacher’s needs.
One solution is that when planning your online course you begin to think what study objectives (of your course) are feasible or suitable in the online course. Then just choose a digital platform that you are most familiar with (moodle, mooc, courses.helsinki.fi, zoom, teams etc.). According to our research* the most used digital platform at the Faculty of Arts is the moodle.
*Questionnaire: Digital Pedagogy and Intended Learning Outcomes in online teaching in Cultural Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, spring 2020, Airaksinen Tiina ja Anna-Leena Korpijärvi