DMA redesigned for 2011-2012

This year I once again reshuffled the deck, moving towards a form for the DMA course that ties it more firmly into the first-year experience by enhancing the composition-studies aspect of it (so that it complements the English composition courses first-year students take). Early indications are that the redesign is working.

In addition to the move to formalize a first-year experience for students, several changes in context are affecting and improving the course. For the first time there is some official collaboration going on between instructors/disciplines in the Undergraduate Academic Program to establish an electronic portfolio system for students. The experiment is starting with first-year students, who are creating online portfolios using Google Sites and adding artifacts to their sites from the DMA course and also their English composition courses.

UNCSA is also getting tooled up administratively to offer courses online starting in the summer of 2012, and this too is affecting the DMA course design, moving it towards a form that will play well over the internet. The design has been tightened up by making units-of-study and weekly agendas that are more discreet and modular than they have been in the past.

The number of face-to-face meetings has been reduced by 50% in order to accommodate more students in the course sections now that we are on a two-semester rather than tri-mester system. This has assisted the move to an online form, and has also improved the pedagogical aspects in some ways. I have found myself crafting tight meeting agendas which make the most of face-to-face time, and crafting online presentations as part of the content resources for the course. In a curricular sense this 'hybridizing' of the course also makes sense given that I want students to learn how to work online as well as they socialize online, and practicing their online work skills is a good way to do this.

I have the honor this term of two colleagues sitting in on different sections of the course. Joe Mills, an English instructor, and Margaret Mertz, director of the Kenan Institute for the Arts, are each offering valuable feedback and involvement. Thanks to Margaret I also had a visit and chat with members of the Kenan Institute's board of directors about the course and its role in the program and School.

Finally, in a contextual sense, my own practice is officially expanding into offering electives. I am now full-time teaching rather than 2/3 teaching and 1/3 technology consulting. This has enabled me to devote time to framing and developing electives that build on the foundations of the DMA course. This term I am offering Theory and Practice of New Media Art (NMA) and all indications are that this course is working well. Next term I will be offering an elective based on Marshall McLuhan's work. Some of the special projects that I have tried to work into the DMA course --i.e., the focus on contemporary journalism and Wikileaks, the focus on the global village and Montagnards, the focus on digital storytelling, etc.-- can now be selectively developed into electives.

Lots of good and interesting developments.