SoTL SHOWCASE: Re-Tooling the Digital Past: Lessons Learned from the Sudden Shift to Online-Only (5 min lightning talk in 90 min Roundtable)

Abstract

What, if anything, can we learn about teaching and learning from the COVID-disrupted semester of spring 2020? As instructors for History 390: The Digital Past, my colleagues and I were in an interesting position to evaluate this. HIST 390 is a course that asks students to actively assess and reflect on the role technology plays in their daily lives. Going online therefore provided a chance to go "meta" and have students reflect on their own learning in an entirely online environment. The shift to online also brought me and the other instructors of the different course sections together to collaborate in a way that we likely would not have in a normal semester. In sum, a very unusual semester nevertheless led to new practices both with students and with other faculty that will be useful going forward.