Innovations in Digital Pedagogy Fellowships fund and manage pilot course-based projects that have the potential to contribute to Hamilton’s goal of building a campus-wide digital learning community. The fellowships assist faculty in creating digitally focused assignments and in developing pedagogical strategies in any curricular area. The projects:

• innovate with technology-enabled pedagogies
• infuse digital competencies into new and existing courses or
• explore the impact of technology through classroom instruction, assignments, and co-curricular experiences.

In this two-year process, faculty fellows work with LITS colleagues to develop or refine specific course assignment(s) that include digital learning approaches. The structure of the funded projects and related activities can take many forms, but bold initiatives and collaboration are especially valued. The fellowships are sponsored jointly by the Dean of Faculty and Library and Information Technology Services.

2019 Awards

• Jose Ceniseros, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
  Ben Smith, Director of the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center
  Branden Stone, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics
• Ella Gant, Professor of Art
• Viva Horowitz, Assistant Professor of Physics
• Katharine Kuharic, Professor of Art
• Janelle Schwartz, General Director of the Hamilton Adirondack Program
• Peter Simons, Visiting Assistant Professor of History
   

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Jose Ceniseros, Ben Smith, Branden Stone

Description
Faculty in the Mathematics Department will collaborate with the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center and LITS to integrate new digital tools into the teaching and support of Calculus 2 and 3. The project will employ the Maple and WeBWork platforms to enable faculty and students to create and distribute digital content, including lab assignments, review exercises, and open-ended exams. Maple will be used to introduce students to design thinking through writing scripts to create 3D visualizations of complex mathematical objects and associated data. WeBWork will bridge the gap between classroom learning and the support provided by the QSR Center’s peer tutors, who will have the ability to to create helpful content using the same platforms as instructors.

LITS Consultants
Glynis Asu, Doug Higgins

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Ella Gant

Description
Students in Professor Gant's advanced video course (ART 313) will gain skills in creating their own digital identity while gaining an understanding of website and blog creation along with important design skills that directly tie into to the student learning objective of “aesthetic discernment.” The initial stage of this project will introduce basic tools and concepts into the art department and digital arts curriculum that result in creatively produced, ethically considered, aesthetically analyzed, and professionally presented web-based video portfolios. The larger vision includes using this class structure as a model for introducing cPanel and WordPress as core digital and web-design skills for all Hamilton students across media areas and disciplinary practices beyond video production.

LITS Consultants
Sacharja Cunningham, Lynn Mayo, Bret Olsen, Ben Salzman

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Viva Horowitz

Description
Professor Horowitz’s new course on quantum computing will provide an opportunity for career-bound students in physics and related disciplines to connect the esoteric world of quantum mechanics with the practical world of computer engineering. An important component of the class will be to introduce students without any programming experience to coding by writing small scripts in Python. Students will develop these programming skills through online, interactive tutorials developed by Horowitz and LITS instructional designers. In addition, students will be using a course blog to communicate their learning processes with one another.

LITS Consultants
Glynis Asu, Doug Higgins, Ben Salzman

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Katharine Kuharic

Description
In her 100-level figure drawing course (ART 160) Professor Kuharic will ask her students to go beyond the traditional tools and forms of drawing to learn how 3D printing technology maps and plots two-dimensional information mathematically into physically realized objects. Students will first produce carefully articulated two-dimensional drawings in multiple perspectives, from which contemporary anatomical casts will be 3D printed. Through the process of scanning their drawings, students will gain a better understanding of proportion, perspective, geometric form and the visual effects of light and shadow. Their 3D printed models will form the beginning of a teaching collection of models for students of drawing, painting, sculpture and anatomy.

LITS Consultants
Doug Higgins, Lynn Mayo

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Janelle Schwartz

Description
Students working on their Hamilton Adirondack Program capstone project (COLEG 373) under the guidance of Professor Schwartz will explore ways in which digital technologies can support, enhance, and advocate for the rural, wilderness-based communities in the Adirondack Park. In particular, they will develop skills with blogging, mapping and video technology through their contribution to three discrete projects both individually and in teams. They will create a shared WordPress site and blog to document and reflect on their individual and common experiences. They will collect information related to existing medical and health facilities and make their findings publicly available through a dynamic map created with ArcGIS Online. Finally, they will become digital media creators by producing 3-5-minute documentaries about critical Adirondack issues that will be shared with the local community at the conclusion of the semester.

LITS Consultants
Glynis Asu, Doug Higgins, Bret Olsen, Deborah Reichler

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Peter Simons

Description
Students in Professor Simons’ “Re-Mapping American Frontiers” (HIST 245) course will use College Hill as a cartographic laboratory in which to better understand spatial relationships and develop the digital skills needed to represent them. They will then apply the skills developed in their exploration of this familiar space to the nation as whole in a second assignment that questions traditional narratives of westward expansion, demonstrates how different cultures conceptualized and used space, and makes clear the mechanics through which the United States added to its territory. In both cases, students will make their work publicly available to a wide audience through the creation of multi-layered, digital atlases.

LITS Consultants
Reid Larson, Lisa McFall, Deborah Reichler