Digital in the Classroom: Alternative Modes of Formative Assessment

I use a critical making framework in my classes. The term is associated with scholars like Matt Ratto and Roger Whitson and it is closely linked to design thinking pedagogy. Critical making can be described as a process of material exploration and creation to promote understanding.  By making objects linked to culture, the maker gains understanding about the subject.  Critical Making is often associated with design and engineering education, but increasingly these activities are being incorporated into the humanities and social science because of the abundant of digital tools available to faculty and students. Traditionally, I describe this process in my courses as scaled cognitive exercises.  Meaning, these projects require you to start an endeavor by exploring archival materials linked to the course subject matter and then use that material to create a final project using a digital tool.  As a historian, I see the digital space as a natural arena to execute the historian’s traditional practice of engaging an audience with a narrative. My definition of digital humanities activities can be summarized as chronicling, preserving, and presenting historical narratives using a variety of digital tools.  History traditionally recognizes the changing nature of communication and moves to understand the opportunities and challenges represented by those changes. Past experience demonstrates while new tools offer innovative opportunities, the core skills associated with historical study remain crucial. I experience with different modes on a continual basis. Project Insight was an attempt to use animation in class. Below you can see my introduction animation and several produced by students in African American History course. Produced in 2012, this project allowed me to think through some concepts connected to making as a mode of learning.  The students started with a primary source reader and picked specific documents as the inspiration for these animations.

As a class project for HIS 240: African-American History I students will create animation shorts based on their interpretation of historic documents linked to the African experience. In the process of creating these animated shorts, students will need to first fully comprehend the meaning linked to the document in order to clearly articulate the document's historical significance.

Animation based on debate published in 1849 between Frederick Douglass and Samuel R. Ward over the ideas linked to slavery in the constitution. Is the constitution a pro-slavery or anti-slavery document.

In 1793 Benjamin Banneker, a noted African-American inventor and mathematician published letters between himself and Thomas Jefferson. Banneker wrote to Jeff...

Frederick Douglass discounts claims made in Types of Mankind, a book that asserts African-Americans are not members of the human race.

In 1829 David Walker published his An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a pamphlet calling for African-American action against slavery in the United States.