From Seminar to Scholarship

Dr. J. Elizabeth Clark

Articles

Clark, J. Elizabeth. (2010). The Digital Imperative: Making the case for a 21st century pedagogy. Computers and Composition 27 (1), 27-35.

"Effective Pedagogy" in General Education and Liberal Learning: Principles of Effective Practice by Paul L.Gaston. Washington, D.C.: AAC&U, 2010.
"The Digital Imperative:  Making the Case for a 21stCentury Pedagogy," Computers and Composition, 27.1 (2010).
"ePortfolios @ 2.0: Surveying the Field," co-authored with Bret Eynon. Peer Review, 11.1(2009).
"NewWorlds of Error and Expectation: Basic Writers and Digital Assumptions," co-authored with Marisa A. Klages. Journal of Basic Writing, 28.1 (2009).
"Developing Core Skills in the Major," co-authored with Paul Arcario and Marisa Klages, Learning Communities and Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. Washington Center, 2007.
 “ePortfolio @ LaGuardia: A Learning Project," co-authored with Bret Eynon, Nancy Gross and Hector Graciano, In Transit: The LaGuardia Journal onTeaching and Learning, 1.2 (2006).
"VersusVerse: Teaching Poets Against the War," Radical Teacher, 74 (Fall 2005).
"Making Connections: Integrated Learning, Integrated Lives," co-authored with Paul Arcario and Bret Eynon, Peer Review,7.4 (2005).

Reflection

This article represents the 2009 culmination of my 9 year journey in teaching with technology.  I am not done on my journey! Everyday, I learn something new and think about incorporating new and different technologies in my classroom.   

However, I arrived on campus in 2000 having thought very little about using technology in my courses.  I had a pedagogy seminar in graduate school on teaching composition with computers, but it was not an entirely successful classroom experience for me.  I left feeling certain that computers did not need to be part of my teaching repertoire.

Within my first year at LaGuardia, however, I began to really think about the importance of what we now call "digital rhetoric" for my students and the essential connection between pedagogy and critical literacy.  As part of my work first with DFL and later with ePortfolio, I have learned the critical responsibility of teaching digital rhetoric in the 21st century.  I have moved from my understanding of Freire's concept of "reading the word, reading the world" in graduate school as purely literary to understanding it as critically digital.  I first began to think about and test out these theories in seminars run by LaGuardia's Center for Teaching and Learning.  I am grateful for the critical space the Center provided for my first experimentations with threaded discussion, blogs, and ePortfolio all of which helped me to build the confidence to seamlessly incorporate multiple technologies into my classes as an essential part of my pedagogy.

My article outlines the digital imperative:  the need for faculty to incorporate technology as the 21st century literacy in all of their classes.  I could not have done this work without the extensive support and collaboration of the Center for Teaching and Learning and the cross-disciplinary teams I have worked with.  Through the Center, I began my first explorations into intentionally teaching with technology.  Through the Center, I first encountered ePortfolios as part of the research team in 2002.  Through the Center, I have found a community of like-minded faculty on whom I depend as an essential part of my community of practice. While this article details my own classroom practice, it is also a conversation, with my students and with my colleagues who have guided me in this work along the way.