So I Have Adobe, Now What? Sheneese Thompson, Ph.D.

About me

• Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University
• Former Adobe Faculty Fellow
• Former Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning Fellow
• Center for Research & Mentoring Black Male Students and Teachers Faculty Fellow
• Your favorite student's favorite teacher!

Context

Faculty Buy-In

• Don't you want your grading to be fun?
• Would you like to consider some creative solutions to generative AI in the classroom?
• Would you like to participate in professional development that actually improves your teaching and student engagement?

Faculty Training/Incentive

• Wouldn't you love to participate in faculty development that looks good on your LinkedIn?
• How about faculty development that raises your own professional skills and profile?
• How about being paid to do it?
• What about improved course evaluations?
• Even better, how about items to add to your tenure dossier?

Curricular Integration

• Would you like to see your department/unit at the cutting edge of educational technology?
• What hard and soft skills do you want your majors/minors to have?
• What class(es) would provide the lowest lift and highest reach as pilot opportunities?
• What are some organic opportunities for collaboration across and between campuses?

Student Experience

• How are students being prepared to be competitive in the workforce/graduate study?
• Where is the overlap between content and skills acquisition?
• What will students be able to say when reflecting on their learning experience?

Course (re)Design

• Part of the process is selecting courses (gen-eds) which are a natural fit for (re)design. Some consideration might include, student reach, and alignments with course learning outcomes
• Multi-modal composition is usually a natural fit so english courses can be top of the list but don't have to be
• Key questions to ask might include:

What am I assessing?

How am I assessing it?

How can existing assessments be remixed?

What experience do I want my learners to have?

Case Study: Afro 775

Prep for Practicum Writing is an upper division writing course geared toward Afro-American Studies majors, but often enrolls majors from across campus because it satisfies the requirement for an upper division course

This semester is my second semester at my new institution and my first time teaching the course which was ripe for a re-design.

In the past, it was centered on research and writing a traditional term paper, and I needed to think of creative ways to stay aligned with course learning outcomes and add some technological flare.

In general, I have done away with the term paper in favor of a podcast, but that did not feel exactly right for this course.

With metacognition and multimodal composition in mind, I decided to frame the course around 1 assignment completed 3 ways. I admit this is an ambitious ask in 16 weeks!

1. Op-Ed
2. Research Paper
3. Podcast

I wanted to assess my students' ability to communicate their findings across audience, medium, and genre while encouraging them to skill up in digital media tools which is an increasing demand in the workforce.

Resources