Digital Integration Teaching Initiative

At the core of the Digital Integration Teaching Initiative model is an ethos of collaboration: we aim to help CSSH faculty integrate digital proficiencies into the curriculum of their courses. This integrative model takes time, careful planning, and collaborative work on the part of faculty members and the DITI team.

Most DITI modules are taught by our team of graduate student Fellows, who have a broad range of expertises in digital methods, tools, and pedagogies. We at the DITI believe that our partnerships should be learning experiences for all those involved, including not just the students in the classes that we visit, but also our faculty partners and our own graduate student team. We see DITI collaborations as a chance for our Fellows to gain valuable experience in teaching for different contexts, and for our faculty partners to learn new skills and effective approaches to introducing technical subjects in humanities and social science courses. We frame all our partnerships as collaborations among experts, with the extensive pedagogical and technical expertises of DITI Fellows complementing expert faculty knowledge to expand the skills and proficiencies of CSSH students.

Our goal is for faculty partners to work closely with the DITI team so that in the future they will be able to teach the modules themselves, but DITI team members can remain available for assistance and ongoing planning.

Partnership Roles

To ensure that partnerships are successful, we have set out a few guidelines. Faculty members should plan to:

• Reserve time that works best for both the course and the DITI team members’ schedules; without sufficient lead time, we may not be able to accommodate a specific date.
• Distribute the appropriate materials, arrange downloads of data/software, and send advance instructions to students so they are well-prepared for the class as needed.
• Attend the class during workshop days. This helps faculty partners learn the material themselves, and address any course-specific questions from students as they arise.

Types of Partnerships

We offer several types of partnerships between faculty and DITI Fellows to incorporate computational and digital skills into existing course content:

We are also able to accommodate other types of partnerships with sufficient advance notice. Please note that some partnerships will take longer than others to develop, especially if the content is new. For all partnerships, however, both the class date and type of partnership must be specified before the semester begins.

Partnership Timeline

To ensure that we are able to accommodate all requests, we have established a timeline for DITI partnerships. Partnerships begin early in the semester before the class is offered in order to provide sufficient time to create teaching materials, reserve times for class visits, and modify materials based on faculty partner feedback. After the initial consultation, DITI team members will remain in touch throughout the planning and teaching processes to ensure the success of our digital modules.

When you have completed the CFP intake form, the DITI team will reach out to schedule a planning consultation. We will also send information on how you can reserve a week or weeks for a class visit. We can only successfully teach a limited number of class visits per week, and weekly reservations are done on a first-come first-served basis. Note that some weeks are historically more popular than others, particularly during the beginning and middle of the semester. We will make every effort to accommodate your schedule, but we may not be able to offer a visit during your desired week(s) if you are unable to meet with us or confirm the timing and logistics of your visit.

Please note that the DITI typically brings on a new cohort of Fellows at the start of the summer and we often add new team members in the fall. This means that our faculty partners may work with different DITI Fellows over the course of a partnership, and that the DITI team will bring different levels of previous experience to the very wide range of materials we teach. We strive to ensure consistency across all our partnerships, but we also ask faculty partners to remember that DITI Fellowships are a learning opportunity for our graduate students.

Data Considerations

We recommend that faculty partners select data for workshops, projects, and presentations during advance planning for the module. Faculty partners should plan to provide or point to datasets that are relevant to the course and to consult with DITI team members on what kinds of data are needed for different assignments or workshops. In some cases, the DITI team may be able to assist with data gathering. See the DITI’s resources on data considerations for more information.