Learning Innovation, Duke’s unit for educational transformation, digital learning, R&D, and learning technologies launched the Bass Digital Education Fellowship Program to prepare the next generation of academic innovators. This session highlights the program model, curriculum, institutional strategies and partnerships needed to engage academic leaders for a successful implementation.
Whether graduate students are planning academic or other professional careers, to be competitive they need to develop digital technology, pedagogy, learning design, and project management and consulting skills along with their academic credentials. Duke Learning Innovation, in partnership with the Graduate School, has developed a digital education fellowship program to prepare the next generation of academic innovators. This year-long fellowship provides PhD students with professional development and experiential learning in digital education. This session will focus on the rationale for and the details of this new program, and share the program model, curriculum, implementation strategies and evaluation approach that can inform introducing a similar program at your own institution.
Background
The Bass Digital Education Fellowship Program prepares students who wish to pursue traditional academic careers as well as those seeking careers in digital and academic innovation. Data from the Duke Graduate School on PhD career outcome statistics show graduate students pursue a broad range of careers beyond academia, many in business and industry. The Fellowship program is designed to provide co-curricular and experiential learning opportunities enabling graduate students to develop the skills they need to be competitive for either their academic or professional careers.
Purpose
The purpose of this session is to describe the core components of the fellowship program. This session will focus on the rationale for and the details of this new program, and share the program model, curriculum, implementation strategies and evaluation approach. The audience will become familiar with the course components, including GS762: Digital Pedagogy and Learning Design (a foundational course for the program). Participants will leave with a program guide that can inform implementation at their own institutions.
Program Model and Core Components
The presenter will describe and illustrate the program’s core components: (1) an open-source syllabus and course we developed on digital pedagogy and learning design that prepares students to critically engage with themes of 21st century teaching and learning; (2) an internship model that provides graduate students practical opportunity to develop digital learning and consultative skills in support of authentic projects that impact education, and (3) a collaborative, problem-solving model to explore instructional design challenges anchored on a foundation of design thinking for innovation.
Institutional Benefits
The benefits to the Duke community are many. In addition to providing professional development opportunities for graduate students, a benefit to Duke is the development of an interdisciplinary digital pedagogy culture among Duke graduate students and continuous growth of a network of faculty innovators. The program offers graduate students the opportunity to collaborate on leading-edge projects in partnership with Duke faculty and under the guidance of Learning Innovation staff. They support faculty to advance teaching innovation, to explore new digital technologies for learning, and to develop new online education models and programs. The program is designed to adapt to faculty needs, solve teaching challenges, and engage multiple stakeholders in education.
Program Evaluation
Program success will be based on impact to Duke undergraduate learning; portfolios that collect evidence of digital competencies; surveys to gather feedback from each Fellow on the project experience, and qualitative feedback to gather faculty and staff perspectives on the project deliverable.
Outcomes
As a result of attending the session, participants will be able to:
(1) Describe the core components of the fellowship program model and how it may be applied at their own institutions;
(2) Reflect on the experiential opportunities for graduate students to gain direct experience supporting faculty to advance teaching innovation;
(3) Collaborate with peers to brainstorm institutional strategies and partnerships to facilitate program implementation; and
(4) Understand the imperative, driven by industry demands, to offer opportunities for PhD students to distinguish themselves in the academic job market and to uncover new career pathways in digital education and academic innovation.
Format and Audience Engagement
Active learning - small groups to brainstorm institutional strategies to apply this model at your own university
Audience Q&A on the curriculum and program model (shared in a google drive)
Design guides for teaching the digital pedagogy course (shared in a google drive)
Slack channel for continued audience engagement after the session
Interactive Q&A/poll everywhere
Materials provided: slides, program templates, fellowship curriculum & course syllabus, web links