UW Teaching and Learning Symposium
The UW Teaching and Learning Symposium, hosted each year by the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Forum, brings together faculty, graduate students, and staff to present via poster sessions their ideas, experiences, and best practices in teaching. It was an eye-opening opportunity to see not only what other instructors and teachers were doing across campus but also to see where the digital humanities and specifically video game studies fit into the campus’s larger pedagogical map. Though attention to the use of games and other digital technology is growing at UW, I realized that there was a definite need to foreground the kinds of critical and cultural work on video games that I employ in my classes, particularly engaging questions about “digital natives” and video games as worthwhile objects of analysis. I developed and presented posters (with Timothy Welsh) at the 2010 and 2011 Teaching and Learning Symposiums.
2011 Description: “Close Playing, or, Video Games as Practicum”
Building on our work on “Teaching (with) Video Games” from last year’s symposium, this year’s presentation engages the question, “How do you critically play and analyze video games?” Drawing on our 2-credit Winter 2011 focus group class called “Close Playing, or, Bioshock as Practicum,” we will define and demonstrate the practice and pedagogy of “close playing” and “paired playing” to think about ways to read, analyze, and play video games like you would close read a novel or a film. Like close reading, close playing requires careful attention to how the game is played (or not played), to what kind of game it is, to the design of the game, to what choices are offered (or not offered) to the player, to what the goals of the game are, to how the game interacts with and addresses the player, to how the game fits into the real world, and so on. In other words, before we can take video games as serious objects of study, we need to develop ways to frame them, study them, and to seriously play them.
2010 Description: “Save Points: Teaching (with) Video Games”
As part of the Critical Gaming Project (CGP) at UW, we have offered several undergraduate CHID and ENGL courses on video games. Like reading, watching films, and argumentative writing, playing and critiquing video games is an acquired skill, a “digital” literacy. Ironically, students, who are assumed to be enthusiastic and embracing of games, are often resistant to analyzing video games — to do so would take the “fun” out of games. Therefore, drawing on our experiences developing, teaching, and assessing these courses, this session hopes to explore and illuminate the ways video games can be brought into the classroom, the challenges and logistics of using video games, and most importantly, different critical approaches to playing and teaching video games. Our session will include interactive examples of game play and video game pedagogy.
Research Exposed!
In Autumn 2007, I was invited to present my work on World of Warcraft to undergraduate students as part of the Research Exposed! course. Made possible by the Odegaard Undergraduate Library and Learning Commons, the Undergraduate Research Program, and Undergraduate Academic Affairs, Research Exposed! (GEN ST 391) offers the students an opportunity to learn about current research in a wide variety of disciplines, including the process of discovery, how faculty come up with an idea for research, how inquiry is structured in the different disciplines, and how students can become involved in the knowledge-making process. My colleague Jentery Sayers organized the presentation entitled “Becoming Technoliterate: Engaging Undergraduates in Technoculture Studies Research.”
The Research Exposed! presentation gave me the opportunity to speak to a large group of undergraduates about my work in technoculture and video game studies. I found the session to be energizing and the students were enthusiastic, engaged, and asked insightful questions (it was also Halloween and many were dressed-up). It is always a challenge to translate your work and your arguments for different audiences, and I realized the importance of being inclusive and attentive to different familiarities with theories and texts I was using.
The program allowed me to introduce students to my work as an English graduate student who works with more than just books and traditional media. I also talked about how I bring my research into my classes and my teaching. It also provided an opportunity to invite them to participate in collaboratories like the Critical Gaming Project.
For other sections of my portfolio, go to:
- Designing & Making
- Writing, Editing, & Curating
- Teaching & Presenting
- Past Projects
- Dissertation & MA Thesis
- Awards
- Portfolio Overview