Digital Pedagogy and DH Praxis
Teaching the digital humanities is not just teaching tools; it is teaching a way of working — hands-on, collaborative, project-based — that treats making as a route to understanding. Digital pedagogy explores how students learn through building, and how that reshapes the humanities classroom.
Definition
The theory and practice of teaching and learning in the digital humanities, emphasizing hands-on, project-based, and collaborative methods through which making becomes a mode of humanistic understanding.
Scope
Covers the teaching and learning of digital humanities and the practice-based ethos of the field: project-based and hands-on pedagogy, the integration of digital methods into humanities curricula, and the idea that building and doing are themselves ways of learning and knowing. Includes the politics and labor of digital pedagogy.
Core questions
- How do students learn the humanities through building and doing?
- How can digital methods be integrated into humanities teaching?
- What is gained when making is treated as learning?
- What labor and equity issues does digital pedagogy raise?
Key concepts
- Project-based learning
- Hands-on pedagogy
- Building as knowing
- Curriculum integration
- Collaboration
Key theories
- Building as knowing and learning
- Ramsay and Rockwell's argument that building is a form of knowledge underwrites a pedagogy in which students learn by making digital objects.
- Practices, principles, and politics of DH teaching
- Hirsch and contributors examined how digital humanities is taught, the principles guiding it, and the institutional and political conditions of that work.
- Practical classroom integration
- Battershill and Ross offered concrete approaches for bringing digital methods into humanities courses for teachers and students alike.
History
As digital humanities grew, teaching it became a focus in its own right. Hirsch's 2012 volume gathered principles and practices; the building-as-knowing argument shaped a hands-on ethos; and practical guides such as Battershill and Ross (2017) supported integrating digital methods across humanities curricula.
Debates
- Tools versus critical understanding
- Whether digital pedagogy risks teaching software skills at the expense of critical, theoretical understanding, and how to balance the two.
Key figures
- Stephen Ramsay
- Geoffrey Rockwell
- Brett D. Hirsch
- Claire Battershill
- Shawna Ross
Related topics
Seminal works
- hirsch2012
- ramsay2012
- battershill2017
Frequently asked questions
- Do you need to learn programming to do digital humanities?
- Not necessarily. Digital pedagogy ranges from using ready-made tools to writing code. Many programs emphasize learning through projects and collaboration, with technical depth varying by goal; the common thread is hands-on engagement with digital methods.