Kelly Schrum
“There’s a life after this class,” wrote a scholarly digital storytelling student. “We are creating content that is useable, valuable, shareable.”
Digital storytelling can be many things: narrative . . . interactive . . . linear . . . nonlinear . . . ethnographic. . . artistic. It can also be scholarly. In higher education, it can provide a compelling approach to reimagining academic research, intended audiences, and scholarly communication and to teaching practical digital skills. It can create authentic, meaningful learning with a lasting impact beyond the classroom.
This poster presents research on scholarly digital storytelling addressing the following questions: 1) Does participation in scholarly digital storytelling influence students’ academic research? 2) Does participation in scholarly digital storytelling facilitate communication of scholarly work beyond the classroom? 3) Do students apply skills learned through scholarly digital storytelling in other academic and non-academic environments?
Digital storytelling is commonly used for crafting personal narratives. Faculty have begun to incorporate it into higher education teaching and learning. This research emphasizes scholarly digital storytelling in graduate and undergraduate classrooms with a focus on meaningful learning in the classroom and long-term outcomes. It builds on several decades of SoTL work and addresses noted SoTL gaps by focusing on graduate education and longitudinal work beyond individual learning experiences.
This qualitative, collective case study includes a review of syllabi, assignments, and student work as well as semi-structured interviews with students who have taken the author’s course and with faculty and their students internationally. The poster, including sample student stories, will focus on creating a meaningful culture of learning with scholarly digital storytelling and exploring its lasting impact.
