What also set the RNF apart for me were the keynote speakers, specifically Rebecca Moore Howard and Sandra Jamieson, the Principal Researchers for the Citation Project. Their talk, “Take a Deep Breath and Jump: Doing Data-Driven Research When you Aren’t Trained in Data-Driven Methods,” discussed the trials and tribulations of working with statisticians (and IRB) to most accurately the results of their findings. Moore also discussed her transformation from a rhet/comp scholar who based her arguments largely on classroom observation to one who based her claims on data, and, with the Citation Project, big data.

The other conference, then, was the Cs itself: a good deal of one-way paper-giving, some highlights, some lowlights, and some well-travelled paths of research. It was because of the RNF, though, that I specifically noted the lack of panels or featured talks about data – big data, data mining, and, perhaps most conspicuous of all, dedicated Digital Humanities topics.

It’s impossible to know the whole content of the conference, all the panels, and even individual papers (they can go SO far off what their titles suggest), but searching through the program, only the RNF keynote spoke of data-driven research specifically. Another panel, “Gateways for Methodology: Report on a Summer Seminar for Building Disciplinary Research Capacity,” ostensbily hits on the topic some, especially with Charles Bazerman’s paper, “The Need for Building Research Capacity in Writing and Composition Studies.”

It was noticable, too, that only one panel at the Cs had “Digital Humanities” in the title, despite DH’s increasing attention and relevance at other conferences, especially the MLA. (NB: at least one paper outside of that panel had “Digital Humanities” in its title, and several other papers had some relevance to the field, including one on data mining.)

In the one clearly dedicated DH panel, “New Gateways for Research: Digital humanities and Writing Studies,” Matthew Gold spoke of the long-held (or perceived) split between Composition Studies and Literary Studies, the latter of which has been a comfy home for DH scholarship. Composition Studies, despite being housed in the English department, doesn’t think of itself as literary, Gold argued. And he’s right – Composition Studies probably doesn’t even think of itself as the Humanities.

And so it was very noticable to me that, despite the increasing need for and ability to do data-driven research in the Humanities, the Cs seemed to mostly miss the boat – whether by the choice and selectivity of the conference organizers or by the collective absence of Comp/Rhet scholars who have that focus, I’m not sure. That a keynote or featured speaker on big data belonged only in a pre-conference workshop (though – irony – the workshop was dedicated to research topics and methods) seems to say a lot.

To say that there’s a data “problem,” of course, insinuates that what’s in the program now isn’t quite right, or not good enough, and I don’t want to necessarily  suggest that; Rhet/Comp gets great strength from having a wide variety of interestes represetned at its conference. But William Hart-Davidson, the DH session’s chair, was right when he closed with an inceasingly common – but neverthesless exigent – call for increasing the amount of digital studies (and DH work specifically) in a world inevitably swept up in technology. Digital methods and big data can better speak the language of disciplines outside of the Humanities, and can often foster more collabortaion (one of DH’s core values).

Maybe I shouldn’t be at all surprised by this – both the “social turn” in rhet/comp as well as post-process theory suggest that rhetoric and writing are processes so amorphous that science and its methods can’t possibly help describe their workings. To that effect, studies of writing and cognition were booted as well, leaving studies of how students actually perceive and process writing largely to psychology departments.

I’ll write more ehre about what I think is the necessity for bringing contemporary studies of cogniiton back into writing research, but to me, it’s clear already that comp/rhet’s shying away (or disdain for) data-driven methods only serves to keep it in its already well-formed silo(s). To truly bust out into more disciplines and make studies of writing matter beyond the immediate discipline, data-driven methods are invaluable, and it certainly seems that DH – as the discipline in the Humantieis that deals with big data – is well-poised to make inroads down the way.

(A small note here, and something I will discuss more, is how cognitive science absolutely begs the question of how instruction is delivered, so as you read these pieces – especially those under “multimedia construction” – keep in mind that these are very general principles, often geared towards very general populations of novice learners.  Classroom dynamics MUST change so that teachers can use the strategies discussed in these pieces to engage students on their individual level of cognition.)

Introductions to Cognition, Learning, and Nueroscience

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Bransford, John, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking, eds. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Expanded ed. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, 2000. Print.

Cavanagh, Sheila T. “Bringing Our Brains to the Humanities.” Pedagogy 10.1 (2010): 131-142. Print.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print. (Pop, but by a Nobel Winner, and very engaging).

Kandel, Eric R. In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print. (Another Nobel winner.  This is a history of the research and gets very scientific, but is fascinating in the nerdiest of ways.)

Medina, John. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Reprint. Seattle: Pear Press, 2009. Print. (VERY pop, but based on good science that he cites in appendices).

Plass, Jan L., Roxana Moreno, and Roland Brünken. Cognitive Load Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

Cognition and Multimedia Construction

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Brunyé, Tad T. et al. “Learning Procedures: The Role of Working Memory in Multimedia Learning Experiences.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 20.7 (2006): 917-940. Web. 4 June 2010.

Dubois, M., and I. Vial. “Multimedia Design: The Effects of Relating Multimodal Information.” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 16.2 (2000): 157-165. Web. 4 June 2010.

Feinberg, Susan, and Margaret Murphy. “Applying Cognitive Load Theory to the Design of Web-based Instruction.” Proceedings of IEEE Professional Communication Society International Professional Communication Conference and  Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM International Conference on Computer Documentation: Technology \& Teamwork. Cambridge, Massachusetts: IEEE Educational Activities Department, 2000. 353-360. Web. 14 June 2010.

Kalyuga, Slava, Paul Chandler, and John Sweller. “Managing Split-attention and Redundancy in Multimedia Instruction.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 13.4 (1999): 371, 351. Print.

Lee, Jiunde. “The Effects of Visual Metaphor and Cognitive Style for Mental Modeling in a Hypermedia-based Environment.” Interacting with Computers 19.5/6 (2007): 614-629.

Mayer, Richard E. Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print.

Mayer, Richard E., and Roxana Moreno. “Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning.” Educational Psychologist 38.1 (2003): 43. Web. 24 Oct. 2010.

Mayer, Richard, and Richard Anderson. “The Instructive Animation: Helping Students Build Connections Between Words and Pictures in Multimedia Learning.” Journal of Educational Psychology 84.4 (1992): 452, 444. Print.

Mayer, Richard, and Roxana Moreno. “A Split-attention Effect in Multimedia Learning: Evidence for Dual Processing Systems in Working Memory.” Journal of Educational Psychology 90.2 (1998): 312-320. Web. 8 June 2010.

Mousavi, Seyed Yaghoub, Renae Low, and John Sweller. “Reducing Cognitive Load by Mixing Auditory and Visual Presentation Modes.” Journal of Educational Psychology 87.2 (1995): 319-334. Web. 8 June 2010.

Cognition and Learning

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Baddeley, Alan. “Working Memory.” Science 255.5044 (1992): 556-559. Web. 8 June 2010.

Chandler, Paul, and John Sweller. “Cognitive Load Theory and the Format of Instruction.” Cognition and Instruction 8.4 (1991): 332, 293. Print.

Clark, James M., and Allan Paivio. “Dual Coding Theory and Education.” Educational Psychology Review 3.3 (1991): 149-170. Web. 26 Aug. 2010.

Hasson, Uri, Landesman, Ohad. “Neurocinematics: The Neuroscience of Film.” Projections 2.1 (2008): 1-26. Web. 6 June 2011.

Kalyuga, Slava, Paul Chandler, and John Sweller. “Levels of Expertise and Instructional Design.” Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 40.1 (1998): 1-17. Web. 8 June 2010.

Sweller, John. “Cognitive Load Theory, Learning Difficulty, and Instructional Design.” Learning and Instruction 4.4 (1994): 312, 295. Print.

Sweller, John, Jeroen van Merrienboer, and Fred Paas. “Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design.” Educational Psychology Review 10.3 (1998): 251-296. Web. 8 June 2010.

van Merriënboer, Jeroen J. G., and John Sweller. “Cognitive Load Theory and Complex Learning: Recent Developments and Future Directions.” Educational Psychology Review 17.2 (2005): 147-177. Web. 8 June 2010.

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Hacker, Douglas J., Matt C. Keener, and John Kircher. “Writing Is Applied Metacognition.” Handbook of Metacognition in Education. 1st ed. Ed. Douglas J. Hacker, John Dunlosky, & Arthur C. Graesser. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Kellogg, Ronald. “Training Writing Skills: A Cognitive Developmental Perspective.” Journal of Writing Research 1.1 (2008): 1-26. Print.

Kellogg, Ronald T, and Bascom A Raulerson. “Improving the Writing Skills of College Students.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14.2 (2007): 237-242. Print.

Kellogg, Ronald T, and Alison P Whiteford. “Training Advanced Writing Skills: The Case for Deliberate Practice.” Educational Psychologist 44.4 (2009): 250-266. Web. 26 Aug. 2010.

Kellogg, Ronald T. “A Model of Working Memory in Writing.” The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods, Individual Differences and Applications. Ed. C. Michael Levy & Sarah Ransdell. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996. 75-91. Print.

—. The Psychology of Writing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.

Kellogg, Ronald T., Thierry Olive, and Annie Piolat. “Verbal, Visual, and Spatial Working Memory in Written Language Production.” Acta Psychologica 124.3 (2007): 382-397. Web. 26 Aug. 2010.

McCutchen, Deborah. “A Capacity Theory of Writing: Working Memory in Composition.” Educational Psychology Review 8.3 (1996): 299. Print.

—. “Knowledge, Processing, and Working Memory: Implications for a Theory of Writing.” Educational Psychologist 35.1 (2000): 13-23. Print.

Ransdell, Sarah, and C. Michael Levy. “Working Memory Constraints in Writing Quality and Fluency.” The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods, Individual Differences and Applications. Ed. C. Michael Levy, & Sarah Randsell. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996. 93-106. Print.

Torrance, M, and G.C. Jeffrey. “Writing Processes and Cognitive Demands.” The Cognitive Demands of Writing: Processing Capacity and Working Memory in Text Production. Ed. M Torrance & G.C. Jeffrey. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999. 1-11. Print.

The format of these unconferences makes it almost impossible to come away from them not energized, but I was especially glad to see that the discussion of pedagogy and DH ran throughout THATCamp LAC; it’s a conversation that I think still hasn’t happened enough.  As practitioners in a continually burgeoning field, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to define what DH is – from innumerable blog posts (this older one has a good conversation in the comments) to “The Past and Future of Digital Humanities” at MLA.  Though there’s very little across the board agreement on what DH essentially is, the dictum of “doing” almost universally rears its head.

The “Less Yack, More Hack” paradigm makes good sense to make the field more robust, but I always thought that slogan ran the danger of being a disservice to DH.  It’s understandable to spend some time avoiding high theory (which may have run its course anyway), but the danger was that we wouldn’t talk theoretically at all – about where the field should go, what issues may arise in the near future, and most importantly – to me – how we would communicate and use the field and its products in the classroom.

No doubt we’ve driven towards the pedagogy discussion; Katherine Harris has largely summed up efforts in a post-MLA 2011 piece, and surely conversations of various sizes are taking place all around the community (and please post in the comments if you have some good specific examples).  But the conversation seems to be really gaining steam from within major DH channels.  THATCamp LAC ended its run with two great sessions on teaching with tech, and DH pedagogy will be well-represented at MLA 2012.

I’m glad to see the fervor of DH in general being whipped into pedagogy as well; communicating our field to administrators and institutions is important, of course, but reaching the next generation effectively will keep this whole crazy train rolling in years to come.  It seems, then, that THATCamp Pedagogy couldn’t be better timed, well-positioned between THATCamp LAC and MLA.  I’ll be there will bells on, and presenting a Bootcamp on novice learners, cognition, and best practices when teaching with technology in general.  It will be great if we have a wide variety of  attendees who can spread the energy to our students.