Jesse Stommel 
Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies | University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA, UNITED STATES
Dr. Stommel focuses on faculty development and digital education.
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Biography
Jesse Stommel is founding director of Hybrid Pedagogy, a digital journal of learning, teaching and technology and co-founder of the Digital Pedagogy Lab. An advocate for pedagogy and the public digital humanities, he has worked in faculty development in various ways since 2003.
A documentary filmmaker, he teaches courses about digital pedagogy, film and new media. He experiments relentlessly with learning interfaces, both digital and analog, and works in his research and teaching to emphasize new forms of collaboration.
Besides Mary Washington, Dr. Stommel has held faculty positions at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marylhurst University.
Areas of Expertise (3)
Digital Humanities
Digital Pedagogy
Faculty Development
Education (1)
University of Colorado Boulder: Ph.D.
Links (4)
Media Appearances (13)
How Your Syllabus Can Cater to Every Student
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2020-06-11
As Jesse Stommel, a senior lecturer and digital-learning fellow at the University of Mary Washington, in Virginia, said when I was working on our recent report on preparing for an online fall, a professor could give students the option of attending a discussion in Zoom — or writing a reflection, or posting to a discussion board. In addition to providing access, Stommel said, such choices can lead to better discussions since students get to pick a format that appeals to them.
Is the fight against cheating during remote instruction worth enlisting third-party student surveillance platforms?
Inside Higher Education online
2020-05-12
Jesse Stommel, senior lecturer in digital studies at the University of Mary Washington and co-founder of the Digital Pedagogy Lab, said “cheating is a pedagogical issue, not a technological one. There are no easy solutions.”
The work doesn’t begin “with an app or a license for a remote proctoring tool,” he said. Instead, teachers have to start by talking “openly to students about when and how learning happens,” so they take ownership of their educations.
“We have to start by trusting students and using approaches that rely on intrinsic motivation, not policies, surveillance and suspicion.” Everyone wants this pivot to all-online instruction to work, Stommel added, and anxieties about testing are high. But maintaining “the status quo isn’t possible and so-called solutions like remote proctoring tools will create many more problems than they solve.”
Chemistry educators try ‘ungrading’ techniques to help students learn
cen.acs.org online
2020-04-27
For educators like Jesse Stommel, a digital studies lecturer at the University of Mary Washington, the answer has always been no. Stommel advocates what he calls the ungrading approach. With this approach, “the goal isn’t always to remove grades completely,” he says. “The idea of ungrading is turning grades on their head.” Stommel wants to involve students more deeply in the grading process, including having them assess themselves.
‘On a Desert Island With Your Students’: Professors Discuss the Weirdness of Teaching Remotely in a Pandemic
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2020-04-08
As they try to sort through the practical and philosophical matters of stitching their courses back together, professors might be looking for a place to talk. They might even be looking for community. That’s what Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel figured when they decided to start holding “open, online office hours” for instructors weekly, on Fridays.
Colleges flock to online proctors, but equity concerns remain
Education Dive online
2020-04-08
"Let go of the idea of continuity," said Jesse Stommel, a digital learning expert and lecturer at the University of Mary Washington, cautioning institutions to not assume they "can continue on with business as usual" during the pandemic.
US colleges adopt pass-fail rules, stirring wider reform
Times Higher Education online
2020-04-06
Beyond the considerable biases associated with letter grades, said Jesse Stommel, a digital learning expert at the University of Mary Washington, there’s evidence that they provide poor signals to other educators and employers while reducing motivation and enjoyment for students and teachers.
“I would do away with grades altogether,” said Dr Stommel, a senior lecturer in digital studies.
As Times and Students Change, Can Faculty Change, Too?
Inside Higher Ed online
2020-04-03
For faculty who work contingently, it can be hard to do creative work, said Jesse Stommel, a senior lecturer of digital studies at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of Hybrid Pedagogy, a journal for digital pedagogy. The stresses from that precarious job position, which often provides little security and doesn’t pay well, make experimentation with pedagogy and teaching difficult.
“When we defund public education, when we make the work of teaching increasingly precarious, we make it extraordinarily difficult to do this work,” he said
To Grade or Not to Grade? During Coronavirus, That Is The Question
edsurge.com online
2020-03-18
Except—striving for continuity may be a bit delusional right now. Or it may be an effort that betrays misplaced priorities. That’s the view of Jesse Stommel, a digital learning fellow and senior lecturer at the University of Mary Washington.
“I don’t want there to be ‘continuity.’ I want my students to deal with their lives,” he says. “I don’t have any expectations of continuity in my course. I let go of that the instant this started to happen.”
How Can You Find Time to Connect With Students — When There’s Never Enough Time?
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2020-02-13
Jesse Stommel, a senior lecturer and digital-learning fellow at the University of Mary Washington, explains his discomfort with the idea of “scaffolding,” which he argues breaks learning into neat chunks without being responsive to students, in an essay for the American Association of University Professors.
Do edtech apps keep student data safe?
Times Higher Education online
2020-01-14
Jesse Stommel, executive director of the division of teaching and learning technologies at the University of Mary Washington, said that edtech providers had a responsibility to do more than just legally protect themselves with terms and conditions. “The onus has to be on the tech companies themselves to educate the users about data security and data monetisation…say ‘here’s why I’m collecting it, here’s what I hope to do with it, here’s why it should matter to you’,” he said.
A Teacher’s New Year’s Resolution: Stop Fixating on the Data
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2020-01-09
Jesse Stommel, a senior lecturer at the University of Mary Washington and founder of the blog Hybrid Pedagogy, has argued persuasively on Twitter: "We’ve taken for granted that scaffolding is necessarily good. Any pedagogical approach should be looked at with one eyebrow raised. Especially one as widely accepted as instructional scaffolding." He added, "Scaffolding should be done with students, not before they’ve arrived on the scene."
Can ‘Microscholarships’ Steer Student Behavior?
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2019-09-27
That’s in part because many faculty members are skeptical anytime companies profit from influencing academic matters. Jesse Stommel, a senior lecturer in digital studies at the University of Mary Washington, in Virginia, is one of them. Stommel likes that RaiseMe gives students “very visible and clear goalposts” for what they should do, he said.
A California high school found students' cellphones too distracting, so they're locking the devices up
NBC News online
2019-08-29
Removing cellphones won’t curb students' distractions, instead, people will just be distracted by other things, said Jesse Stommel, executive director of the division of teaching and learning technology at the University of Mary Washington. Cellphones are deeply entrenched in our lives, which can’t be ignored, he said. Students will respond better by implementing cellphones in a more effective way in the classroom.
“It’s better to help students figure out how to manage distractions instead of trying to eliminate it. It’s better to harness it and help make it productive.”
Articles (1)
Sean Michael Morris, Jesse Stommel
2014
Critics of MOOCs and connected learning environments in general assert that they are too susceptible to neoliberal motivations, that MOOCs propose to replace 1000 local instructors with one famous one, and that the “disruption” that MOOCs promise will ultimately be the disruption of traditional academic culture altogether. Certainly, this anxiety is worth exploring, for, as we know, no technological platform, no code, is ideologically neutral. However, to eschew the methodologies of online communities—which, in terms of new media practices, certainly pre-date the first MOOCs because they run the risk of being co-opted is reactionary...
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