Teaching Digital Literacy to 2,600 Business Students Annually

Digital skills needed…this is an industry agnostic entry level job requirement encountered by today’s business students. Recruiters and business professionals alike expect today’s students to arrive at work with a basic digital skillset that can be molded to meet the business’ specific set of technology tools and tasks. MIS undergraduate business programs incorporate intro-level technology courses with this in mind. This is a case study on the challenges of Teaching Digital Literacy at a Large Scale, where faculty increasingly encounter students with significant and varying digital deficits. This TREO talk includes shared experiences of two entry level core MIS courses at Temple University that teach technology skills to Business students at a large scale. Approximately 2,600 students enroll in these courses each academic year. Each course requires the download and installation of free software and associated project files. The typical section consists of 100-120 students taught synchronously in-person and online. The courses teach entry level Python Coding and Data Visualization using IDLE and Tableau, respectively. Most students have little to no prior knowledge of these tools prior to the start of the semester. This content introduction provides foundational skills and understanding for MIS majors and exposes non-MIS majors to tools they will work with in their respective fields. Students typically have multiple digital devices (mobile, laptop, wearables, tablets, etc.,) in class; however, many students struggle with basic Computer Competency. Challenges range from downloading and installing software on their laptops, to unfamiliarity with zip files and saving content to their laptop c:/drive in lieu of the cloud. We were aware of these competency challenges prior to each course’s development (based on our collective experiences teaching program at scale). We selected textbooks that would support the introduction of digital tools, we prepared instructional materials and designed corresponding In-Class Activities. Our implementation approach was based on the pedagogy of our previous programming initiative. What we found surprised us. Our expectation was that each student cohort would arrive with the Basic Digital Skills required to implement the download and installation processes. Observational analysis of our classrooms informed us that the opposite was true. Topics for Discussion include: 1. Teaching business students skills they need to learn for jobs they do not yet have. 2. Teaching implementation of technology tools in large class sizes formats. 3. Challenges for first time faculty and adjuncts teaching today’s students 4. Creating implementation tools and sharing resources at this scale. We will discuss the in-classroom challenges encountered at this scale, share our methodologies, solutions and facilitate an exchange of ideas about other approaches to these types of issues.