Speaking and Consulting

I offer keynotes and workshops internationally, both virtually and face-to-face. I collaborate with schools, educational technology companies, and other organizations working to shape and reshape education. I have expertise in:

• higher education pedagogy
• ungrading and alternative assessment
• critical digital pedagogy
• designing for care
• open education
• online learning
• educational technology
• public digital humanities
• facilitating dialogue between educators, administrators, and technologists

To book Jesse Stommel for a speaking engagement, contact:
Jamie Brickhouse
redBrick Agency
(646) 281-9041
jamiebrickhouse@redbrickagency.com

For other inquiries, you can reach out to Jesse directly:
jesse@hybridpedagogy.org or jesse.stommel@du.edu

Centering Teaching

In a recent keynote at the Festival of Learning in Vancouver, Canada, I argued,

We need divisions or clusters in higher education pedagogy at every school offering graduate degrees aimed at preparing future faculty.

The keynote was titled “Centering Teaching: the Human Work of Higher Education.” My call was for championing the work of teaching and the work of pedagogical scholarship — and that we do this work alongside students. This approach is a driving ethic of my work as an educator. Pedagogy is a reflective process better done with students rather than entirely in advance of them arriving to a class or program.

As keynote speaker Jesse’s contribution to ALT’s Annual Conference 2019 was one of the highlights for many participants. Jesse’s talk acted as a catalyst for discussion and debate both on the day and following the event online, which is reflected in the strong social media engagement and blog posts which have been posted since. Jesse’s generous engagement with every aspect of the conference gave participants a valuable opportunity to explore questions, develop their thinking and be inspired by Jesse’s work and the approach he embodies.

 ~ Dr. Maren Deepwell, Chief Executive, Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Books

My recent book, An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy (with Sean Michael Morris), considers how technology (both digital and analogue) changes the work of education. The project of my research, the focus of my teaching, and the work of critical digital pedagogy all look to community over content delivery, dialogue over algorithms, human teachers over teaching machines. I co-edited Critical Digital Pedagogy: a Collection, the first peer-reviewed book centered on the theory and practice of critical digital pedagogy.

I also co-edited a collection with Dorothy Kim, Disrupting the Digital Humanities, which includes academic and non-academic writing about the intersections and frictions between the digital humanities, inclusive pedagogies, accessibility, feminist theory, queer theory, and critical race theory. Additionally, I’ve published over 15 chapters and articles in peer-reviewed books and journals.

For at least a century now, we’ve been told stories that machines are poised to ‘revolutionize’ education … Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel teach towards a different future—one in which dignity is prioritized over efficiency, one in which agency and freedom are prioritized over compliance and control … In the face of the urgency of machines—Morris and Stommel want us to agitate instead for An Urgency of Teachers. In positing pedagogy—critical pedagogy specifically—as a lever for change, they ask us to join them in resisting the stories that machines have wants and needs and that their logic dictates the shape of the future. Instead they urge us to center care and justice in our practices—to center humans—knowing that this will require a radical re-ordering of the priorities of our institutions and ideologies as well.

 ~ Audrey Watters, from the Foreword to An Urgency of Teachers

Background

I have been teaching in higher education for 25 years. I’ve worked with undergraduate students at large state schools, liberal arts colleges, and a community college, as well as with non-traditional adult students and teachers at all levels of education. I have taught face-to-face, hybrid, and online. I have designed over 30 courses in a range of fields, including education, film, composition, and digital studies.

In 2011, I co-founded Hybrid Pedagogy, an open-access academic journal that combines the strands of critical and digital pedagogy to arrive at the best social and civil uses of technology and digital media in education. In 2015, I co-founded Digital Pedagogy Lab, a series of on-ground intensives focused on critical digital pedagogy. We've offered 2-, 3-, and 5-day pedagogical development events at the American University in Cairo, University of Prince Edward Island, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Delaware, University of Mary Washington, University of Colorado, University of Warwick, the Open University, and others.

My work draws national and international attention. In the last ten years, I’ve been invited to give keynotes and plenary talks by UNESCO, the Higher Education Academy, Coventry University, Duke University, Stanford University, BCCampus, the Open University, and others. I’ve offered workshops at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI), Lewis and Clark College, Guilford College, LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore, University of Warwick, and others.