[ATTW-L] online learning double bind

[Rebekah Dodson]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for this rich discourse that I will be using for my sudents who are learning respectful tone of argument in a professional environment.

Have a great upcoming weekend!

Rebekah Dodson, M.A., Ed.D(c)
K-CET Instructor
Writing and Communication Faculty

Klamath Community College
7390 South 6th Street
Klamath Falls, OR 97603
https://www.klamathcc.edu/Home

"Writers craft the symbols of the alphabet into a communication of beauty and ideas."


On Mar 7, 2019 10:35 AM, Maurice Williams <maurice.williams.c at gmail.com> wrote:
I can't imagine doing the same for something as complex and interactive as an undergraduate writing course.

I think part of the problem here is that new teachers are not recognizing that an online course is not just an online course. Maybe they have taught online learning for another department in the past--maybe one that's not a writing intensive course. For a novice online instructor (or for someone who's making the transition from f2f to online), there could be some role confusion too. One course could require a more laid back approach--or little interaction, as you say. In that case, you're more like a grader (which is important, too, of course). In other contexts, you could be more like a facilitator, whereas even in other cases you might have to be more like a coach. In composition theory, or in genre theory, really, there's this concept called "antecedent genre." So, if you're a high school student, and you see the word "essay" in a writing prompt, you automatically assume it's the same kind of essay you dealt with in the past, and you treat it the same too. In that way, before a course even starts, if you're the instructor, it might be helpful to ask those who have taught the course before, how is this online course different than other online courses? what role does it ask me to take on? what level of interaction does it presuppose?

Some online programs require instructors to teach the course as is (usually for the sake of consistency across multiple instructors and sections) and others intend the master course shell to be the foundation that individual instructors can modify to reflect their own style, tone, examples, etc.

You're right. This is a question that must be asked of the WPA. What is his/her expectation? Is the teacher only trouble shooting and reducing errors (teaching the course as is)? just trying to make the course as it is run smoothly? Or is the course meant to be a basis for reassembly? fodder for the teacher's subjectivity to play with (to mix metaphors there, I take it...)? In the end, though, it still ends up being a question of the teacher's subject position. Is the teacher confined to a support role? Or is the teacher encouraged to take on the role of a symbolic-analytic worker (Johnson-Eilola 1996)? But this is a conversation that should be had with the WPA.

The "common mistakes on this assignment" announcement...

What a great idea! I also heard someone say, just try and reduce the instructions to a set of what's important. So, if the instructions ask for 10 things, be like, I know there's a lot of information here, but, as you go on to do the assignment, keep these three things in mind, since they're the most important. Simplify. Reduce. Clarify. Sift. Prioritize. Reorder.

It should give you the time to engage with students and have a strong social presence in the course because you aren't creating everything from scratch.

This, I felt like, was a really helpful idea. Or a great attitude to have. Ideally, an online course should enable more interaction with students, not less. Since you don't have to create new content and put out so many fires, you can then take on more of that coach role we were talking about--really get to know the students. I will definitely start to re-see online learning through these eyes. Would this be a fantastic case for online learning in general? You could actually be a better teacher in an environment like this...

But, yes, this course in particular does need a lot of work. Right now, since so much new content is having to be created on the fly, and so many fires are having to be put out, it's preventing the teachers from even getting to know the course at all.

Thank you so much for your thoughts, Jennifer. This really helped me a great deal.

Maurice

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 9:51 AM Jennifer Veltsos <jenveltsos at gmail.com<mailto:jenveltsos at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Maurice,

There's no single answer to your question because there are lots of different models for instructional design and support for online courses. Without knowing more details, all I can offer is some general advice. FWIW I have taught online writing courses for more than a decade and I'm currently the director of my university's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Although I am not an instructional designer, I work closely with our Instructional Design and Support Team and conduct individual consultations with online instructors.

Part of the trouble seems to be that the course isn't self-sufficient.

What do you mean by "self sufficient"? Even with course shells that I have fully designed, built, tested, and earned QM certification require lots of work during the live course. Things never go quite as I had planned, or even as they might have gone with the previous group of students. I am always tweaking things as we go along.

I am currently designing some faculty development modules that will be self-paced, asynchronous, and self-sufficient. I plan to enroll the "students" and check in at the end, but the content is pretty simplistic and there is no need for interaction. The purpose of these modules is to be an orientation and direct the instructor to additional resources to continue learning on their own, to workshops or other programs that we offer, or to individual consultations. In short, I can't imagine doing the same for something as complex and interactive as an undergraduate writing course.

Is it expected that teachers would create more content?

I don't know what is expected in your case. It sounds like your program decided to create a master course for everyone to use. Some online programs require instructors to teach the course as is (usually for the sake of consistency across multiple instructors and sections) and others intend the master course shell to be the foundation that individual instructors can modify to reflect their own style, tone, examples, etc. There are sometimes limits in the type or scope of modifications to ensure consistency. For example, instructors may be required to use the same assignment, or they might be able to customize the assignment but use the same rubric. The first question to ask your program director would be whether (or how much) you are permitted to modify the course shell.

Assuming that you are permitted to create more content, I would absolutely create content to walk students through the procedures of my course, help them troubleshoot problems, offer advice, critique examples I have found, etc. Although it can seem like a bother in the moment, it usually saves time and trouble in the long run. For example, the subject of yesterday's CPTSC Faculty Office Hours was the value of collective feedback on drafts. I won't go into too much detail here, but the gist is that you write a list of frequently occurring problems in a given assignment: What the problem is, why causes it, how students fix it. Students use that information to revise their work. After teaching a managerial communication course three times, I have a pretty good idea of where students will go off the rails even though I am quite explicit in the instructions. The "common mistakes on this assignment" announcement has really helped reduce those kinds of errors. (I can see this happening at a program level if good communication and coordination are part of the culture.) If I know where trouble is likely to crop up, I'll try to nip it in the bud. If I discover better resources or examples, I add them to the course files.

My university doesn't use master courses very often. We can, but our faculty design, develop, and teach their own courses by choice and by union contract. Instructional designers are available for assistance, but from what I have seen in the past two years, they are ignored by most faculty. (Lots of reasons for that which aren't relevant to this conversation.)

Should a course be designed such that those videos are built in from the beginning?

Yes, I would hope so. Who were the writing instructors involved in the design of the course? The structure and roles of instructional design and support teams can vary quite a bit, but in general the instructional designers won't be disciplinary experts in your area. If they were able to build a course with instructions, rubrics, and videos then there must have been a subject matter expert working with them. It's odd that they would have left out the kind of resources you're describing.

It sounds like the problem may be that this is all so new. Perhaps you inadvertently pilot testing the course. Maybe they don't yet know what types of videos or other resources are needed because the SME teaches a little differently than you do. It would be worth offering your feedback when the semester ends. Instructional designers know that a course is never one and done. It should be revised and improved each time it's offered using what they/you learned from the previous offering.

Should the teacher be responsible for accommodating the content to the users? In that case, it seems, the teacher would take ownership over the course and scrap a not insignificant portion of the original designer's intent in the process. Or, inversely, should a course work to construct a smooth subjectivity for its user? and thereby to render a lot of supplementary teaching unnecessary? basically reducing the teacher to a grader in the process?

What do you see as your role as the instructor of the course? With a well-designed course, your role should shift to being a coach or facilitator rather than creator or presenter. It should give you the time to engage with students and have a strong social presence in the course because you aren't creating everything from scratch. And this is where I see the value that I add to the course. Students should feel like a human is behind the technology. My expertise is best used identifying problems in student writing, explaining why it's a problem, and helping them learn how to solve those problems. The formative feedback on student writing is where a lot of the supplementary teaching happens.

Being a "grader" is pretty important IMO.

Jennifer R. Veltsos
Director, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Associate Professor, Technical Communication Program
Department of English
Minnesota State University, Mankato
jenniferveltsos.com<http://jenniferveltsos.com/>


On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 1:51 PM Maurice Williams <maurice.williams.c at gmail.com<mailto:maurice.williams.c at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi y'all.

I have a quandary with an online learning course, and, given that so many of us in tech comm build their careers around online learning, I thought I'd ask the experts.

My school recently introduced an online version of its first-year writing program. So, this semester is the very first time it's been unveiled. Students seem to be having trouble with it, though. Part of the trouble seems to be that the course isn't self-sufficient. So, while there are obviously instructions and rubrics and even videos that deliver lectures on course content, the online course doesn't offer any instruction for how students ought to write the papers. Thus, what seems to happening is, teachers are having to create more content explicating how to write the papers, additional content that seems to be conflicting with the instructions for what's expected of them (what the designers imagined).

My question is this. Is it expected of a teacher who's teaching an online class to create more content with the aim of walking the students through the procedures of the course (say, videos for how to approach a paper, and what order to write it in)? Or, should a course be designed such that those videos are built in from the beginning? that is, so that there is no conflict between the two sets of expectations (between the designer and the teacher)?

Coming from a tech comm point of view, my assumption is that good design puts everything in one place; the design ought to aim to give the user everything she needs when it becomes relevant, that is, without having to change locations or wander over an interface. But then the trouble is, such a design reduces whoever is teaching the course to just a grader. And isn't that kind of deterministic?

I'm almost tempted to say that this problem mirrors the debate sketched out by Heather Christiansen and Tharon Howard (2017): that is, between constructivism and accommodationism in the context of user experience. Should the teacher be responsible for accommodating the content to the users? In that case, it seems, the teacher would take ownership over the course and scrap a not insignificant portion of the original designer's intent in the process. Or, inversely, should a course work to construct a smooth subjectivity for its user? and thereby to render a lot of supplementary teaching unnecessary? basically reducing the teacher to a grader in the process?

Or, is it dishonest to even think that it is even possible to eliminate the teacher's subjectivity in the process? that is, because, no matter what, the teacher will be inserting his or her own subjectivity into the process? that is, aren't there two sets of instructions no matter what? since the teacher's expectations will, no matter what, be out of sync with the designer's wishes?

I don't know if the whole accommodationism versus constructivism thing was helpful. My mind just went there...

Maurice
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