[ATTW-L] online learning double bind

Wed Mar 6 17:50:39 UTC 2019

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

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 1:51 PM Maurice Williams <
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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