This week’s materials really spoke to concerns that continue to be important when considering the intersections (or lack thereof) between online learning and equity. In both postsecondary and K-12 education, it often seems that “technology” is used as a band-aid or cure all for issues that have deeper causes. As danah boyd suggests, “. . . just because people have access to the Internet does not mean that they have equal access to information. Information literacy is not simply about the structural means of access but also about the experience to know where to look, the skills to interpret what’s available, and the knowledge to put new pieces of information into context” (317).

One approach that I take to address this, especially as I work to integrate Canvas more and more into my f2f classes, is to “become [more] accepting of students as cocreators of content and knowledge” (Chen & Bryer 2012) in the hopes of building community and creating a classroom (both f2f and online) where I become “a learner along with students” (Chen & Bryer 2012). This also helps in addressing some of the concerns I have about Canvas- my first experiences with it led me to think it was very intuitive, but I’m finding opportunities to continue to return to my course pages during class to assure that my students know where to find important information such as prompts, and unit-specific information that I post under the modules tab. Sometimes it’s as simple as demonstrating the need to scroll down further on a page where I’ve posted an important question or reading.

Far too often, in my assumption that students are more familiar with the ins & outs of technology, I don’t account for how students access information online. Often students’ main access point is the smart phone. The Canvas app behaves much differently than the computer version. In my English 52 class, we have the luxury of using chromebooks and there is one for each student and when I teach in 4611 each student has a computer to use, so we can make use of these resources to troubleshoot any issues we might be having with Canvas literacy.

Having taken J. Luke Woods’s Teaching Men of Color certification program, it was really compelling to see how his methods can translate into teaching online courses.

Considering, the self-paced nature of online classes, his push to “be intrusive long before it’s too late” seems especially relevant. This is something I do in my f2f classes. I often feel that I start out strong with this practice, but as the semester progresses and the work mounts, it becomes more difficult to keep up with regular emails to students who may be in need of increased contact.

But I do think there is value in working in “mandatory interactions” – adding credit or points to office hours, finding more opportunities to learn about our students (especially in an online setting). Many of the suggestions seem to be in line with Warnock, -live office hours, personalized feedback and generally making students aware of our humanity.

Most useful are Woods’s suggestions for making online courses culturally relevant to counter the deficit mentality that is often assigned to students of color. I especially appreciated his mention of “mirror books” that are reflective of our students’ lives and experiences. However, in my focus on social justice issues in past semesters, I worry that I included too many texts where African Americans were portrayed in positions of disempowerment and desperation-Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy being a prime example. It’s a powerful book and, in my opinion, a very important one, but I think students were often put off by the harrowing nature of the vignettes about people of color on death row/ serving life sentences. So I’ve shifted to developing units on education, technology, success, and gender- I’ve found these to be much better for developing a climate of openness and accessibility.

Finally, one of the most eye-opening suggestions from Wood was to monitor our virtual discussions for microaggressions. Part of being race-conscious is being aware of students’, perhaps unintended, racially insensitive remarks. This is something I need to be aware of in the f2f classroom- and I think attention needs to be given to acknowledging and addressing microaggressions even when it’s uncomfortable for both teachers and students.Insensitive remarks about gender, disabilities, and mental health issues can’t be ignored- openness and directness are, as far as I can see, the best approach to addressing this. Opening up a class discussion (either in a discussion thread or in a class meeting), and one-on-one interactions with the student who makes the remark are two steps I plan to take in addressing microaggressions.

Many questions and much to ponder still.

Thanks!

UDL:
While I am happy to note that I include most of the critical elements listed in my teaching, I know that I can improve in Element 3: Flexible Methods and Materials. Dr. Luke Wood’s statement: “We teach how we were taught,” rings true to me. I was taught by lecturers (including priests & nuns), and my way is not to lecture as they did, but to hold socratic discussions. One of my challenges is to hold onto the students who learn best by methods other than discussion. With technology, however, it’s getting better. For example, links to YouTube videos of poets and authors reading their works have enhanced the learning experiences of my students with visual impairments.

Our school’s tips for an accessible online class is exactly the detailed, concise resource for a budding online teacher with some anxiety about the transition. What from the list would I not employ? However, Moore’s suggestion to view the course as an ebook is the first thing I would adopt in a new online class, and I am glad that Canvas makes it easy for us to do so. For my f2f classes, I keep all of the information on the home page, where students can access the course calendar with links to assignments, handouts, images, and embedded videos, without having to go through layers of folders. Additionally, Moore’s list of online pedagogical strategies is valuable for f2f teaching, too.

Equity:

I appreciate Wood’s straightforward explanation of the “Five Bes.” To me, this was a checklist that showed me what I am doing right and what I could do better. I learned that while I do work at being all five things, I can go further in some. For instance, I should add mandatory interactions in f2f, but will absolutely employ this and the rest of the list for my future online classes.

Wood’s recommendations for being relevant got me thinking of the constitution of today’s community college classes. At least the classes I’ve taught.

In many classes, I have had students from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented, and students from backgrounds that have been both well represented and relatively safe from social as well as institutional discrimination. Sometimes, the “safer” students feel underrepresented and even under attack. You would recognize this faction as they condemn “political correctness” (although they are often unable to define it when asked), affirmative action, feminist arguments, etc. Using Wood’s terms, one reading can be taken as a window looking in by some and as a window looking out by others. The challenge for me has been to make both kinds of students feel included, as well as the large, apparently indifferent, group in between.

One solution I have tried is to include works by ancient figures, such as Lao-Tzu, the Greeks, Machiavelli, etc. and to frame discussions and assignments to emphasize universal themes, generalizations, and their relevance in our time (and place). The response has generally been positive from all sides — except maybe those whose only response was that the text was boring. [By the way, I do understand that students’ reading and thinking paradigms change over the centuries, but sometimes my eyes still want to roll back far enough to see my pituitary. I’m only human.]

However, I still need to balance ancient and modern. When teaching introductory literature, LIT 120, I often use something by Toni Morrison as an example of contemporary American works. A novel such as The Bluest Eye gets a lot of attention from students because of its themes and issues of multicultural relevance. Still, there is the tendency by non-African-American students to otherize the characters, expressing sadness that “they” have so many problems in “their community,” and criticizing the main character for not standing up for herself. Of course, these reactions are always welcomed as teachable moments. My point is, in response to Dr. Wood, that even though it is possible, it is challenging to balance windows looking and those looking out. I would really love for you to share some ideas for texts, activities, assignments that promote a more unified class. Seriously, I would make cookies for you.

Here is another practice I am trying this semester and would like to migrate the practice online. Please tell me what you think:

For the first time, I did not start the semester with a set list of readings, but am selecting as I get to know my students better. They have to be titles that are both relevant to at least  some students and appropriate for the writing assignment. In an online class I would get to know them through conversations and informal writings in which they share their biographies, experiences, and aspirations. Once I know *who* is in the class, I can gather titles that not only provide windows, but possibly also mirrors.

I hope you will forgive my long and slightly ranty post. One thing had me thinking of another, and you know how that goes.

I don’t currently teach online for Miracosta, so I will address the issues from the standpoint of what I currently do in my f2f ENG 100 course that I would try to implement online.

I find up-to-date articles and assign one or two every week which provide food for discussions and for short reflective personal essays. Some other of these weekly articles are used to exemplify rhetorical patterns such as argument and cause/effect and are used not only for their content but for analysis. To supplement the readings and spark discussion, I also include videos such as TED talks.

I have grouped examples below of some of the articles and how I use them.

Race Issues:

“Why are people still racist? What science says about America’s race problem” This article is used for background and a whole class discussion, and I could easily see this being used in an online discussion. It is also paired with the next article below which leads to the writing assignment.

“Unconscious Prejudice Worksheet” This is an anonymous online quiz that students need to complete before the writing assignment.  Many students have commented that they never realized their own prejudices before taking the quiz because the survey goes beyond race to looking at their feelings about many groups such as people with various abilities and body types.  This self-analysis writing assignment could easily be used online.

“Four Perspectives on Removing Confederate Monuments” This article is an example of an argument that is used in groups—each group has to take a perspective from the article and present an oral argument from that perspective to the rest of the class. This activity could be used the same way in an online group discussion.

Immigration Issues:

“Why Your Economic Argument against Immigration Is Probably Wrong” This article is  used in groups which need to provide an analysis of the argument using the model of analysis from our text, So What? The Writer’s Argument, and could be used the same way online. I have found it interesting to listen in on how the various groups see this particular argument.

“What happens during a deportation raid in the US? Activists and undocumented people describe the chaos and terror of predawn deportation raids taking place across the US” This article personalizes the topic and provides an example of pathos in a way that leads to much discussion and could also be used for an online discussion.

Beyond first day introductions and other cursory interactions, I now have one-on-one meetings with students that carry points for attendance. In this meeting I not only go over essays in a way not possible with mere written comments, but I also engage them in talking about their lives by noting issues they have raised in their writings. I know some students only do it for the points, but I feel it is important to engage them personally.

From a previous week in this course, I found Curry’s short film clip analyzing a student essay on video most helpful, and I would definitely use that approach for the longer essays in an online course.

I also found Dr. Wood’s address very valuable because it contained suggestions to implement in classes that benefit not only undeserved students but all students. His recommendation of virtual office hours seems to be a way to carry on my meetings with my f2f students into the online environment to provide the support he was advocating.

From the article “Examples of Effective Practices” the ideas of developing online courses with accessibility and inclusion in mind along with the suggestion to offer instructional materials in more than one medium seem important to plan for and  implement. Also I have found that considering that students may use mobile devices to access the course materials impacts both online and f2f class sites.

Contingencies and Relevance

What strikes me most about the material for this week, both the video and the Conference for College Communication and Composition’s guidelines, is how much it talks about contingent and reflective teaching: much of the advice is incredibly context and situation dependent, modes of intervention that make sure that students don’t feel discouraged and, therefore, fall too far behind. This is always something I’m struggling with and attempting to improve. I ask myself frequently—when and how often should I email students missing class? Missing assignments? Having trouble paying attention or participating in class? Are these behaviors dependent on confusing course design and issues of access? It’s the contingencies that are the most difficult, but often most important. In an online classroom, many of these questions are emphasized by a course design that is in itself contingent and primarily asynchronous.

To address these contingencies, I find that two of the most important tools I employ are what Dr. Wood calls “being relational” and “being relevant.” Woods discusses being relational as providing a lot of contextualized and personalized feedback (and I want to emphasize personalized, since to me another aspect of relationality is the persona with which we engage with students). I do a lot of personalized, 98% encouraging feedback on Canvas discussion board posts and try to bring student posts into my lectures and into our discussions. I want to facilitate an idea of learning as conversational (and textual, thinking about online classes), demonstrating that really they aren’t just posting as busy work—they are starting conversations in an academic setting.

In terms of relevance, I frequently allow students to bring their own interests and expertise into the classroom and assign a wide range of materials inclusive of many communities (including people of color, LGBTQIA+ students, students with disabilities, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, etc.—and I add to being race conscious, “being sexuality conscious,” “being disability conscious,” “being gender conscious,” etc.). I am especially interested in the intersection of a students’ own interests and their tendency to want to find safety and insulation within those interests. I include a rhetoric of music unit in ENGL 202 meant to address the intersection of those two areas. Students tend to want to wade in safe waters when it comes to music, and getting them outside of their comfort zone often becomes contentious. Initial reactions are generally “I don’t like this music/know anything about it, so why bother?”, which prompts a number of important conversations about openness, empathy, and engaging with ideas outside of what we usually engage with. (I used my daughter as an example this semester, who loves consuming all music: Imagine Dragons, Cardi B, Bjork, she finds delight in it all).

The unit, then, is just as much about rhetoric as it is about facilitating academic conversations about popular culture and reveling in, and intervening in, how even music can prompt contentious feelings (and us versus them ideologies). These conversations arise organically f2f, but now I wonder how they would emerge within a purely online space: would it be possible to get students to have these conversations as directly on Canvas? Would I need some other platform to demonstrate the need to engage with interests outside of what we often find comfortable? Though, one practice a fully online space is making me think about is the possibility of having students explore music posted by their peers—I have the most trouble in the f2f class getting students to share musical interests.

Speaking of Canvas…

Equity and Canvas

A lot of what I read from the Conference for College Communication and Composition’s guidelines made me think of Canvas, especially from the perspective of student complaints about Canvas. Accessibility and equity are difficult goals when using Canvas–it doesn’t work the same way on phones and computers and has a much less intuitive organizational structure (I personally feel) than Blackboard. I never had very much confusion about Blackboard–Canvas still perplexes students when we are halfway through the semester. The many options Canvas gives us also seem to be a point of contention for students: I’ve heard many unable to understand why instructors don’t universally use Canvas in the same ways. I try to adapt Canvas as I go, but I am also increasingly aware of the need to decenter Canvas as a hub and to also try to integrate other platforms into the mix (Google docs often serves this function, though maybe in too fluid of a way). But, then, does this just make access more confusing?

Equity—For whom?

This is where I let myself dip into grayer areas.

The balance between the positives and negatives of Canvas also has me thinking about another aspect of equity that has been especially difficult as I try to remain aware and conscious of student lives and experiences while designing courses: sometimes the promotion of equity passes over some students. For instance, one way I try to promote equity is through the course materials I assign. I steer completely clear of textbooks, and mostly try to do zero textbook cost classes (my ENGL 202 is free of anything to buy; I usually assign one relatively cheap print book in ENGL 100). I feel at that level I am promoting equity when it comes to issues of access and socioeconomic barriers. On the other hand, this creates a complex situation that may not be benefiting students who are not digital natives or who otherwise struggle with reading digital materials as opposed to print. An online class, even more digitally textual, compounds this.

I appreciate, then, the Conference for College Communication and Composition’s call to employ “flexible and diverse approaches to the teaching of reading and writing to ensure pedagogical as well as physical access.” I agree with the spirit of what this says, but also (as I often am) find myself frustrated with the vagueness, or even the difficulty of thinking what this could mean when we are too tied to a particular platform (Canvas) or medium (essay-writing).

(This second difficulty, being tied to assessing writing, is also why I laud Dr. Wood’s suggestion that allowing “male students of color…[to] submit a power point, a poem, a written paper, or produce a video demonstrating their learning outcomes” gives them the “opportunity to choose how they best demonstrate what they understand and learn best, often empowering them to produce knowledge,” while also worrying that this choice (for most disciplines, including writing) is not realistic when it comes to the type of writing we might want to encourage as English instructors. This has always seemed to be a dilemma to me, since I’d love to unanchor my classes from “traditional writing” and maybe integrate hypertext novels or poetry, but then poetry is not what students are writing as they go into their transfer institutions and careers, usually)

In other words: moving a class to an online space, I agree, definitely compounds issues of equity and refocuses the need for equity and accessibility, which are important to think about in course design, thinking about materials, and how we interact with students. Achieving consciousness (of a wide spectrum of underrepresented students) may not, I fear, be as simple as slogans like “be relational” and “technological equality.” All of these are excellent, important goals to work towards—but they are also heavily contingent and must be sought contextually and constantly by an instructor willing to adapt, innovate, and de-innovate as necessary, especially when aware of the technological barriers of online spaces.

Hello Everyone,

My blog post is primarily engaging the powerpoint presentation by Dr. Woods “Online Culturally Responsive Teaching” I will begin by highlighting 3 key points Dr. Woods makes as a way to frame and begin his keynote address then I am going to attempt to map the recommendations for practice Dr. Woods makes to a set of recommendations I used in a workshop for f2f culturally responsive teaching. This experiment will let me see how much of what I recommend for f2f courses is applicable to online courses. Ok, here it goes…

First, he defines Equity as a heightened focus on groups experiencing disproportionate impact in order to remediate disparities in their experiences and outcomes. I appreciate that he begins with this definition because often we hear equity and diversity used interchangeably when each term has its own genealogy and purpose. Hi definition serves to remind us that while Diversity is part of Equity it is not the same thing. Diversity is a term that was popularized in the 70s and 80s as part of the social movements aimed at increasing access to underrepresented groups, cross-cultural understanding (learning to work across and through our differences) and changing the content of our curriculum to represent underrepresented groups. Equity zeroes in on how our Student of Color are doing once in college and focuses on using disaggregated data to track equity gaps and see which courses Students of Color are having the most difficulty in.

Second, he gives us a definition of equity-mindedness

Equity-Minded practitioners are:

• Are cognizant of exclusionary practices and systemic inequities that produce outcome disparities in educational contexts
• They attribute outcome disparities to breakdowns in institutional performance rather than exclusively to student deficits or behaviors
• They continuously reflect upon their roles in and responsibilities for student success
• challenge their colleagues to be equity-minded educators

In short, equity is everyone’s responsibility, so let’s turn the lens on ourselves (on that which we can control) and examine our practises (Bensimon, 2007).

Third, he includes a series of slides from the Community College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL) with disaggregated data to show how underserved Students of Color are doing in online versus f2f classes across the country. If I am reading slides 10-15 correctly (Gees, oh how I wish I had paid more attention in that quantitative methods seminar) his data is showing that the success rate for underserved Students of Color is lower in online courses overall and in some cases the difference is dramatic.

This poses several questions: Do we have recent disaggregated data from our college about how our underrepresented Students of Color are doing in online courses? More specifically, given the changes propelled by acceleration, do we have data on how this population is doing in ENG 100 online courses? How do we track equity in our online courses to see how our Students of Color are doing in comparison to other students? Could we set equity goals for each online course that would enable us to say, “in order for this class to be equitable, at least X number of underrepresented students have to pass? Or have to get a B or above? How do we do this?

Next, I is my attempt to map Dr. Woods’ “5 Equity Practices for Teaching Underserved Students of Color Online to my “Top 12 Ways to Support Underserved Student Success”

Top 10 Ways to Support Underserved Student Success

1. Find ways to legitimize a student’s home language and culture, their ethno-linguistic worlds. Provide tools that support them in shifting from a deficit mindset about their difference to a mindset whereby their difference is a valuable resource. (Be Relevant)
2. Read student writing to gain a sense of how they think, how they engage with ideas and emphasize the potential there instead of focusing feedback on language error and correction—(Be Relational, Black Minds Matter)
3. Support students to see course readings as conversations in which they participate. Help students become active participants in and owners of their education—rather than conceiving of their role as observing from the sidelines. (Be Relational, Be Community Centric)
4. Create an environment where students have opportunities to use the reading, writing, thinking skills they are gaining to reflect on and examine their own educational histories, family histories, background experiences (i.e. what they bring into the classroom). In other words, find ways to legitimize students’ socio-historical experiences; the idea is that culturally responsive teaching is emancipatory/liberating. (Be Relevant)
5. Connect the content of the class (in English it is their reading/writing) to their real world, make the work of the class directly “useful” and relevant to their day to day lived realities (Be Relevant)
6. Work with students who experience marginalization (at the college, in the larger political climate) to move from a position of silence to a position of voice. To what extent or in what ways should we interpret or see our classes (the reading, the thinking, the writing) as spaces for students to enact political and social empowerment, especially for those coming from positions of silence? (Note: the idea from Geneva Gay and James Banks that culturally responsive teaching is transformative; Freire & Ira Shor; it is about social change: Guide students to understand the power of literacy and higher education: our students of color are survivors, they are driven and understand the need for social change and if we can get them to see how strong reading and writing skills, how theories are powerful tools they need make changes in their communities and become engaged citizens–then we have buy in—students in my classes know that their writing matters or as Sherman Alexie might say “books save lives”). (Be Relevant)
7. Create a learning community in the classroom where students feel safe, where there is mutual respect (where each student knows their writing will be taken seriously)..(Be Community-Centric)
8. Understand in the writing and other seminar classes the need to pay attention to students’ affective needs—what is going on emotionally and psychologically–as we are trying to teach writing we understand the need to teach students how to use writing as a tool to improve their sense of self-efficacy; reading and writing as tools to increase their confidence in their ability to improve, to succeed. (Be Race, Gender, Class, Sexuality Conscious)
9. Related to 8, teach rhetorical metacognition as an academic success tool that can be applied across courses. (Be Relevant)
10. Be accessible—teacher accessibility is more an attitude than the posted office hours. Students sense if you really want to meet with them. If possible, respond to at least one set of papers in live conference or live writing groups, preferably early in the quarter. Ask students to introduce themselves at the beginning of the quarter using Zoom, or have them do an introduction of themselves using a series of pictures they collect from their social media (Be Relational, Be Community-Centric)

Take away: it seems all of the recommendations I have for equity-based teaching practices in f2f courses are applicable in an online environment:)  I look forward to reading your posts this week.

One-hundred virtual kudos to anyone who can name the band I channeled in my post title—without looking the song up!

I really enjoyed this week’s topics, talk, and readings. Dr. Wood’s keynote was incredibly inspiring and practical—his suggestions to incorporate the five B’s all make sense and provide a fantastic framework for how we ensure equity and race-consciousness in our OWcourses. I’ve separated my post into first reflections from the lessons, and second my ideas on how I’ll put these topics into action.

Reflections from Dr. Wood and the two documents

Dr. Wood centers his key points on his “Five Equity Practices Recommended” or Five B’s: Be Intrusive, Be Relational, Be Relevant, Be Community-Centric, Be Race-Conscious. He adds the disclaimer that being equity-minded, relevant, and race-conscious have to be at the forefront.

Be Intrusive:
 • Performance Monitoring – What are students turning in? Are they turning assignments in on time? Before allowing students to fall off the edge, we need to intervene. We should be catching problems and addressing them before it’s too late and we lose the student. We can take advantage of early warning systems: phone calls, e-mails, and anything else that help us to reach out before things are out of control.
Mandatory Interactions (mandatory office hours, etc.) – If something is optional, students see it as less important. I thought about how we need to consider their lives, work, families, and other circumstances they’re juggling. Most of my students have jobs and families alongside taking college courses. As Dr. Wood states, we need to create a net of support that is so tight, they cannot fall through. He added that “there’s no such thing as being too intrusive.”

• Proactive Advice – Stepping in to make sure we help our students understand time management, what they should be looking for, that resources and support are attained, etc. is a big part of this net of support. Something many colleagues do at MiraCosta is creating a “student service treasure hunt” of sorts, an early assignment that asks for students to visit/research the different services MiraCosta offers. Making this mandatory can ensure students know about the vast amount of supportive resources the college offers.

Be Relational:
 • Live Engagement – Virtual office hours! This is a practice I’m excited to adopt, and it falls in line with my eagerness to explore audio/visual communication in the online setting. Dr. Wood encourages us to engage students in one-on-one meetings. They need to hear our voice, see us to believe in us, and know we believe in them through face-to-face interaction. We can use a multitude of different software, all of which are free. I’ve brought it up before; although it’s old-school, Skype is immensely useful. I love using Skype; it’s free, easy to figure out and use, and something all students can obtain. However, I also really like the idea of in-person engagement as well. I think giving students the option is best. I really appreciated Dr. Wood’s advice to say something like “it was nice seeing you” at the end of office hours/meetings. By providing comments that show we’re noticing the student as a person, they feel cared about (not another brick in the wall!). Dr Wood also suggests we get to know their goals, what he calls “learning with interest.”

• Personalized Feedback – I think this is one we as English instructors can do best. In addition to using macros and stock messages, we should provide personalized feedback. This can be done through e-mails, surveys, reflection responses on their essays, and other mediums.

Be Relevant:
 • Using course texts which include literature and reading material that is inclusive of students of color and other marginalized groups. Using these media empower students to have greater control over their lives. I think this can be tricky: how can all of our students relate to a single book? Instead of trying to make one text fit all, why don’t we give them the option to choose from a variety of pre-selected texts, some including mirror books? (More on that later.) My thoughts homed in on the next point Dr. Wood made, which was to use variable assignments. Students can choose what they’d like to do. For example, they can choose their medium (PowerPoints, YouTube videos, etc.) I think variable assignments can be tricky to grade, but Curry provided some excellent guidelines last unit on how we can assess them.

• Mirror Artifacts: This was fascinating! Dr. Wood states these as “racially salient images that highlight their contributions to society.” The images and course setting, if done correctly, can provide a sense of pride, accomplishment, and dignity for our underserved students. He also explained the difference between using mirror books instead of window books. Mirror books help students to see themselves versus window books are like windows into another person’s life. His studies indicate that exposure to mirror artifacts leads to positive mood states. It increases self-efficacy and self-esteem.

Be Community-Centric:
 • Introduction Forums – These are great! Two ideas I had are that we can incorporate this practice through ice-breaker discussion posts and shared reflections (which we basically do as norming ourselves, yes?). Ice-breakers and reflections allow students to share their perspectives.

• Be Race Conscious: Addressing Microaggressions – In our OWcourses, we need to monitor discussion boards in particular to make sure we address any potential issues that occur. We should strive to embrace race discourse by discussing contemporary issues society faces.

OWI Principle 1 from the Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC): Online writing instruction should be universally inclusive and accessible. CCCC specifically centers in on inclusivity and accessibility. Something that resonated with me was this point: “patterns of exclusion have too often resulted from an uncritical adoption of digital technology and an indifference to how it could be used by persons with various disabilities and learning challenges.” This point has been a worry of mine all semester. My concern is we sometimes bring in new tech because it’s shiny and new, but fail to think of how easy such software is to use by our underserved students. The nine points CCCC outlines, adapted from Burgstahler and Cory’s principles of universal design, are critical to keep in mind. They’re excellent guidelines, and I especially appreciated equitable use (can all students with all differences use the software?), technological equality (which we can overcome by focusing on free software), simple and intuitive use (a big one for me, since I personally think a lot of software is confusing), and tolerance for mechanical error (paralleling Effective Practice 1.12, since I tend to focus more on student communication of ideas rather than sentence-level errors). Example Effective Practices: I’m not sure what to say about these twelve points aside from the critical nature of adopting them into our course design, assignments, and practices. The underlining values of inclusivity and accessibility are easily visible in all twelve.

My Ideas to Incorporate these Points into an OWcourse

Virtual Office Hours: One of the practices I would like to adopt in an OWcourse is requiring two mandatory office hour appointments with me, with the option of as many others as the student wants the rest of the time. I think I would like to give them the option for meeting me either in-person or online. If they choose online, I would like to use Skype or WhatsApp to conduct these meetings. I think there is always real value in in-person engagement, though. I meet my students on campus, but I also give them the option of meeting me off-campus at Starbucks. The shift in environment seems to be really successful; students that meet me there are often more energetic and more focused than they are on campus. It’s not something I think everyone needs to adopt, but I’ll usually treat my students to a coffee/tea as well. It’s just another minute point that I hope shows them I care.

Offering extra credit to students who use the Writing Center (which has the option of online feedback, so this can work for OWcourses!) or creating a mandatory one-time assignment to get Writing Center feedback is another practice I would like to adopt. I’m leaning towards making it mandatory: this way, students not only see the benefit of using the Writing Center, but they are also introduced to a fantastic, helpful, and free campus resource.

Personalized feedback is something I already explored in my reflection, but I think it’s a practice MiraCosta’s English department excels at. Most professors here already value individualized feedback, and we incorporate this in a variety of ways. Something I do that I’ll carry over are the reflection paragraphs I write at the end of each student’s essay (where I break down for them what I think they’re doing well and what they should focus on) and sending out individual e-mails. In general, building rapport with students and making them feel cared about as individuals instead of anonymous IP addresses is crucial to creating a safe and equitable OWcourse environment.

Being Relevant: This was the other major take-away for me. I saw this as working side-by-side with the idea of being community-centric. Some assignments I’ve used that popped into my mind are movie analyses, SSR books, speech analyses, TED talk rhetorical analyses, and my tradition minute assignment. In all of these assignments, by giving students choices, they can choose a mirror artifact if they’d like to. Making the assignments dynamic (or variable) allows students more power and choice, as well. So, for example, for the movie analysis, speech analysis, and TED talk analysis, I can provide a list of 5-7 different options: for the TED talk analysis, perhaps I’d offer Adichie’s “The Danger of the Single Story,” Shafak’s “The Politics of Fiction,” Stevenson’s “Injustice,” McGonigal’s “Gaming,” and Junger’s “Why Veterans Miss War.” I’d want to think on it longer, but I might also add in the option of allowing them to find a different TED Talk. As long as I “okay” it first—make sure it’s as complex as the assignment calls for—they can analyze one they find themselves.

Tradition Minute: This is a newer assignment I’ve created and used for three semesters. It’s perhaps a bit basic for an English 100 course—I use it at a different school in one of my pre-transfer courses—but I think it can be refined. It’s a very popular assignment with my students :-). I ask them to each individually research and informally present on a cultural tradition of their choice; the tradition can from any country or culture, but it must be pleasant in nature—in other words, a positive tradition of some sort, and I must okay it first. Each student thinks of three options and runs them by me before being choosing one. From here, each student presents their researched tradition for three to five minutes in class, then turns in a research report (with accurate citations, quotes, and a Works Cited Page in MLA 8th format) to me. I ask them to use a minimum of two credible sources, detailed explanations and observations, an easy-to-follow layout, and some sort of visual component. The visual component is not something that has to be created by them, but it can be: I usually include a list of options, such as YouTube videos, songs, pictures, dances they do, recipes they create, or objects they can bring to class. Oftentimes they’ll choose a combination.

Again, I absolutely think this is too basic for English 100, but I think it can be adapted into an OWcourse and complexified. Most of the time, my students choose to pick a tradition they’re familiar with. It’s a really lovely experience where they get the chance to present something they’re familiar with to their class and use their own voices to express and explain. I’ve honestly never had a bad experience with it so far and think that as long as I keep Dr. Wood’s guidelines in mind, it would be a great mini-assignment in an English 100 OWcourse.

As far as how they would do this online, I’d ask them to create a discussion post where they either upload a PowerPoint, video recording, or Camtasia recording of their actual presentation. I’d also ask them to upload the report and Works Cited page into a separate dropbox. By posting their Tradition Minute in a discussion post, it’d give other students the opportunity to ask questions and to learn more about that particular Tradition. I might make it a requirement that all students post at least one smaller response (3-4 sentences) for each Tradition Minute, but with twenty-five students, perhaps that might be a bit much.

These values we explored are crucial, and I’m going to absolutely do my best to adopt them into any OWcourses I teach. Any suggestions, thoughts, or recommendations are appreciated! 🙂

….so satisfied, I’m on my way!

Larson’s video lists 3 benefits of online group collaboration: It is a student-centered approach, it increases communication through student writing, and it has real-world application. The real-world application of the skills online group activities build is critical and represents part of what Jenkins, and others in Jenkins and others in “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: New Media Education for the 21st Century” are calling the new hidden curriculum. According to this report, calling for educators to teach new media literacy, “Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace” (3). The forms of participatory culture they list include collaborative problem-solving and affiliations or engagement with formal and informal online communities. The authors of this report argue that “the new literacies almost always involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking” (4). The new skills required to become full participants, or to function in this new participatory culture include, distributed cognition (the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities (4) and collective intelligence (the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal. There are eleven skills listed in this report and I mention them here only because in thinking about an in-person group assignment I would consider migrating to my online composition course—I would have to rethink and expand my objectives so that I am accomplishing what we accomplish during f2f group collaboration and also develop some of the cultural competencies and social skills students need to fully participate in this emerging participatory culture. What is exciting to me about teaching writing online and this week’s topic in particular is yes, the question of how to migrate our collaborative/group activities online, and how to do it in ways that do more than what we do f2f. In short, how does technology enable us to do things differently?

That said, taking Warnock’s advice to “focus on what you do well in the classroom “ (xiv) here are some of the ways we use technology for collaborative group work in an English 100 class:

1. Pre-reading: before a f2f discussion of a text students are asked to develop critical discussion questions in line with their interests or reading of the text. In a f2f class, students bring these questions with them and finish their online discussion in person then report to the class on their discussion. If we were migrating this type of group activity to an online course, I could imagine having students use Zoom to meet online and finish their discussion then perhaps either creating a video where they report back to the class or a handout and a video presentation of their discussion
2. Pre-reading: sometimes I will post questions for specific parts of a text and groups will be responsible for assigned questions or “chunks” of the text. They will assemble their collective knowledge (collective intelligence) and present it f2f to the class using a one-page handout they collaborate to create. In migrating this activity online, I could include reading and commenting on another group’s handout as the last part of the assignment. Both parts would be graded using a low-stakes rubric emphasizing connectivity
3. Pre-writing: students develop an outline with their thesis/introduction and body paragraphs that we peer-review online before diving into the first draft of their first major writing project. In an online course, students would have clear directions for the focus of each peer-review (very specific tasks/or work for each peer-review) set deadlines and would be accountable for the time/effort/quality of their peer-review, these would have to be graded assignments which of course would require instructor monitoring and strategic pairing from the beginning

Zooming back out to Warnock’s introduction given my re-reading of this report on teaching new media literacies (above) it seems to me that while Warnock is saying–take what you do best, your teaching strengths and focus on migrating that online, “Confronting the Challenges” says “everyone involved in preparing young people to go out into the real world has contributions to make in helping students acquire the skills they need to become full participants in our society” (4). So are we focusing on what we do well already when we migrate online or are we expanding our definition of literacy to include new literacies and the development of the skills required? I think I totally repeated myself here, what can i say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez said at the end of his life that although he had written many many books, for most of his writing career, he was really just rewriting A Hundred Years of Solitude. Sorry for the long-winded subject line. I am looking forward to learning from your ideas for online group work:)

Yolanda

Halló frá Íslandi!

For the next two weeks I will be testing the limits of distance learning. I am in a remote part of Iceland and have very limited access to technology and WiFi. So, I apologize in advance for any typographical errors (the keyboards are different here!) Naturally, I will do my best to communicate, but simply might not be in a region that will allow me any access via WiFi.

This week we are reflecting on Warnock’s discussion of collaboration in virtual groups through group posts and group work (Janet Wilson) in efforts to build and develop a sense of community (Cameron et al., 2009) in our digital classrooms.

Initially, I’ve felt that I had much more success with building strong teams that near the idea of building a true sense community within the f2f format. Naturally, with 9-15 hrs of face-to-face  communication time, I’m afforded many opportunities to observe non-verbal communications between groups that provide me some idea of how the group dynamics are developing. It allows me not only to observe behaviors among members of a group, but also among groups.

Although, I still have this ability of observation in my hybrid classes, I’ve begun transitioning most of the the collaborative components into the online space and have been quite pleased with the results.   Below are some of the ideas and tools that I’ve implemented with varying success in my efforts to build community in my digital classrooms.

Group Work:

Google Docs / Slides / Google Groups: Janet Wilson mentions her use of these products and I’ve spoken of them at length in previous posts. Yes, I think they are great for collaborative work and building a team environment. In all my ESL classes I spend some time teaching students  how to use this technology if they don’t already know how to use it.

Group Website Development: With the ease of today’s online web editing software, students are no longer required to know how to use HTML5 to code and build a website. I’ve used both

Weebly.com and Wix.com editors in which I create a teacher account that allows me to have classes and student account. One recent example where I used this for a collaborative project was as part of a character assignment for “The Great Gatsby.”  Teams were assigned a category, i.e., themes, characters, symbols, quote analysis, and then were required to write a page (build a web page within the group website) on their group topic. It appears to have been a good team building activity as some of the deliverables were amazing to see.

WikiStory: The idea here is simply to use a Wiki for a collaborative project. A friend suggested this to me who was doing a 3-word story assignment where students each had to only add three words at a time to their story. My approach was a bit different; I used it to have students respond to plot lines in assigned readings and discuss potential meanings with each other.

Appear.in: I have not yet used this application, but a colleague of mine likes using it so I plan to try it out in the near future. In a nutshell, no registration or download is required and it offers a free version that allows up to 4 individuals to video chat. It also has screen-sharing capabilities. If any of you have used it, please share your evaluation of it with me.

Group Posts:

Survey Monkey: I’ve used this to get group conversations started, especially if it appears to be a group not inclined to jump right in to chatting on message boards. This allows me to control the initial discussion by asking a number of questions to all students, collect their individual feedback, and then (while respecting their anonymity) share their ideas without identifying them as new questions to the group, which are then answered in a message board or chat setting.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on collaboration and the tools you love integrated into your digital classrooms.

To me the biggest challenge of migrating to online teaching would have to be creating a collaborative virtual environment. In the online classes I have taught in the past, students liked the time flexibility and asynchronicity that a f2f class could not offer. This was a fact I failed to take into account when assigning my annotated bibliography group research project.

I naively thought that online students would possess enough self-motivation to cooperate independently with one another, and I offered all the toys available on Blackboard, such as wiki pages, file exchange, blogs, and group discussion boards.  In the end, there were not enough such students, and the toys were seldom used.

That said, I would try migrating a multimodal assignment that evaluates online news outlets for bias and classifies them in a chart. If anyone is interested, check out these links:

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/

In my f2f classes, this kind of big research project is assigned and groups are formed very early in the semester. The groups work together for other collaborative activities during the course, and as a result, form strong bonds.

Today, so many options exist that allow for effective and meaningful collaboration in the virtual world. I have found that online collaboration often allows for much more engagement and interaction by each student than sometimes occurs in an f2f class. It is not easy to sit back and not contribute in an online group… it becomes so much more obvious and typically students will call out the non-engaged student. Interestingly, students might elect an online class because they prefer a more independent experience and don’t expect much collaboration. But in a process-based course, collaboration is going to be a key to students’ growth and success, and if set up from the beginning in our online (or on-ground) writing courses, students come to expect and enjoy the experience.

Just as in the traditional classroom, we must provide clear instructions, expectations, and outcomes which will more likely result in a successful outcome for any collaborative/group experience. And just as in the f2f, our role does not end with these tasks, but we often have to model, encourage, and facilitate to ensure that meaningful collaboration and learning occurs. I think the greatest challenge could be if the technology for some reason doesn’t work on the students’ computer, phone, or pad. So, the way I would work around this is before any group type project, students will have had to utilize the different technologies that are expected in the collaborative  group experience. In the group project I propose below, we are in about week 4 and students have managed to utilize the different technologies in simpler tasks that have been done on Canvas’ Discussion Board.

I’m in the process of developing an English 100 with a theme of uncovering what it means to live a meaningful/purposeful life. This would serve as a first group project that brings together other writing tasks students have done to work collaboratively to create an essay together. I do want to point out that many of these ideas have sprung from my observations of Jim Sullivan, Tony Burman, and curry’s English 100 classes. What I see these classes all have in common for the first couple weeks is that they are teaching and providing a lot of scaffolding to get students to write analytically and employ user-friendly tasks that the students connect with and enjoy writing about. So here goes:

1)     I will place students into groups of 4-5 based on previous paragraphs the students have written where they analyze a piece of advice or life lesson they have learned from someone in their life, e.g.- power of forgiveness, balancing work and play, spreading kindness, etc. If I can get the groups to have sort of a shared theme, I would go with that as they would already have a connection.

2)     Using Canvas’ Discussion Board as their work-group platform, students will each select and upload a YouTube music video and write a post about what life lesson is being communicated in the song/video and why this is meaningful to them. Further they will comment on what moves are being used (lyrics, rhythms, video images, etc.) to communicate the lesson.

3)     Once the videos and corresponding posts are uploaded, other members of the group will use the video feature on the Discussion Board to respond to each other’s posts, being directed to ‘communicate as if you are having a face to face conversation’ (in other words, it is video, not just audio). They will comment on the song/video, the writer’s ideas in the post, and add his or her own thoughts about the life message they perceive and other comments about how the message is communicated. The original writer will craft video responses to each member with his/her thoughts to close the loop.

4)     Once this interaction has occurred, the students will be directed to write an analytical paragraph about the song, with the life lesson identified in the claim/topic sentence and then providing their evidence and analysis which they will color-code to ensure balance. This will be the fourth analytical paragraph the students have written, so they would know the drill. Students will comment on the Discussion Board post using the designed peer review worksheet provided.

5)     After receiving feedback, the students will move their paragraphs to ONE shared Google Document. They will then watch an online video lesson about crafting a thesis statement and introductory paragraph. Based on the paragraphs and claims that have been submitted and using the online lesson as a guide, they will each propose an intro/thesis on the google doc in pre-set tables that would work for their collective paragraphs. They will then look at each other’s work and collaborate in writing to compose the most effective intro/paragraph, hopefully building on the initial entries, not simply picking one to use.

6)     The students will watch one final video on creating 1) an MLA Works Cited entry and will each be responsible for building their own based on the YouTube video, and then 2) formatting an MLA document.

7)     The final task will be to take the Google doc, format the work into a correctly formatted MLA document with Works Cited page and upload it to a new Class-wide Discussion Board Forum so all the students could see. I would then create a Camtasia video reviewing and commenting on each of the drafts.

 Okay, if you have any feedback and/or suggestions, I’d love to hear it. Thank you and looking forward to reading all your amazing ideas!

Mary