As I explore this week’s discussion, I’ll start with Dr. Wood’s two-fold paradoxes.
But, since Dr. Wood and I share a love of statistics, a thought about math…

1. We teach how we are taught

When I look back on my educational experiences, I consider myself lucky to having experienced a variety of educational methodologies. Reflecting on this I can see how my ever-developing teaching style has been forged from these experiences. Having grown up in Europe my educational institutions drew heavily from Piaget, Pestalozzi and Steiner. My American educational experience introduced me to new approaches and perspectives in educational instruction.  As part of that I’ve also endured the large format undergraduate lecture classes (where I was one among two hundred plus), however, many of my upper-division educators were amazing (UCSC) in how they challenged us to engage, question, think critically and examine the issues we face in our world.  They were builders of individual agency and through that helped empower students to reach new goals. Some of my teachers became mentors, and I ended up working on a research team for one of my professors. However, the experience that made the biggest impact on me was from a year that I had spent at a community college in an Anthropology class. Yes, I was (and still am) a huge Indiana Jones fan and that certainly had something to do with me taking this class initially. But to my surprise, this class uncovered some teaching style artifacts that would heavily influence me as an educator.  This educator’s passion and love of the art of teaching was palpable.  He brought the subject matter to life (no pun intended). This combined with interest in his students was truly inspiring. He was the type of teacher whose class you simply did not want to miss.  So, “we teach how we are taught…” and I continually try to strive to be like those teachers who have and continue to inspire me so that I can make a positive difference in the life of my students.

2. We ignore the diversity we don’t see

I am an ESL educator so I have the good fortune to experience a tapestry of diversity and culture on a daily basis! I truly enjoy and appreciate the rich learning experience that such a class provides as students share cultural experiences from which I gain new insights. Having grown up in a small country, that speaks four national languages, certainly contributed to my understanding of the value of diversity and how it can strengthen us as a society.

However, I understand that it remains a difficult challenge and needs to be at the forefront of our conversations, not only in the online environment but in f2f classes as well. In addition to the race and gender discrepancies, Dr. Wood’s examination of invisible factors, i.e., environmental pressures (housing and food insecurities) schooling experiences, and structural racism bring to light the increased importance of educators that are guided with Empathy particularly as front line civil rights workers.  That being said, it is a challenge to truly put yourself into the shoes of another person’s experience if you have not experienced those things first hand yourself.

3. Equity Minded Educators – the 5B’s

Well, based on the 5b’s outlined by Dr. Wood, I am glad to say that I feel that I’m well on my way to being an equity minded educator.  But I’m fully aware that it is an ever-changing landscape and requires continuing education on behalf of us, the teachers. Below are some of the elements mentioned that I try to incorporate into my teaching to be more equity minded:

Be Intrusive

I teach both credit and non-credit ESL classes. For the f2f non-credit classes I particularly emphasize how important it is to be in attendance to avoid falling back.  I have found that placing this emphasis early in class, combined with setting clear expectations and individual accountability have provided good attendance results.  For my hybrid classes I monitor discussions and assignment submissions and follow up with students who did not submit assignments as well as those who partially submitted the assignments.  However, I realize that that might not be enough for all students.

I like Dr. Wood’s example of the “early warning system” to get students back on track rather then having them fall further and further behind. I try to do this, but can certainly invest more energy beyond emails (digital feedback) to make sure that I catch those students who are showing early signs of struggle to ensure they have the necessary resources and support.

Be Relational / Be Community-Centric

As part of the “early warning system,” I really liked the idea of holding office hours using WhatsApp or FaceTime. I know that several of you have done this, so; perhaps it is time for me to explore this so that I can bridge the gap I’ve expressed in my previous posts about that “human” connection.  As for setting up f2f meetings with online classes, I’ve not actually done that as an educator, but as a former student I pursued my online teachers and requested f2f meetings. At the time it was quite challenging because they were not really that interested in the idea of meeting their online students f2f. But, when I did meet them, it changed the dynamic and future online interactions in a positive way.

As for personal feedback, yes, I’m a big believer in that. We’ve covered this topic in prior posts so I’ll keep it short. As do many of you, I feel accountable to students to provide feedback that is personalized to the individual. It goes a long way to building trust and a strong relationship. Because my feedback is mostly in digital form (and I type fast) I can get through it even though it is time intensive. I’ve considered pulling from an archive of prewritten generic feedback statements, but in the end always start writing directly to a student. I know, finding a balance here is important.

Be Relevant

Ok, this post is getting too long so I will summarize how I try to have relevance that students can relate to:

• In all my presentation materials I incorporate ethically diverse images.
• I often have students write on a figure of importance in their native community. Finally, they present on those individuals and in the process educate other class members about the value and contributions of their culture to society.
• The last book I used in my class was Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.
• Because I enjoy gamification, I often incorporate options for assignments and assessments allowing students to pick and choose the manner in which they wish to demonstrate the skills learned.

Be Race Conscious

I feel that I “infuse” race consciousness into my classroom and the assignments that we do.  I looked into the CCEAL site as well as the programs that are offered through CORA and am interested in learning more about Racial Microagressions.  If anyone has taken this certificate program, or others, I would like to hear your opinion on the program or the content.

Dr. J. Luke Wood’s lecture was really helpful in grounding the overall goals we strive for when it comes to teaching equity focuses classes: Be Intrusive, Relational Relevant, Community Centric, and Race Conscious.

Being Intrusive is something I strive for in my f2f classrooms, this is as simple as asking students, “Did everybody understand the homework assignment, anybody need me to rephrase or clarify the objective.” I also go over the syllabus schedule everyday before we transition into the day’s objective. I feel this further enforces students to visually see upcoming deadlines, plug in reminders into their phone, and ask questions.

I’m constantly creating micro-interventions when students work on low-stake assignments that aim toward building an essay or a larger project. I intentionally make myself sound like a broken record to welcome students to evaluate their confidence with the course.

Thinking about OW Course, I can see myself replicating this by monitoring their submissions, sending friendly email reminders to ‘submit’ assignments, to ask questions, to encourage students to communicate with their instructor when necessary.

I also thought about how to build safe spaces for our students via OW courses, and implementing discussion courses on the first or second week regarding microaggressions and helpful tips on how to maintain respect on discussion boards. Normally in a f2f, these are conversations I would have based when introducing the syllabus. But I love the idea of discussion boards where students lead the discussion on the topics and setting some kind of collaborative agreement on guidelines for maintaining respect among their peers via discussion board or private emails.

There’s so much more to think about, but it’s exciting to see so many awesome resources on how to execute the practice of equity via OW courses!

A few years ago, I took J. Luke Wood’s course on Teaching Men of Color in the Community College. Many of the same suggestions made here for the online environment were discussed in that course, but more specifically in the context of how we address and welcome men of color in our classes and in the college community in general. I remember thinking that much of what he advised seemed so inherent to what I was already doing. In particular, one suggestion he made was so simple yet powerful: when you are walking around campus and encounter a man of color, look him in the eye and say hello. Of course my thinking is we should be doing this for every student as basically we are acknowledging the individual and reinforcing that s/he is important, valued, and belongs. As instructors at a community college, I believe that much of our work is assisting underrepresented students gain that sense of empowerment and belonging that may evade some in other walks of life. I suppose because I have focused my career on teaching composition to ESL students, and my classroom is home for underrepresented, often disenfranchised students, much of what he promotes is what I have dedicated my life to ensure happens in my classes.

So as not to have too lengthy of a posting, I will focus on responding to how I address some of these issues in my classes and how it will happen online. First, I was happy to read his take on working with ESL/multilingual students and how the focus should be on communication of ideas (content) over form. This paradigm shift happened in ESL pedagogy back in the 1960s-’70s when the audio-lingual approach was replaced with the communicative approach (and all the later iterations of pedagogical constructs that grew from here.) But this is an important message to share with all educators: a second language learner will always have some “language variation” to vocabulary, syntax, usage etc., that might not be to exacting standard American English, but that should not drive our response to students’ work whether in speech or writing. But the challenge becomes where is that line when these issues interfere with communication? How do we address issues of language proficiency that might still need some development in order to address the higher order concerns? This continues to be a challenge for all of us and it is likely to become even more prevalent as developmental and even ESL classes are no longer viewed as positive or necessary in the era of placing all students directly to transfer courses. But is it equitable to not hold any standard or basic expectation? This is what I have been struggling with to find a quality answer (and sorry, I still do not have one.)

I appreciate that Wood’s also clearly states that as equity-minded instructors we need to continually reflect on our role in and responsibility for student success. I do think we need to be “intrusive” (I wish there were a better word) with regularity in our work with students. The first day of class, I have students complete a basic survey (phone, email, college schedule, work etc.), but one of the most important questions I ask is: is there anything happening in your life situation you would like me to know about? This has been a very eye-opening experience, and sometimes I am surprised by how candid the students are to share some very intimate and personal details with me in the first week. I have learned that some students are temporarily homeless; others dealing with a court issue; some concerned about deportation; others sharing their sense of insecurity or depression. This information helps me understand the student and their larger life and the impacts these can have on their education. Then within the first couple weeks in the semester, I have a mandatory office visit. It is simply a fifteen-minute chat at my office where we see each other outside of the classroom. We can talk about these issues or any other the students might be experiencing. It also gives me an opportunity to offer some personalized feedback of something they have done in class. I think both the survey done electronically and the office hours converted to the online classroom with Skype or Zoom would work quite well.

Another important aspect to equity and accessibility in my classes is ensuring that all students are active, contributing members to our learning community. I don’t want any student to feel invisible and in fact have created multiple opportunities that require that each student’s voice is heard each class. For example, in my first class meeting, students are put into groups of four, and each group member is responsible for recording and then reporting out information discussed in response to one of four prompts. This is a low-stakes way for each student voice to be heard in the class by all. They will receive positive reinforcement for their efforts and this helps build their confidence. I can see this translating online quite naturally in other group work and/or by simply having students record a video doing things like introducing themselves, responding to a reading, or sharing a journal response. Then ensuring that I provide personalized feedback to the students not just publicly but also individually is very powerful. It takes me a few minutes after each class to compose a couple sentence email to individual students identifying something positive they did in class and thanking them for it. Students have regularly told me that this simple email was impactful and a great motivator for them to continue those efforts.

Yikes, this post is getting long, so I will move to my final issue of universal design in an online course. I have commented on this in the past but I think it is critical that we structure our courses so they are completely accessible to view and work through on a cell phone. Yes, this is an issue of accessibility for students who don’t have computers or easy access to them, but most of our students do have smart phones. Even for the students who do have laptops, I think the phone is becoming the device from which students conduct their lives, including school. So it is critically important to me as I design my online class that I pay attention to the details and learn the coding necessary to ensure as seamless transition from a computer or tablet screen to a phone screen. I know I have slowly moved more of my work away from the laptop and to my phone- my email, my calendar, my checking in on Canvas, my composing of ideas. . . I am not at the point of composing lengthy text like this on my phone, but as the cell phone screens get a little larger, it is a distinct possibility. I think for many of our students, the cell phone will act as their primary computer.

To start, Dr. Woods outlined five pillars that must absolutely structure our course design and interactions with students. I feel pretty confident in floating the hypothesis that none of disagree that we need to be intrusive, relational, relevant, community centric, and race conscious. However, after watching the video and reading the “NCTE Principles for Online Writing Instruction,” I feel like a sixth pillar is needed: be intersectional. As feminists, queer theorists, and Black studies scholars have stated, “intersectionality” refers to the idea that we need to attend to the multiple, intersectioning dimensions of a person’s identity (i.e. gender, class, race, sexuality, religious identity, ethnicity, etc.). As this post unfolds, I’m gonna use just a few of Dr. Woods’s pillars to imagine strategies that push us to be intersectional—at least I hope.

Be Relevant:

When discussing course texts, Woods implores us to make them inclusive of students of color. Every syllabus needs to have Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous writers that are integrated throughout the course rather than segregated to specific sections. This is, of course, a substantive issue that we must to tackle in the early stages of conceiving our OWCourse. However, I think there are some important day-to-day ways that I will take to ensure that I remain culturally relevant.

1. Proactively Countering Deficit Messages: As Woods suggests, we need to actively push against negative stereotypes that our students encounter. However, as we do this, I need to be sure to think about how these messages differ according to race, class, gender, sexuality, immigration status, age, ability, etc. As we select course texts and images, we must think about the broad range of student identities. Can our course be truly relevant if there are no texts by ciswomen? What if there are no texts by queer authors? What about writers from the working class? If we have gaps in our syllabus, how do we turn these into teachable moments?
2. Proactively Developing Writing Methods: I think we need to develop assignments and strategies that encourage students to think critically about Standard American English (SAE) AND NON-Standard forms of American English. As we include pieces of writing from various backgrounds, we notice that the grammar, syntax, mechanics, organization, and evidence can change in small and large ways (Borderlands/La Frontera, for example). As we incorporate more perspectives, we need to develop strategies for making our modes of evaluation relevant and responsive while still preparing students to write SAE. What might assignments that critically analyze alternative grammatical forms look like? How might we develop alternative rubrics for various styles of English? What do those look like? How could we get students involved in that process to teach them about the variety and values of English comp?

Be Community Centric:

Woods suggests a few strategies for developing a sense of community in our online courses. These range from making introduction forums to sharing reflection essays/videos. Are there ways that we can make these practices self-reflexively intersectional? When thinking about potential answers to this, I recalled an idea proposed by a friend who studies digital media (and something that reminds me very much of Karla’s fantastic post from two weeks ago):

1. Introductory Tumblrs (or Instagram) Mirror Assignments: To start the class, I will ask all my students to create and curate a Tumblr page that will give the entire class an idea of who they are. They will need to choose a theme. They will need to find and share images that they like or think are interesting. With these images, they will need to write captions that explain why they chose what they chose and create hash-tags to link them to other conversations. I’ll probably get into some pretty heavy restrictions too (ya know, be respectful/appropriate kinda stuff). But I hope this project can teach students about how we carefully and consciously craft digital personalities that respond to various parts of our identity, even when we might just think that we are sharing a meme. I hope this kind of assignment would be a low-stakes and playful way to introduce mirror assignments—assignments where students are asked to reflect critically on their own self.

Be Race Conscious:

Representation matters. Woods rightly implores us to embrace race discourse (Black minds matter) and to address microaggressions seriously and immediately. Additionally, we need to ensure that our stock images are racially sensitive and diverse. 100% agree. I think we need to go even farther though to be not only race conscious but gender conscious, sexuality conscious, class conscious and then think about how these different identities link up in an online format.

1. Monitoring Microaggressions Online: How do we most monitor for microaggressions related to race and to gender? In my f2f course, I have been conscious of making sure that my women students and students of color get to speak in class, that they are not interrupted, and that their perspectives are heard. I challenge myself to ensure that I have gender parity in my course readings and am working to have better racial representation as well. While I’m pretty attentive to gender dynamics IRL, I have to wonder how these might manifest in online formats. Are these issues that are diminished or exacerbated by an online format? How do we ensure that students engage equally with posts by women? How do we ensure that our diction does not cross the line into hostility? How do we ensure that we don’t erase students who do not subscribe to the gender binary? How do we ensure that we don’t erase trans students without forcing them to out themselves?
2. Analyze EVERYTHING: When selecting “stock” images for our course, I think we might consider how to turn every image into a teachable moment. I’ve been trying to put this into practice more and more in my class as students become increasingly comfortable calling out the gaps in cultural representation. This has been an expected problem this unit, which focuses on children’s toy advertisement (which are disproportionately feature white kids). Because of that, I’ve been working on developing ways of turning gaps into productive moments of teaching that I think lend themselves to online formats!
   1. Follow up example: In my comp class, we talk about race and Barbie (a lot). We discuss the traditional gendered, classed, and racial dimensions of Barbie and how they erase particular groups of people. In particular, we think about the exclusion or Black dolls. However, this semester, students also began pushing on the absence of Asian, Latina, and Native American dolls. In migrating this course, I feel like this assignment could lend itself to having students think about the intersection of race and gender. Students would find an example of a doll and discuss how its representations of femininity are influenced by race (or vice versa). Students will write up their responses and share them with the class to see the variability in answers (especially if they do Ken dolls). By doing assignments like this, I hope to teach students to identify gaps and absence and to think about what those gaps might signify.

Be Intersectional.

            I feel like I’m rambling so I’m gonna wind down. In the end, intersectionality, taking a kaleidoscopic inventory of a student, is an unacknowledged sixth pillar that must necessarily inform our approach to online course design.

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!