We’re exploring the spaces in our classes where writing happens. Some of us met in Zoom to share our thoughts. Some of us are participating asynchronously. You can too. Today or whenever. 🙂
Each space offers a different frame and a different mode of writing-to-think and writing-to-express. We might think of these as models for designing spaces where writing happens in our classes. We might simply use these spaces for reflection and collaboration. Like all shared, asynchronous spaces, these are simply spaces for our conversation to have already started and to be ongoing.
If you’d like to catch the convo we had in the Zooms, you can watch here or listen on our Letters Department Podcast.
Your time listening/watching is eligible for FLEX.
This discussion is the second of a sustained series focused on our Online Teaching Principle for Communicating with Students. At the center of this deep-dive project, we’re asking this question: how do our communication tools, spaces, and methodologies promote student growth and student agency?
We will continue this series of professional conversations next semester exploring instructor feedback, Canvas course design, and pre-semester outreach as sites for rich and effective communications. See you then!!
My Hallway Conversation group met for the final time today, and we ended the meeting by making plans to stay in touch and continue collaborating. For me, this has been a refreshing experience connecting with colleagues. We shared our experiences teaching in this time-warp where some of us actually feel more connected to our classes because we’re spending less time driving on the freeway and more time texting and meeting with students. We discussed what the new normal might look like–what it should look like–when we return to campuses. And we focused on how to make collaboration meaningful and not simply requisite in our courses.
One salient take-away I’m mulling is the importance of being present and not just productive in collaborative spaces. My colleagues reminded me of the importance of allowing students time and space to establish rapport with one another and to honor them as decision-makers in the process of project-based, group-oriented learning. The question remains, how do we do collaboration like this online, asynchronously?
My group and I talked a lot about open, optional spaces, like Pronto in Canvas–or Discord–as well as student hour Zoom sessions, which may or may not be recorded and shared later. We talked about the value of affective assignments, like those collected by the Equity Unbound and OneHE group and like those my colleagues in Letters ->ahem-Jade<- ->ahem-Chad<- ->ahem-Tyrone<- have modeled for me for years now.
The open space I’m tinkering with in my asynchronous class isn’t optional, but it is flexible. I call this space a Discussion Lead assignment.
Students have two weeks to contribute to this space before we workshop a major project. I ask students to 1) start something interesting, 2) share something interesting, and 3) respond to something interesting. Maybe they ask a question about the prompt. Maybe they ask a question about a concept. Maybe they share their thesis. Maybe they share their edgy title and a risky source. Participation here feels meaningful here, I think, because we all share a common feeling (of dread or joy, not sure sometimes) about our current drafts and the upcoming workshop, there’s intrinsic value posting in this space, reading in this space, and responding in this space. At least, I think so.
There is room to tweak and to think about how to fine-tune the context for each unique project and moment in the semester. The this-class-is-rad honeymoon period of Week 5 is way different than the what?-ENGL-is-still-happening? mindset of week 12, which is also way different from the we’re-in-this-together!!!! feelings of week 16. Thanks to my amazing colleagues, I have lots of ideas to think about, and a group I can reach out to share and hear feedback going forward. Thanks Scott, Dailyn, Liza, and Jose!
As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 17-week semester and the middle of the 8-week semester (yikes!), I’m thinking a lot about how my students are doing and how they’re engaging with the reading and their writing.
A couple weeks ago in my asynchronous ENGL 202, I posted a short video of me talking about “critical thinking,” and below, I embedded this google doc asking students to share what comes to mind when they think about “arguments.” At the end of the week, I embedded a wordcloud generator that asked students to share “where you’re at” as they wrapped up the week.
This week, I’m reading and responding to the first set of essays submitted in my asynchronous ENGL 100. One category in the rubric asks students to respond to my comments after I’ve graded their essay. I don’t mark that category until they respond. When they do, they get 10 more points, and I get a chance to have an asynchronous conversation with them about their writing.
Hearing from my students in these different ways–sharing their knowledge as I introduce a new topic, sharing their confidence and uncertainty at the end of a busy week, and sharing their questions and goals about their own writing in response to my feedback–not only fosters a sense of comradery and belonging in the class, it allows me to value my students as collaborators and leaders in our shared learning experiences and writing processes.
So, how are you hearing from your students right now in Canvas, in Zoom, and in other ways? Below are a few ideas to consider, and if you would like, please share more tips and tricks here.
Hear from your students
This is a great moment in the semester to check-in with our students to get the pulse of the class. How easily are students finding things? Is the pace of assignments nuts, too easy, or intriguingly steady? Is there anything are students feel we could be doing that we aren’t doing yet to make participation more accessible and engaging?
Hearing from our students is so valuable to our teaching. Sharing back what we hear from them with the class can be equally valuable to their learning.
Embed Stuff
Most tools offer an embed code option with the < > symbol. If they don’t, you can use this html code to embed just about anything, even editible Google Docs! To embed the results of Google Forms, you can follow this dorkey tutorial.
Curate Stuff
Many of us create class playlists from the content students share. Make a regular place to spotlight student generated conctent in your weekly announcements, your instructional content, and your Zoom meeting activities.
Listen, lighten, and illuminate
Creating and managing formative feedback loops in my composition classes is THE ultimate goal. Sometimes these channels of communication are critical to the work of revision, and some time they are just plain necessary to helping each other get through challenging moments.
Since my last post, have you checked out our Letters Department Online Teaching site? There, you’ll find our department’s principles for online teaching, as well as a wealth of resources, including the Writing with Machines blog where you can find the following info and so many more of our colleagues’ great pieces to inspire your online pedagogy and practice.
If you’re looking for a holistic centering of equity and empathy in your class, the OTC’s panel on “Becoming a Warm Demander” referenced Zaretta Hammond’s podcast that defines culturally responsive pedagogy as it is evolving into instructional equity. In it, Hammond calls us to question, “How are we making sure that all students, particularly the most vulnerable, historically marginalized kids, get the most powerful teaching that helps grow their brainpower, so not just the content […] I mean, the teaching to move through the content.”
Adventure #2: Love a Nerd, Be a Nerd
If you’re looking for readings or multimedia thatintroduce students to stereotype-breaking works created by self-identified Black Nerds, dabble in these works shared by Student Equity’s JD Banks’ UBSC presentation titled “Black Nerds are more than Black Hobbyists.”
Adventure #3: “That’s what I look like? Where’re the filters?”
So, you want to create your own content for your classes? I just got hip (a phrase that shows how painfully unhip I am) to an app called “Clips,” which allows you to record and edit videos with live captioning–a major plus for keeping your online classes accessible! This would be a useful app if you’re having students create videos for discussion boards or assignments too.
Adventure #4: Peace through Poetry
If you’re working on revising or creating new writing assignments, turn to Soultry Sisters, a North County-based empowerment collective for women of color. During their Juneteenth UBSC presentation, the Soultry Sisters presented creative writing as a method of healing soul care to embrace, embody, and empower. Featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, the Soultry Sisters’ workbook leads our students–and ourselves–through self-caring reading and writing process.
****Note that the last two pages of the workbook indexes community resources such as Black-owned businesses, educational organizations, and healers. How might you work these community partners into a Service Learning project? Or a reflective writing assignment that centers students’ self-care? Or just as an extension of the MCC family that takes care of our students?
Finally, one of the OTC panels briefly mentioned the Open Pedagogy Notebook. Click on “Examples” for great–you guessed it–examples of every aspect of an open classroom, from student-generated syllabi to activist zines, the latter of which I have witnessed to be beautifully, powerfully incorporated into curriculum by our fearless leader Maria Figueroa.
Until next time, enjoy a safe and healthy summer with your loved ones!
In this video, I share an activity that uses group writing to generate engagement and collaboration, introduce rhetoric, and give students a more meaningful sense of their first major essay.
Inspired by the activism in the worldwide George Floyd protests, I used an image from the peaceful demonstrations as a culturally relevant text for students to practice critical reading skills. In this short video, I’ll show you how I use Google docs and Zoom breakout rooms to create a collaborative communication, reading, and writing group activity centered on a culturally relevant text. I’ve found that this strategy gets all students involved and creates a useful scaffolding exercise/document for bigger papers and projects.
Since attending the Center for Urban Education Equity-minded Teaching Institute in 2018, I have explored methods for monitoring student progress and invested in high-touch, just-in-time interventions during the first 3 Weeks of the semester.
https://youtu.be/NuhoXaCqEmU
There are pros and cons to using Canvas’ analytics and progress monitoring tools, like the Notes and “Message Students Who…” features, just as there are pros and cons for developing your own informal techniques for monitoring your students’ engagement with the course. I share 3 approaches I have explored in the video above.
The following questions frame my evaluation of how I monitor student progress:
What system fits best with my workflow for preparation, interaction, and assessment?
Do these systems allow for a macro and micro-level view of individual student progress and the emerging class community we are forming?
How am I able to observe and document affective elements?
How am I able to apply race-conscious, gender-conscious, and other intersectional lenses to my students’ engagement with the course?
By documenting this information, I am finding more opportunities to intervene in my students’ learning experiences, especially during the first 3 weeks of the semester.
https://youtu.be/ETMzIwca2x0
CUE places a significant emphasis on the first 3 weeks of a semester as the time in which habits for learning are formed, relationships are established, and a class culture takes shape. During these first three weeks,
I invite students to consider and then commit to the class
I target and equip reading and writing processes
I schedule synchronous/asynchronous opportunities for collaboration
I describe my progress-monitoring techniques and intrusive practices during this time in the video above.
As I continue to reflect on and evaluate these practices, I find I’m returning to these considerations:
Once I have the information about a students’ progress, what will I do? For whom? Why?
Do these intervention practices increase confidence, a sense of belonging, and agency in my classes?
Which students or student groups emerge as active contributors and community leaders because of these practices?
