Category Archives: Pedagogy and Practice

Time, place, and manner.

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I definitely want my students to collaborate.  Two reasons, primarily: 1) I see this kind of interaction as a fundamental remedy for the distance in distance education, and 2) it’s also a key component of my on-the-ground courses.

However.

In the spring I often inserted a caution into my discussions of online learning whenever the conversation drifted toward synchronous tasks/learning, and I think that the topic of collaboration certainly knocks on this door.  The text, in part, discusses the topic with this in mind.  And, my first reason above for wanting to integrate collaborative learning into the online environment — drawing down the distance between online learners — would certainly benefit from a little synchronicity.  Yet, I feel like students sign up for online course to take advantage of the flexibility the courses offer, and that contract begins to erode when instructors establish time, day, and place requirements.  I often have students in the military taking my online courses from distant time zones or on submarines, which really limits their ability to participate synchronously.

Yet.

I like my on-the-ground group assignments.  They rock the course outcomes.  And they definitely need synchronicity — in their current form — to maximize their benefits.  Small groups that can set their own schedule for synchronicity begin to address the issue I mention above, but they, too, make impossible demands on some of my online learners, which is why, in the past 10 years, I have assigned no synchronous work in my online courses.  I have made some on-the-ground group assignments into individual assignments, but I have mostly scrapped the collaborative work that needs synchronicity in favor of other methods.

The collaborative assignment I’d most like to migrate is a group quiz I offer in my on-the-ground English 100 courses.  The quiz is assigned to groups of three to four students and takes a full meeting to complete (1:50) if the students are diligent, know their stuff — and collaborate effectively.  The students are presented with an article to read that articulates a position on an issue of the day, then the quiz requires that they demonstrate competence in critical reading, writing, researching, and MLA Style.

I know that in Canvas you can create quizzes and assign them to particular cohorts of students, so that is not difficult.  However, in class (I just administered one of these today) the students delegate, huddle in pairs or triplets over computer screens then jump to another computer and compare, check each others work, teach each other, separate the pages on the quiz and pass them around, scribble, cross out, use scratch paper, reference multiple web sites — in other words, they collaborate, and they do it in a messy, real-world way that is hard to translate to the online environment.  (I would say this parallels the issue I discussed two weeks ago with translating my written feedback to the online environment.)

To approximate this on-the-ground experience, I think they’d need a live video chat/conference, to be able to see each other’s screens, and to be able to all work off of the same live document (the quiz) — to start.

Oh, and they all need to be able to schedule a time to collaborate.

Thoughts?

Group Work in a Digital Class

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                As an instructor who builds his class around group work, I am excited for the possibilities that the digital classroom opens. In my F2F class, I always have an activity that allows the students to put the idea we just discussed into action. We always follow these activities up with a discussion about how the idea came through in the activity. While this structure has worked well, I have always thought these group activities would benefit from a slower and longer application of the idea.

 I think the main benefit in transferring these group activities online is time.  For instance, in my class today, I had students work in groups to write a brief speech on any topic they wanted (I urged a light-hearted topic given the sad events of last night). The rules for this assignment were simple: write a professional speech you could deliver to fellow students and sneak in a few logical fallacies. While the groups had an amazing time trying to mask fallacies with professional language and logical support, the discussion and sharing portion of the assignment had to be trimmed due to time constraints. If this activity was translated for an OWC, groups could collaborate on a google doc and in chat; this collaboration technique would also afford agency to those students who often get steamrolled in group conversations. Not only could students spend more time incorporating logical support, but other groups could visit and see how their peers are approaching the activity. The discussion/decompression aspect of the assignment could also be developed and allow more time for students to reflect prior to responding. I imagine all the wonderful conversation that could arise in the class discussion of these speeches, but I also wonder if that hilarity I witnessed in the classroom today would still be there.  With a creative activity like this, it is those rapid-fire conversations students have that make the activity so effective.  If I desynchronize an activity that is supposed to be fun—by my definition of fun—will those funny moments where students wittily respond to and build upon each other disappear? It is difficult for me to know for sure until I actually implement this activity online, but I guess I could always require a synchronous meeting or Zoom for the brainstorming portion.

I am also intrigued with how peer review will translate into the OWC.  I enjoy having a Q&A before each workshop, and I really enjoy hearing students have an honest “state of affairs” about their work. I know these conversations could be pushed into the digital space, but the synchronous nature of the F2F workshop is so appealing. I love hearing students give meaningful feedback; it feels like validation (they remembered my lecture!), so maybe this concern is more selfish. However, the one thing that I think will improve in this switch is the participation rate. I have noticed that my attendance seems to dip when it comes to workshops in my course. I imagine this is because students procrastinate and bail on class to avoid the guilt (even though I recommend they come regardless), but in the asynchronous online workshop, students could give feedback over the course a few days. This wider window could help those procrastinators catch up, and could facilitate a much higher participation rate. With how ubiquitous technology has become, and with so much of our daily communication happening in a digital space, it will be interesting to see how successful these conversations turn out to be.

Food for Collaboration

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Full Disclosure – I started working on this post and generating ideas for a collaborative assignment before reading Chapter 14. There were two simple reasons behind this approach: I had a few ideas that I didn’t want to lose, so I started writing before they had a chance to escape. The second reason is about influence: I wanted to get me on the page first and then see if Warnock and I shared some of the same ideas. This resulted in a section that encourages students to consider collaboration approaches and a system that works for the group, which speaks to Warnock’s point about student roles (149). I found this section to be particularly helpful and assuring. That being said, while I’m definitely an online newbie, at this point I’m not sure I agree with Warnock’s idea of “identifying a clear leader” (149) in each group that instructors can check in with. It makes sense in terms of instructors being able to check in with designated students, but I don’t like the idea of establishing, at least early on, roles with obvious connotations. I’d prefer to let these roles surface gradually, organically, and ideally remain title-free. However, as you’ll read below, I do emphasize the importance of developing a system and setting “reasonable goals and deadlines early on that can be adjusted based on the needs of the project and group.”

Finally, perhaps this was just me, but I was really hoping Warnock would share actual content—i.e., the instructions and guidelines he gives his students for the argument website project he mentions (148). I wanted to see what the students were seeing to get a better sense of how he actually delivers ideas. To what extent is his language bound/closed vs. unbound/open? Where and when, if at all, does he offer clear “must/should” requirements? How does he go about inviting his students to explore exactly? For this reason in particular, I’m including actual steps/content that I’m planning to share with my own students later this semester. But it’s just a draft. I look forward to hearing any thoughts on how I’m delivering the assignment to students. Is there too much at times? Too little? Am I too prescriptive? Room for clarification? Where are the holes or gaps? Potential issues down the road? Is the reflection letter too short? Too long? Is the project too complicated and ambitious? Grading thoughts? Do I need additional layers? How might you rethink parts? Should I scrap the whole thing?

Context – In a few weeks, my students will wrap up Unit 2 and begin Unit 3. This third unit will focus on food production and ultimately result in essays based on John Robbins’s No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Food Revolution. After reading the book and getting a sense of the various topics—pork, chicken, beef, soy, chocolate, coffee and more—students will consider what’s not in the book and eventually argue how a new chapter on a specific topic would strengthen it. In other words, they get to join the conversation. What’s particularly challenging for students is making clear, meaningful connections. They have to know the book well in order to argue why a new chapter idea is a good fit; they have to be able to articulate, for instance, how a new chapter would build upon or set up existing chapters and ideas. It’s kind of like a book review. Kind of.

In addition to reading the book and thinking about new chapter ideas, students will also take part in a collaborative group project related to the topic of food. Essentially, they’ll be creating brochures that spotlight human rights issues tied to food. This emphasis compliments the third section of the book, “Industrial Food Production—and Other Dirty Dealings,” which examines human rights issues in the chocolate and coffee industries.

Below are some of the instructions I’m planning to share with students. I’m still developing content, and I’m even thinking about delivering the content through a Canva brochure like the kind they’ll be creating:

The Group Project

The Challenge – This assignment includes two parts, the brochure and the reflection letter.

The Brochure & Audience – Together with your group, you’ll create a stunning brochure designed specifically for English 100 students. This will be your specific audience. Building on some of the ideas from Unit 3 and No Happy Cows, your brochure will spotlight a specific human rights issue tied to food production and include the following elements:

  • Visuals – Since it’s going to be a stunning brochure, you’re probably going to need at least two relevant visuals.
  • Words – You’ll contextualize your visuals by addressing current status, causes, impacts, previously attempted/proposed solutions, and your group’s new proposed solution. What’s taking place today? How might you introduce and show the issue? What are some of the causes behind this issue? How did we get here? How does the issue impact people (physically, mentally, etc.), specific communities, industries, the environment and more? What has been done to address the issue? What new solution has your group created?
  • Works Cited – Of course you have to use one of your panels to cite your sources, which include your visuals.

Ultimately, to create a memorable brochure, you’ll need to utilize the tools you acquired from our second unit on communication and rhetoric. In other words, you’ll need to demonstrate your ability to use visual and textual rhetoric based on a specific audience. It’s not just about generating awesome content. It’s also about how you deliver this awesome content.

The Reflection Letter – After you complete your brochure with your group, you’ll develop your own reflection letter (500 words minimum), based on your unique experience, for future English 100 students. Essentially, you’ll reflect on the collaboration experience—your system, the process of creating the brochure, how you thought about the audience, your role in the group, what worked, what didn’t, what you would do differently and more. In addition to explaining the experience, you’ll also need to provide specific (showing vs. telling) advice to future English 100 students about how they should approach the assignment. You’ll submit your reflections through Turnitin, which is to say, I’m the only one who will be reading these reflections.

The System & Getting Started – Figuring out the best way to collaborate will be essential to your success.  What works for one group, might not work for another, so try to develop a system that works for your group. Some of you might begin with a Google Doc (set to “edit”) to brainstorm ideas. Others might start by adding initial thoughts to the DBQ 10 post. There are also options like email, FaceTime, Google Duo, and video conferencing sites like Zoom. Finally, if you’re in the same area, some of you might even find that meeting in person at a coffee shop or MCC is the most efficient way to get started. Overall, it’s probably a good idea to get a sense of schedules and see when folks have time to work on the project. Even if you can’t meet in person or chat via video call, you’ll probably be more productive if you set reasonable goals and deadlines early on that can be adjusted based on the needs of the project and group. Without a sense of schedules and some kind of system, you could easily grow frustrated waiting around for a response or for someone to submit a portion of the project. Seriously: Get organized early to avoid headaches later.

The Issue – After you chat with your classmates and establish a system that works for your group, you should start researching various human rights issues tied to food production. Where should you start? Excellent question! Personally, I think Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are great places to locate current issues and legit articles, but there are plenty of others just a few clicks away. Don’t forget our wonderful library and librarians—they’re excellent resources—and don’t forget about moving beyond Google. There’s Google Scholar, for instance, as well as MiraCosta’s Databases. Once you’ve had a chance to share your research with your group, you’ll need to select a human rights issue to feature in your brochure.

The Template – Head over to Canva, which you already used for DBQ 8, and check out the “Brochure” templates. You and your group will need to decide on a template. Don’t forget your audience.

The Grading – Half of your grade will be based on your group’s brochure and half will be based on your reflection letter to future English 100 students.

The Groups – Open DBQ 10 to discover the magic that is your unique group.

Unit 2: Collaboration and Group Work Online

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Last week, we finished a group assignment in my f2f classes that I think might migrate nicely to the online classroom.

The assignment asks students to think critically about web sources and has two parts: a larger group component and a partner presentation.

The first task is completed in even numbered groups of 4 or 6 students. Students first must define “information counterfeits” such as propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and alternative facts. Students then are to find an example (either a general example or a specific item from a web site) of each. 

The first term they must define is information, which is sneakingly challenging. Last week a group identified statements such as “My flip-flops are black” and “Your hair is blond’ as information, and their discussion about how they might verify these statements led to more and more questions about how we verify facts—how do we agree on primary sources and where do we have consensus of basic facts?  In f2f classes, this activity generates much engagement and laughter and (hopefully) critical discussion.

The final part of this first component asks students to define the terms gullible, skeptical, and cynical. They then write a brief paragraph answering the following question: Using these terms, describe how careful consumers of information should approach what they see, hear, and read.

This activity culminates in a large group discussion in which I ask questions about how students normally seek out information. Where do you usually go? (A: Google, Yahoo, social media sites.) How do you know you can trust the information—that is, how do you know the information you’re consuming is not propaganda or disinformation? (A: never really thought too much about it, unless it’s obviously a spoof.)

This discussion leads nicely into an introduction of the partner presentation part of the assignment. The goal of this component is to simulate “real life” research. Students partner off and choose a topic to research. Topics are important: I let them choose anything . . . as long as it is one with competing viewpoints. The assignment asks students to find one trustworthy source and one untrustworthy source. A secondary objective if to find “gray area” web sources—ones that are not obviously trustworthy (like academic papers) or obviously untrustworthy (like a page with dancing gifs).

The presentation portion of the assignment is low key: the pair tells us what topic they are researching and then silently previews each of their sources—in no particular order—by slowing scrolling through the page. The class has to vote on which is the trustworthy source and which is the untrustworthy. After we’ve voted, the pair explains which is which, outlining at least five reasons why they found the source trustworthy or not. There are a few “rules”: no .edu, .gov, no sources found via the databases, and no Wikipedia sources.

In f2f classes, the first part of the assignment is completed using Google Docs and the second via the Discussions in Canvas.

I can imagine migrating this activity into an online classroom. I think it already features some of the key points from Janette’s video.

1) Student “buy-in
I think it has “buy-in.” The subtext of the activity (i.e. not being duped by stuff on the internet) offers buy-in, and students love the idea of researching anything they want and of finding tricky web sites.
2) Clear expectations
I’ve finessed this assignment for a few semesters, modifying it make sure it more accurately reflects “real life” scenarios, making the expectations realistic (I originally had students find three sources for each—too much!) and specific. I’m sure I can be more clear, though. If there is only one thing I’ve learned from teaching, I can never be clear enough!!

In the online classroom, I would want to try the presentations as a synchronous meeting. I first thought it would fine asynchronously—with students recording and uploading their presentations for us to view (with a pause for voting)–but I’m leaning against this idea because is seems like mere delivery of information. I want the discussion that happens during the presentations, which I think might be more valuable than the actual presentations. I would love feedback from experienced online teachers, though. It seems like online students might resist synchronous meetings.
3) Baby steps
I think this assignment is a good example of the baby steps that Janette discusses. Just one tiny part of an essay—quality sources- ha!

Feedback with a face

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It is ironic that feedback is the discussion topic for this week as I am using this discussion to take a much needed break from grading. I had a very difficult time with grading my submissions through Canvas as I did not know I could still grade through Turnitin’s feedback center (where my comment bank lives), so I had to type out all of my comments in canvas and did not realize my mistake until half way through my second class, but it was too late. However, one of the positives of this mess up is that it did allow me to rethink my comment bank.

I was part of an online feedback learning community at CSUSM a few years ago, so I have a comment bank I have been using for a while. While that has seemed to serve me well the last couple years, I do worry about the comments not being…. Legitimate? I am blanking on a good word to choose here, but “cookie cutter” comes to mind as well. A comment bank is obviously extremely helpful for in-text comments, but I do worry that a student could see those cut and paste comments as laziness on my end. I give a decent end of paper summary/response/justification which tends to be more personal and specific, but there is also the issue of managing time. What good is a page of feedback if a student is not getting it back in time to use on his/her next paper? So I can see how the comment bank is good, but I worry about how impersonal it may sound.  Honestly, I would prefer to grade all of my papers by hand as I love to use symbols/shorthand to help speed the process along, but the logistics of managing/handling 100+ physical papers make me nauseous.

If, or when, I transfer into the OWCourse, I definitely foresee using the video/voice comment tools. I love discussing a student’s paper face to face during office hours, and while a video comment section won’t necessarily be synchronous, I imagine it could produce a more authentic discussion on my end. My voice/face in conjunction with those dangerous, bordering on cookie cutter, comments/annotations could fix my worry about sounding lackadaisical. I think it would be helpful to reinforce the idea of reading/responding to a paper out loud as opposed to just skimming it. Students could hear their errors, and would hopefully see the benefit of breaking away from the screen for the revision process.

I am also very intrigued with the peer-review section Warnock discussed as online peer feedback is something I am trying in my f2f course this semester (with the help of Google docs). While I would love to eventually cobble together something like Chad’s video response activity for peer feedback, I am fascinated to see how taking the peer review discussion online is going to pan out.

In the end, I think the concept I am most excited for when it comes to feedback is to make the process less digital and incorporate more of my lovely face into the mix (with the help of the best webcam money can buy).

Without my illegible handwriting, how will they learn anything?

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I’m going to open with — I like my illegible handwriting in the margins of student papers.  I find it difficult to capture the same kind of flourish in the online environment.  And, I have, through years of repetitive thinking, convinced myself that my students find the scribbles endearing.

That said, I really do prefer to scratch it out on a physical surface.  I find that I can leave a more dynamic comment that way, literally drawing connections between disparate parts of a paper by … drawing.  I am also faster at leaving feedback in this format — at least, at this time I am — which our author brought up as a legitimate concern just in case some of us have a hundred or more students making similar mistakes in their writing.

To this end, I have been eyeing the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, thinking that I might be able to approximate the physical grading in the electronic environment by using a stylus to write on the electronic copies students send.  I have been teaching online for 10 years, and I have spent a lot of time waiting for this moment when technology would finally catch up and allow me to return to a pre-technology form of grading.  Yet, last spring, during the first leg of this prep, we spent some time considering whether we should be trying to force our on-the-ground practices into the online environment unchanged or whether what we are really talking about is a translation of those practices.  In other words, we should be taking our best practices from our years of on-the-ground teaching and re-imagining them in the online environment.

So, I should be asking myself, How does my handwritten feedback translate to the electronic grading environment?

And, I think the answer is — it doesn’t.  What does translate is my commitment to substantive feedback.  So, what tools are available in the online environment that might not only facilitate the communication of feedback to students but enhance it?

One strategy I will use will be to reduce the amount of time I spend on low-end, repeated comments through macros.  If I can auto-fill the comments I make a million times across student papers, like those associated with punctuation and in-text citation formatting, I can spend more time on high-end feedback.  I have resisted this move because it has always felt like, well, cheating.  However, if I am writing the same comment fifty times in a single grading session, what’s the difference between my repeated handwritten note and the one that the computer fills in automatically?

Legibility.

Another tool that I plan to make use of is combining typed comments with voice comments.  The opportunity for this has existed for a while, but not the ease of it.  I trained in Canvas in the spring, and I am teaching my first two courses in this CMS this fall, and including voice comments while grading is integrated into this system and easy to use.  I like the opportunity to explain a comment I make with a quick verbal elaboration, rather than getting into typing out a lengthy response.  It’s what I would do if a student approached me in class to go over a bit of feedback he or she received.  I can also see using this feature for my global, end comments on papers.  Video feedback is also pretty easy to use through Canvas, but I am not convinced that it will provide something essential that I can’t accomplish with a combination of typed and voice feedback.

I don’t know that these strategies really affect my philosophy about providing feedback so much as begin to satisfy my concerns that feedback in the online environment has the potential to be less than the student needs.

Unit 1: Feedback and Assessment

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This is such a big question, curry!  Feedback happens everywhere!! My current primary tools for providing instructive feedback are rubrics and the Suggesting feature in Google Docs, but this post will focus only on rubrics since Google docs seems pretty straight-forward to me. I do offer other types of feedback on low-stakes writing—reading responses and reflection activities, for example—but my intent in this feedback is to be encouraging, supportive, or just to let the students know that I am reading every word they write 🙂 . I think this type of feedback might fall into what Warnock refers to as response–when he distinguishes between response and grading. When/if I am able to teach online, I imagine that I will heavily use Canvas’s recording feature in addition to these tools–both to improve the variety of feedback students receive and to help personalize the online environment.

I saved samples of papers I’ve graded over the years. These are the papers that never got returned because students dropped the class or because they disappeared at somepoint during the semester. Writing this blog post, I became curious about how my comments have changed, so I reread my comments on some of these essays. I was struck by how much of my marginalia (Y E S ! I’ve always wanted to use that word in earnest!), focused on the specific assignment in my early years of teaching. Over the past dozen years, though, I see a shift, and my comments are largely about specific skills. I attribute this shift to when I started to hone my rubrics.

My philosophy with rubrics is that they are teaching tools. I believe students should learn from them not about not only their performance on the specific task but also how to improve specific writing skills. I break the rubric down into critical thinking, structure, evidence, sentences, grammar, vocabulary, and documentation. Here’s what my current English 100 rubric looks like for argumentative essays (I have a different rubric for a rhetorical analysis essay assignment and for our new lens essay assignment): http://www.writingteachertools.com/english-100-grading-rubric/

All this might be (actually, I’m sure it is) a long way to get to my focus of this post: optimizing the rubric tool in Canvas to improve not only my feedback but also students’ understanding of my feedback in onsight classes and (hopefully) in online classes.

I remember during our fall certification sequence somebody sharing research about how infrequently students actually read our comments—not much 🙁 —and have thought about why this might be ever since. One reason might be that students don’t understand what we mean by the comments. For example, if the comment is that the paragraph lacks development or focus or unity or coherence, I can imagine some of my students not knowing what the heck I am talking about—despite the fact that I feel like I’ve explained these concepts—in overwrought detail—a zillion times.

So . . . here’s my idea for using the rubrics tool in Canvas. I’m considering using them to maximize both peer- and self-evaluations at various drafting stages in order to reinforce student understanding of basic compositional concepts and/or their understanding of specific critical thinking skills. In f2f classes, I’ve been doing versions of the types of evaluations I’m imagining, but with pen and paper and perhaps with not as much clarity of instruction or accountability as might be possible with Canvas. My intent is that these peer- and self-evaluations promote deeper understanding of what sometimes seem to be amorphous concepts like development and unity.

One of the resources I found in curry’s annotated bibliography discussed various types of rubrics in Canvas: Single Point, Analytic, Primary Trait, Holistic (here’s a direct link to the PPT, if you want to check it out:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10UnK0-9i-OaU7RGl66sukfCaHsIOBizK710xenlcuYg/edit#slide=id.p

I mocked up a few of these rubrics to concretize how I might use each of these rubric types.

Single Point – Use to improve thesis
Analytic – Use to improve Level One Unity* 
Primary Trait – Use to improve Level Two Unity*
Holistic – My final grading rubric

(No mock-up here!  I ran out of time!)

*These are teaching tools I created to help explain the concept of unity to students. You can check them out here and here.

Canvas Questions:  To implement these evaluations, I’m guessing that I create an Assignment that requires peer reviews and then attach the corresponding rubric. Does anyone know if this right, or am I missing something?

Also, does Canvas have a way for the instructor to grade a student’s comments on a peer review? I tell students that I consider peer reviews as a type of test, an open-book, OK-to-ask-me-questions-during-type-of-test, for which they receive grades based on the quality of their comments and demonstration of understanding the assignment requirements. I know where I can see the student’s peer comments, but I couldn’t figure out if I can grade that student’s comments.