Communicating with Students and Teaching Online

ENGL 505: Tech Mentoring

Discussion: Inside Higher Ed article

In pairs, read these short pages:

� CCCC “Statement of Online Writing Instruction”�

Purdue’s “Course Accessibility Standards”

Discussion Questions

How does each set of guidelines characterize online teaching?

If you were only given one of these, what would your impression of online teaching be?

How does either one line up with your expectations or previous experiences?

Session Goals:

1. Parameters of Successful Online Teaching (a continuum, not a border)
2. Talk About the ‘Work’ of Teaching and Communicating Online
3. Useful Platforms and Programs and How to Pick Them

Framework for Success

Telepresence

“when perception is mediated by a communication technology, one is forced to perceive two separate environments simultaneously: the physical environment in which one is actually present, and the environment presented via the medium. The term ‘telepresence’ can be used to describe the precedence of the latter experience in favor of the former; that is, telepresence is the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment.”

• Steuer (1993) Defining virtual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence

Why Telepresence?

Telepresence= “being there” through a communication medium

Online, you need to make your class a place

Either through:

• Virtual Space
• Distributed Place

(Virtual space is more popular)

Why Distance Education Works

“Throughout its history, the most oft-cited and most fundamental reasons for developing DE courses continue to be cited as DE’s most essential strengths: its ability to extend educational opportunities to those without or with only limited access to traditional sources of education, its capacity to foster interaction between individual students and teachers, and its ability to facilitate customized instruction that meets the needs of individual learners. Although each DE participant has unique reasons for choosing DE rather than face-to-face methods, when taken as a whole, access, individualization, and interpersonal communication continue to be widely cited by educators as the most compelling reasons to offer DE courses and by students as one of the most significant factors in the decision to enroll in them (Tebeaux 366, Lewis et al 2). The features of DE that have historically been cited as its major strengths—increased access, flexibility, personal attention, and on-to-one interaction, continue to be among the attributes that yield praise from instructors and students, and that mark high-quality DE offerings (Gilbert 70-71, NEA “Benchmarks”).

• Fishman (2002) Writing Distance Education

More on Why Distance Education Works

(...when it works)

Access, Flexibility, Individualized Communication

Online Education fits into the lives of teachers and students:

• Conveniently - Discrete, compartmentalized OR
• Complementarily - Enhances, facilitates something else

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More on Why Distance Education Works

(...when it works)

Access, Flexibility, Individualized Communication

Online Education fits into the lives of teachers and students:

• Conveniently - Discrete, compartmentalized OR
• Complementarily - Enhances, facilitates something else

Online is not a handicap, it’s just different

Six Variables of Online Teaching Success

1. Shared Identification (within class, across distance)
2. Trust (faith in accountability, faith in vulnerability)
3. Awareness (sense of transparency)
4. Coordination (invisible organizing and logistical work)
5. Competency (feedback-driven belief in effectiveness)
6. Conflict (the reduction of)

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• Ocker, Rosson, Kracaw, Hiltz (2009) Training students to work effectively in partially distributed teams

The Labor of Teaching Online

Activity: Old Work, New Work, and Gone Work

In small teams, fill in work in the following three categories:

• ‘Old’ work you still have to do when teaching online
• ‘New’ work added by teaching online
• Work you don’t have to do anymore when teaching online

Spend 5 minutes writing as much as you can and we’ll make a master list afterward

Old Work, New Work, and Gone Work (afterward)

Platforms, Programs, and Structure

Activity: What Needs Attention?

For the class you teach as it’s designed right now, answer the following questions* to get an idea of what needs to be adapted

Questions for Starting Online Class Design

(there are a lot of them, so focus on thinking about each one a little, even if you can’t answer it definitievely yet)

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*Questions adapted from St. Amant (2017) Of Friction Points and Infrastructures: Rethinking the Dynamics of Offering Online Education in Technical Communication in Global Contexts

Online Writing Class Needs, Wants, and Haves

Online Writing Class Needs, Wants, and Haves

Online Writing Class Needs, Wants, and Haves

Online Writing Class Needs, Wants, and Haves

Online Writing Class Needs, Wants, and Haves

Online Writing Class Goals

It’s easy to de-prioritize course goals when designing a new course. Try not to

• Research?
• Revision?
• New Media?
• Collaboration?
• Real-World Writing?

Picking Programs

Same with most writing projects, you’ll likely have to bring together a team of resources. Starting points include:

• Blackboard
• Google Docs/Drive
• Office 365
• Slack
• GroupMe
• Dropbox

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(Questions 4, 6, and 9 are especially useful here)

Final Activity: Incoming Student Survey

Students are a crucial missing piece your online class puzzle. To pre-empt that:

• Write a 10-question pre-class survey to help you plan for the students in your class

(try to write questions so that you get broad info about your class and students can make unique impressions, as well)

Sample Survey

You’re On Your Way!

Sources Cited and Adapted

• Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee for Best Practices in Online Writing Instruction. (2013). A Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (OWI).
• Fishman, Teresa. (2002). Writing Distance Education: Select Histories of Distance Education Writing Courses and Their Effect on Ongoing Distance Education Writing Course Pedagogy. Purdue University Dissertation
• Ingold, Tim, (2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description. New York, NY: Routledge
• Ocker, Rosalie; Rosson, Mary Beth; Kracaw, Dana; Hiltz, S. Roxanne. (2009). Training students to work effectively in partially distributed teams, ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 9, 1, Article 6, March 2009, 24 pages.
• St. Amant, Kirk. (2017). Of Friction Points and Infrastructures: Rethinking the Dynamics of Offering Online Education in Technical Communication in Global Contexts. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26:3, 223-241, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2017.1339522
• Steuer, Jonathan. (1993). Defining virtual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence. Social Responses to Communication Technologies October 15