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last.updated 6.3.12

Distance Learning & the Teaching of Writing

Purpose

With Warnock's book we started looking at issue of using various computer technologies to teach writing in online spaces. For the balance of the course we will focus mostly on teaching writing from a distance, bringing writing more central into the conversation. For this class you will be given another case to work with to help you contextualize and conceptualize the exigencies of teaching writing at a distance.

Instructional Tool Review

Jennifer and Beth will be presenting their instructional tool reviews and fielding questions.

Discussion I –Teaching Writing from a Distance

We will discuss the following questions:

• What questions do you have about the readings?
• What are the key issues an instructor of writing has to consider when designing a pedagogy based course?
• What should instructors across the curriculum consider when designing their distance courses?
• What type of pressure are proprietary schools putting on the academic teaching of writing from a distance?

Activity & Discussion II–Case Study on Teaching Writing from a Distance

Read through the case below. In your assigned groups (see below) use the Adobe Connect chat function to discuss what you plan to propose to the campus's distance education committee and the arguments you will make to convince them of your position. You will have 45 minutes for this discussion.

You are at a campus with a robust distance education infrastructure. However, tis infrastructure primarily consists of a video-based system in which there is two-way audio and one-way video (the students can see and hear the instructor, but the instructor can only hear the students) between the instructor who is in a studio on campus and the students at the 20 or so satellite sites. Often there is only one or two students at any given site, and writing courses, like on-campus WI courses are capped at 23.

Some of the satellite sites have computer labs down the hall from the studios where the students are watching the class. Also a few of the sites have WiFi connections in the studios, but not all of them; yet, even with that, a lot of the students at sites in rural areas often use the computers at the satellite sites to do their work because they do not own a computer or cannot get a good connection from their homes. In short, few students at these sites own laptops. Within the infrastructure that the university has set up, there is nothing that really allows students to talk directly to each other.

You are part of the writing faculty who has been asked to teach courses through this system. But you recognize that the infrastructure is not conducive to sound writing pedagogy–at least according to the literature. You have been invited to a meeting of the campus's distance education committee to discuss the problems you are having. You also want to ask for some possible solutions to the problems. Based upon what you discussed in your chats, we will talk about some solutions to this problem.