https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY0Qq0hX1wE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8nBvLlCw8
This reflection examines the two videos I created linked to above and why.
When we switched suddenly to online teaching at mid-term with only a week to prepare in spring of last 2020, I remember thinking that my Writing for Publication class would work best asynchronously because of the content and because of dispersion of my students across the globe—literally. But I knew from previous teaching experiences that my students who had never had an online class in their lives would not understand how to “read” the LMS (Canvas). Yeah, they had used it while at Emory, but they had never used it like this before.
Alison White’s essay, “’Why Won’t Moodle. . . ?’: Using Genre Studies to Understand Students’ Approaches to Interacting with User-Interfaces,” helped me to understand the struggles students have in using an LMS in an online course, and how important it is to help them “read” it as they would any new genre of writing. In order to teach my students literacy in this new context, I first prepared the course in modules, uploaded everything, and trimmed and remade all assignments and readings. I then turned to think about how to help them access the course. I couldn’t even guarantee that they would understand what a module was. Maybe of them had used the printed syllabus only, utilizing its links to access materials on the LMS. But they “read” the LMS though the familiar genre of the syllabus.
I created a video of me welcoming them to the new 1/2 semester, explaining the changes I made and why, and what was left for them to do this semester. But most importantly, I created a video of me as I physically navigated the course in the LMS using screen share with a clear narration. Here’s what to do first; here’s where you find the readings; here’s the assignments and helps; here’s the model texts for you to consider; here’s where and how you post the assignments. I assured them that each module due each week would be constructed similarly and that I would send reminders and updates to keep them on track.
Then I created a shorter introductory video for each module. I heard later from several students that I was their only teacher who had everything loaded and organized in the LMS as the second half of the semester began, and that my explanation of how to read the course in the LMS made all the difference. I had no nervous students, no urgent confusions, no breakdowns. It went incredibly smoothly. They missed our interactions, but all was well and they understood that trying to have synchronous class time would have been a great burden to their international classmates.
I cannot help but think that I was teaching a literacy of place—not just how to read the LMS, but also how that module was constructed in its environment, how it was located, and how that mattered. Simply realizing that the module was ordered, that I had placed each item to read or write in the same order that the student ought to complete it was important to their learning. Realizing that all projects are scaffolded so that learning happens in an arc which builds gradually each activity upon the other was needful. I had to be more explicit about the order of learning and the pedagogical reasons behind the order. The “trust me” of the teaching in a face to face class had to be replaced with a more co-teaching model of working with the student. By explaining the ordering of the module, the placement and when to access each item in space and time, I was inviting the student to join me in the teaching environment in which the student had power to manipulate the materials. White draws on the work of David Fisher (2007), who notes that the LMS “is often designed to replicate classroom spaces and activities to produce response or produce comments and feedback” (51). Students always need the lay of the land when entering a new landscape. What I tried to do is design student-facing materials which treat the LMS as a text to be read, rather than a digital tool.
Generally, I was teaching them a kind of literacy of a new genre. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but White’s revisioning the LMS is extremely helpful. How often do teachers assign something that requires a new kind of literacy and not provide the instruction to make it happen? And I suspect that most of us do not calculate the amount of effort and time that students must put in to learn the new literacy when we design assignments.
I have included with this reflection two videos and one introductory assignment that I made to accompany the beginning post-spring break module. While I do think this worked, especially given the short time I had to make these modification and materials, when I look at all the materials in the module, it seems an awful lot of learning for one week. Not only did the students have to begin their book proposal projects, but they had to figure out how to learn online and understand the new genre of the LMS. I believe with a more scaffolded approach to learning the LMS, this burden of reading the LMS could have been spread out more across two or three modules, with opportunities for feedback. Finding the major components of what they needed to know and introducing them one at a time with practice time would have been helpful. For example, I might have introduced the discussion spaces in the LMS in the first module. Perhaps a small assignment to be uploaded and commented upon in the second module would have make them feel more confident in understanding assignments and where they go in the LMS. I was forced to tell them how to read and show them how. It would have been more engaging learning and perhaps lasted for a longer time in their memories if they had actively performed the various tasks in the LMS spaces. This would have allowed them to inhabit the spaces, become denizens who knew their way around, people of the landscape.
