During the Spring 2018 semester, one of the courses I am taking is Internship in the Teaching of Writing. In this course, I am observing an English class at a local community college (Sacramento Community College). Beyond observing, I am also leading select class sections and participating in one on one conferences. It is this last point that I want to address.
While sitting in on a couple of conferences a few weeks ago, I watched as the professor for the course spoke with students one on one using Canvas. Briefly, the structure of the conferences were all the same; ask the student how life is going, show them statistics and information on Canvas (where this post will focus), discuss the upcoming paper including concerns and ideas, then end by encouraging a course of action relevant to the student (start early if they procrastinate, spend extra time researching if previous papers were weak in this area, etc.).
The most interesting part of these conferences was the way the professor integrated Canvas into the one on one conference. This integration occurred in two ways. First, he showed the student statistics regarding their interaction with Canvas. This includes the number of times they posted/commented, the amount of traffic the student was responsible for on different pages, the days that the student was active, interaction with assignments, etc. Second, he was able to go over previous submissions and posts with the students. Particularly in the case of scaffolding, this allowed the professor to consider previous submissions that led into the current research paper they were tasked with, showing proven strengths/weaknesses to the students.
Canvas allowing the professor to tangibly show students their interactions with course material, or more importantly that he is aware of their interaction with the material, is something that would have been next to impossible a generation ago. With much of the course available on Canvas, from assignment prompts to resources to sample writing, a large portion of what the course has to offer in terms of learning is found on Canvas. The result is that if students are not interacting frequently with Canvas, they are likely missing out on a lot of opportunities to learn. Now, the professor KNOWS when this is the case. If you pair that knowledge with the actual performance of the student, you start to get a good idea of the level of engagement that each student is showing.
Taking this information into a conference is a powerful tool, a tool that becomes even more powerful when you let the student know about it. To be clear, the power is not in shaming the student into feeling bad about how they are doing, or reprimanding them (necessarily) for not engaging fully in the course. However, it does let them know that you are watching and that you might be seeing things that they are not. In fact, the most powerful demonstration of this tool was with an ESL student who was not engaging with the prompts, and in turn her writing was not addressing the prompt properly. This put the professor in the prime position to see ahead of time that the student needed to be coached on taking the time to carefully review prompts before trying to address them. It is in these moments where the professor is able to take that knowledge and turn it into feedback, showing the student exactly what he is seeing and why he is offering this or that advice, that the tool becomes incredible. It gives students a peek behind the curtain, a birds eye view of their own learning process, a metacognitive understanding of why they are doing good or bad.
Beyond statistical information, the teacher is able to review actual submissions with the student. While this could be done without technology by sitting down with a printed submission, it becomes a lot easier to move between various posts, comments, and submissions when they are all on one website (this could technically be done with a portfolio of sorts, but the internet makes it more organic and includes other students' comments and posts too). If the class has been scaffolded well, many of the posts and comments will likely lead into the bigger assignments. Perhaps there have been discussions about immigration leading up to a research paper on DACA. Perhaps there have been assignments about formatting sources that lead up to writing a full works cited page. Being able to go over whichever assignment is needed for the conference at will means the professor has the full support of his pre-built scaffolding at his fingertips in an instant. This could be particularly useful if the student is asking questions in the conference that the professor has not specifically set out to address.
Even more than just posts, comments, and submissions, the professor can also point the student toward a particular resource available in Canvas. Perhaps the student is formatting his papers incorrectly and can use a resource about proper MLA format. Perhaps the student is unsure how to go about finding scholarly sources and can use a guide on how to navigate academic libraries online. This only adds to the ways the teacher can turn a conference into an experience that truly pushes the student in the direction they need to go.
Probably like you, much of my coursework is delivered through Canvas. But that material quickly migrates away from Canvas. I take digital notes whenever I read a textbook, paper notes whenever I’m in-class, and often scan through those before I revisit the readings themselves if I’m looking for information. I prefer to find articles off of Canvas, because I can find searchable copies of texts that the teacher scanned without OCR.
ReplyDeleteThe problem isn’t that most students are like me; I recognize that my habits are somewhat atypical. The problem is that using a system like the one you’re describing forces, or at least strongly encourages, students to participate in the manner prescribed by the teacher. It limits their flexibility and ingenuity in handling their classwork. And no matter what advances are made in research (understanding what methods of course interactions work best) or in personal experience (understanding one’s own best approaches to learning), the nature of the course interactions will be managed the same way.
Furthermore, those metrics for interaction start to look a lot fuzzier than they do now. In my current class, I have to post three responses to other students’ writing a week. That’s something I can keep track of and fulfill before moving onto other things. I can look at the syllabus ahead of time and understand the workload involved. If those standards start becoming more ambiguous, students will be entering into classes without having a fair idea of what will be expected of them. School will further take over their lives, which is an infeasible proposition for many students for a number of different reasons.
I wrote about how Canvas uses the semiotics of social media in order to be easier for students to understand, and in doing so preys upon the same addictive elements. Uncertainty feeds addiction; it pushes users to invest more time and effort than they realize, like the uncertainty of a slot machine pushes users to invest more quarters. But clear expectations, which students can fulfill in whatever way works best for them, allow students other options. I think we ought to judge students by their results, not by their methods, and using Canvas’ engagement-tracking tools works against that purpose.