Teaching: Reality is NOT Ideal

At the end of the E-Teaching Seminar #3 last week, I was full of enthusiasm about the Reflective Captioned Artifact (RCA) assignment that was due from my ITED 8100 class this past weekend. This assignment entails having each student review the large number of discussion postings that have been done (their own, mine, and those of their peers) over the first six weeks of the course. They then select a range of postings that they believe would, as a whole, demonstrate significant learning across a number of required course objectives. Once selected, students add annotations to the postings that guide me, the reviewer, to understand the rationales for choice, and the patterns of thinking and behavior (as evidenced in writing) of themselves and their peers. The assignment is completed by a reflective 'caption' or paper in which the student summarizes the process of doing the RCA, and describes the product (artifact) to follow. [Note: I know this is hard to visualize - if anyone would like to see this assignment, please leave me a comment and I'll send it to you].

I demonstrated to my Hungarian colleagues the method of selecting, compiling, and saving compiled messages as a pdf file. I showed them an example of a completed RCA, with an impressive array of annotations. While the assignment is difficult to grasp without having been involved in the six weeks of postings, I believe the seminar participants did come away with at several important concepts about online discussions: 1) recognition of the need for careful instructional design of the activities, 2) requirement for the discussions to be integral to the goals and objectives of the course, and 3) an understanding of the idea that online discussion postings do not have to stand on their own--they can be preparatory to a paper or other project. As one colleague stated, "I didn't understand why anyone would use online discussions; I am beginning to have some ideas now."

I believe they also fully understood that I did not have an easy weekend of grading ahead, with over 20 papers, often each over 20 pages. This term students have posted at about an average rate, assembling as a class somewhere over 500 content-related postings for this time period. I think my colleagues were surprised at the length and complexity of many of the postings; I explained that these were graduate students, and the design of the activity called for such complexity and depth. Rightfully so, they asked me how I could read and review 400 pages in a weekend. I explained that I didn't necessarily read the postings, having read (or scanned) them at the time they were posted. I pay more attention in reviewing the RCA to the reflective paper, and to the structure of the annotation and commenting added by the students to the artifact.

But it's still a lot of reading--and a lot of feedback to deliver. I was asked what students would receive from me. I listed the feedback methods: 1) a numerical and percentage grade in the course gradebook, 2) a marked copy of the RCA assignment rubric in pdf format sent to each student as a attachment to email within the course, 3) a personalized 2-3 paragraph comment on strengths and weaknesses added to the rubric, and 4) a summary content analysis of the papers from the whole class, with particularly memorable quotations from some of the papers delivered through a discussion section called "Friendly Facilitator".

And we wonder why people don't want to teach online! Just writing this description makes me think about my practice, and understand why I often say, "I believe I can get more effective at online teaching, but I don't seem to be able to get more efficient!"

Believe it or not, having done this many times, grading this activity and giving feedback was a manageable, if tiring, task in a weekend. You can see that I'm feeling it!

The RCA Assignment is the most difficult one of the course for individual students, and counts for nearly half of their grade in the course. They are required to bring together what they have learned in a new discipline, with new terminology, for an extended period of time. This grading period is also the hardest for the instructor, and there is pressure to let students know their grades before the fast approaching midterm date. But I'm finished, they know their grades, and a few of them did so well that I have asked if I can use their work as future examples. We can now move on in the course.

Things in the course change now. We are entering the Online Learning Activity project in which is much more relaxed. Students get to take a break from the primary textbook, and use a text from the International Society for Technology in Education, Digital Citizenship in Schools.
They will work in groups to design professional development activities on this topic for delivery through the Wimba Live Classroom tool. The next four weeks of the course will proceed with guided design of these activities, in small groups of 3-5 students. My role becomes much more advisory, rather than evaluative during the design process.

That's good...I think we're all ready for a little change of pace.