Abstract
This case study will detail the experience of one composition instructor and her efforts to adapt a collaborative, student-centered freshman composition course to the online environment using a lecture video-focused course delivery. Lectures can be understood as “content lectures” or “presence lectures,” which are recorded lectures meant to model writing skills or communicate concern and support, rather than delivering information to be recalled on an exam. Effective composition pedagogy, because it is often more emotionally labor intensive than lecture-based pedagogy, can be compromised if online writing classes are only conducted textually. Auditory and visual communication creates richer social presence than text-only interactions, but it also introduces logistical challenges of creating an authentic digital space and ensuring the materials are accessible to all learners. To overcome these obstacles while still giving students a feel of the instructor's social presence, pre-recording short presence lectures can be a useful compromise as writing instructors explore the potential of online learning.
TopComposition Pedagogy: From Product To Process
Composition scholars are familiar with how the field evolved from a focus on product to process. The current-traditional focus on the rigid rules of “good writing” to focusing on teaching the writing process itself (“process” pedagogy) was a more realistic and effective way to help novice writers improve their skills. Under the current-traditional paradigm, writing instructors spent much of their time presenting the “explicable rules” they believed made up the construction of effectively written prose (Connors, 1985, p. 65). Crowley (1990) describes the current-traditional method of pedagogy as “full frontal teaching,” since instructors relied on a lecture method of describing the features of a well-crafted, finished written product (p. 147).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Banking Model of Education: A metaphor that assumes knowledge is content possessed by the teacher and deposited into the brains of students. Coined by Paolo Freire, who critiqued the idea as unrealistic and authoritarian.
Mini-Lectures: Informal lectures that are shorter than traditional lectures, usually less than 15 minutes long.
Connectivism: George Siemen’s theory of learning as a web of ever-changing connections between information, experiences, and meaning.
Connectivist MOOC: In contrast with a modern MOOC, an online classroom model based on student-driven dialogue where participation and reflection are the intended outcomes.
Backwards Design: A principle in creating curricula that places the desired learning outcomes before instructional methods and/or delivery type. Coined by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.
Presence Lecture: A lecture in an online class that attempts to do emotional labor to enhance the instructor’s social presence rather than communicate course content.
Content Lecture: The traditional mode of lecturing, the purpose of which is to communicate course content, not necessarily enhance the instructor’s rapport with the class as with a presence lecture.
Social Presence: The perception that the other participants in online courses, although completely mediated through technology, are real people, fully present and engaged in a community of inquiry. An instructor’s social presence can lessen the psychological distance students might perceive in an online environment and encourage them to open up to the teacher and others.