Qs Learning Stories - April 30 Lessons Learned
Posted on April 30, 2008
Filed under CourseDesign, Events, LearningStories
Our last Learning Stories Luncheon with 2007 CDI Fellows has come and gone. Over 40 faculty and staff attended and we got to most of their questions except the following two for Adisa:
He talked about students’ dislike of the online essay (vs. attending class) assignment and a question was raised:
- Is it possible students’ dislike has more to do with the essay than it being online? Any thoughts about different online activities that might be more interactive or engaging?
- Do you think students would like online essay questions if they had greater flexibility? Not only between 9-12? Keep the 50 minute limit but extend the window where students can access.
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4 Responses to “Qs Learning Stories - April 30 Lessons Learned”
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Although my students weren’t required to do online essays, I think the question about flexibility relates to another point made in the ftf discussion about students’ recreational use of technology applications like facebook.
Although students will obviously need to learn to formulate thoughts and ideas, and express those ideas in well-constructed arguments, it may be that their often-used mode of expression is not a traditional essay. Again, students certainly need to learn the thinking and writing skills associated with such essays, but I’m wondering about other formats students in which students might express such thinking: blogs? wikis? websites? I’m not sure.
I know this is a bit to the side of the question asked and Adisa’s assignment, but the question just prompted me to think a bit more about non-traditional writing formats.
Yes there may be something in the juxtaposition of everyday forms of writing in virtuality and a “traditional” essay question assignment.
I think most faculty are concerned about students’ overall writing competencies while some are looking for modalities to extend what it means to be competent.
There are so many choices, each with its particular register, style and emerging nuances.
The blogosphere is where I get the majority of my professionally related information. Blogging has become a legitimate journalistic medium. I also read blogs where the author is working out concepts that will likely become a paper, and others who are stating a position, which quickly becomes an exchange of positions when commenting happens.
Wikis are quite different. At their base, they’re about collaboration and collaborative authorship. In a teaching setting both have extraordinary potential for peer exchange and feedback around writing
Peer feedback will be one of the themes of the CDI 2008 from May 27-30. How do we harness the power of the social web (Web 2.0) in ways that benefit the teaching and learning process? Perhaps it’s by shifting some of the responsibility of providing feedback over to students.
I’m dwelling on what Kurt mentioned about non-traditional writing assignments. I have a lot of sympathy for Adisa when says that his students hate the essays. Because students hate essays. Writing is hard! If the on-line part is juts a delivery method, then it makes sense that the don’t like doing it on-line any better than they like doing in a traditional format. It woudl be interesting to think about other ways to write and reflect- depending on what the learning outcome goal might be. I was just thinking about this woman in Japan who writes novels on her cell phone. There are other ways of thinking and writing that may be better able to actively include technology (hyperlinks, etc.) rather than just using it as a delivery vehicle.
Hear Hear…New literacies are developing before our eyes, it’s a matter of the lens we use to see and understand them.