Activity Three Ways

Reflective writing: Creating this artifact was a bit painful to me because it required looking at my teaching career over the years, going back to activities and instructions of my past that I now find unbearably bad. The f2f activity here is from my first year of teaching at my current writing program, the last activity is from my latest quarter. Cringe face aside, it is useful to see my evolution in terms of teaching, and how each modality has taught me important strategies. The f2f peer reviews showed me that too many choices can lead to confusing instructions. The hybrid one has made it very clear that I need to put access at the forefront of my teaching, whether I meet my students face to face or not. The online version has taught me that too much streamlining can make transform the class into a machine, where students start to feel like numbers. It's about balance: clarity of instructions, accessibility, and a sense of community.

Here is a transformation of my peer review workshop from a face-to-face, to a hybrid, to a fully online course. You will see the evolution of the activity, the transformations to match the affordances of the different modality, and the errors I have made along the way by not paying enough attention to accessibility.

FACE -TO-FACE CLASS PEER REVIEWS

The peer review worksheet below comes from an in-class peer review workshop for a face-to-face course. Because the peer review was not anonymous since students exchanged drafts in class, and because students were sharing drafts of personal documents, I wanted to make sure I had an option for students who did not want to share their draft. Therefore, there are two different sets of peer review instructions: students could opt out of sharing their drafts and have the peer reviewers help them rhetorically analyze their context for writing.

Technology: Students shared their drafts using Google Docs, which is a useful program for peer reviews since it has marginal comments and other features to mark a text. All students at my institution have a Google Drive account, so most of them are familiar with this program. Those who were not familiar could ask for my help in class since this was face to face.

Affordances: The affordances of doing in-class peer reviews is that students could talk to each other and ask questions and clarifications in real time. The technology was minimal, so most students figured it out quickly. We were in a computer lab, so every student had a desktop computer.

Problems: Having two difference sets of instructions because not everyone might be comfortable with sharing is not ideal. I also didn’t have any formal explanations of Google Docs. I just relied on students asking me questions in class, which may lead to a loss of precious class time. Having the instructions for the peer reviews on one screen and the draft on another means that students were juggling between screens. Also, doing in-class peer reviews might make some students feel rushed. In particular, international students might not see this model as ideal. Clearly, I was not thinking of accessibility, here, relying on my physical presence in the classroom to deal with issues as they arose (talk about keeping the instructor at the center of the classroom!).

Instructions for Peer Review for Assignment 3

If you do not want to share your draft because it contains personal material, ask your peer reviewers to do a rhetorical analysis of your job ad company/grad program. Create a document with the link to your job ad company/grad program.

Instructions for Rhetorical Analysis

(label it Rhetorical Analysis for WriterName from YourName).

Questions to consider during your rhetorical analysis:

• Just by looking at the information you have on this company/grad school, what kind of applicant do you think they are looking for? Which skills do they want? What kind of experience you should have when applying?

• What are the keywords you notice on the information you have on this company/grad school? What seems important to them? What are their values? What should the writer emphasize to demonstrate that he/she is a match to those values?

• What kind of experience is not specifically listed on the application or the job ad, but you can guess would be important to mention?

• Look at things such as tone, visuals, and organization of information to glean some more important information about who these people are and what they are looking for. If you were applying for this job/program, what would you emphasize?

Instructions for regular Peer Review:

If you want you peer reviewers to do two peer reviews of your draft, Upload two copies of your peer review draft in the group folder. Label them as:

• Copy1_YourFullName;

• Copy 2_YourFullName.

At the top of your two copies, give some context to your peers: what are you applying for? What did they ask you to write? Add any pertinent information they might need to give you useful advice.

Part I: the comments in the margins of the draft

Read the document that your peer has shared with you. Add comments on the draft (using the comment feature on Google docs) focusing on:

• Which paragraph is the most effective? Why?

• Which paragraph is the least effective? Why?

• Where should the writer add more specific examples and/or specific skills they have?

Part II: the end comments (please use a different color and write your name):

Write about two paragraphs under the writer’s draft giving advice and suggestion on:

• What could be cut (because of wordiness, redundancy, not useful)?

• Where and how should the writer add more specific examples or explanations on the specific skills and experience they have?

HYBRID CLASS PEER REVIEWS

Adaptions: When I moved to hybrid teaching, I decided to adopt Eli Review, which is a program that allows students to complete peer reviews online. It has an anonymity feature that allows students to share with less fear of being connected to their documents. Now, the peer reviews were happening anonymously and online outside of class. We were not using our class meetings to complete something that students could complete outside of class.

Technology: Eli Review is fairly intuitive, and students learn it quickly. It also keeps everything together instead of spreading it in multiple places (like Google Docs). Because I used our f2f meeting to explain Eli Review, I do not have a video showing how I introduce it to students. But I made a video that discusses the comments that students made on Eli Review to have them reflect at home about giving effective feedback. I used a free screencasting program to record this video, so it is not great quality and has no captions.

Affordances: Using Eli Review for a hybrid class allows for structured peer review workshops to happen outside of class and to have clearer explanation on how to complete the reviews since Eli Review will guide students through the peer review. Eli Review is intuitive, so students learn it quickly. Having a video discussing their work is a good way to create more connection in a class where I don’t see the students as often. It also tells them that I look at their work closely.

Problems: Using class time to explain Eli Review feels like a waste to me, now. I can do that through video and use class time for more hands-on activities. My video has no sign of my face on it; it’s not the end of the world in a hybrid class where students see me live once a week, but it does feel like a lost opportunity to create more contact with them. Also, the free screencasting program did not have an option for captions. At the time, I thought: “I don’t have deaf students in my courses, so it’s okay!” That is so wrong since students who are not native speakers might really find captions useful. Also, creating access after students have revealed their disability to us really transforms accommodations into an afterthought. Finally, it’s not because students do not disclose their disability with us that they do not need accessibility.

Clearly, the adaptations I have made to my hybrid course were going towards the direction of using the affordances of hybrid instruction: having work done outside of class, using videos to go over content… But I was not thinking about access in any real way.

ONLINE CLASS PEER REVIEWS

Adaptation: When I taught the same class fully online, I kept Eli Review because the program worked well for out of class peer reviews. Since we were not meeting in class or synchronously, I made a video to explain how Eli Review works. Because I had more videos for students to watch than in the hybrid class, I started looking for ways to decrease their number. The video discussing comments became an individual reflection on the comments that students had received:

WRITING TO REFLECT

in 100-150 words, reflect on the ratings that you've received on your comments for the last few peer reviews in Eli Review. Describe your ratings. Are you satisfied by the ratings? Where do you need to focus on to improve your ratings for the next peer reviews?

Technology: Using Eli Review allowed me to keep the peer reviews anonymous and to facilitate the workshop outside of class with a well-organized program. I made a video using Camtasia and Kaltura (for captions) to explain how Eli Review works.

Affordances: Using Camtasia and Kaltura allowed me to make a much better video. My face shows up in the video, which is particularly important in an online class where students do not see me. I also added captions, which would be useful to anyone watching the video.

Problems: Through videos and Eli Review, the class sails smoothly outside of class, allowing access for everyone. However, we have lost the community-building aspect of peer reviews that we had in the face-to-face version. In my next iteration of the course, I might start using more discussion boards for informal feedback rather than relying so much on Eli Review. This would allow students to actually communicate with one another rather than just sending out anonymous feedback.

Reflecting on how we adapt our activities to the modality of the class is also a good review on our attention to access and to the various affordances and problems of any technology we adopt.

References

Nielsen, D. (2016). Can everybody read what’s posted? Accessibility in the online classroom. In D. Ruefman & A. G. Scheg (Eds.) Applied Pedagogies: Strategies for Online Writing Instruction, pp. 90-105. Utah State UP.

Rodrigo, R. (2015). OWI on the go. In B. Hewett & K. E. DePew (Eds.) Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction, pp. 493-516. WAC Clearinghouse.

Warnock, S. & Gasiewski, D. (2018). [Excerpt] Writing together: Ten weeks teaching and studenting in an online writing course. National Council of Teachers of English.

Woodley, X., Hernandez, C., Parra, J., & Negash, B. (2017). Celebrating difference: Best practices in culturally responsive teaching online. TechTrends 61, 470–478 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-017-0207-z