Collaboration in Your Writing Classroom: Team Projects

At the recent TYCA West Conference in Mesa Arizona, October 2014, Levi Martin from the University of Texas at El Paso presented on "Creating Collaborative Spaces that Empower Students in Collaborative Writing Practices." His presentation was lively and enjoyable. To set the stage for this instructor, he is a doctoral candidate who primarily teaches Technical Writing, Professional Writing, and occasional composition courses for the university.

Martin creates short lessons and places students into small teams to apply the lesson. He first defines collaboration as joint writing to help students understand what the term means in this situation. Then he has students write a team paper on Success Strategies.

Factors to consider when creating these collaborative projects are motivation, time with the team, having the right tools, developing team contracts, and having multiple conferences with the instructor, both team and individual.

Martin bases his team projects on Achievement Goal Theory, Walters, 2004, 236. He believes that higher motivation equals higher achievement. Once students graduate from college, their future professional needs will require collaborative skills in the workplace. Therefore, team work has high applicability and relevance to students.

Martin also states that he doesn't call collaborative writing "group work." He calls it "teamwork," which has a better connotation. Other ideas for names to call this type of collaboration are agencies, partners, think tank. I mentioned that the term "partners" has not always met with a positive connotation in my classroom, and the others seemed to agree.

When creating a writing center for students, he named the tutors "writing consultants." This term similarly gave students more of a desire to go see someone for assistance.

Martin favors increased student involvement. When students have a voice in creating the assignments, this practice creates a deeper understanding of the work and greater sense of ownership. Discussion on the goals of the assignment also opens the conversation to discuss the assignment and its purpose in a more directed, useful environment.

Time with team members is essential. Martin claims that after the initial honeymoon, students need time to work with and get to know one another in non-threatening context, the opportunity to learn strengths and weaknesses of the members, and time for peer review. The instructor is the catalyst. Martin grades the comments peers make on paper, not the draft itself. He gives 20% of the final grade to the comments made on other students drafts and 80% to the student's own final version.

This instructor also uses tools. Martin uses "the Google."

• Google Drive and Google Docs provide (a)synchronous platforms
• Instructor can join the conversation in a non-threatening way
• Students can compose, edit, revise collaboratively without being in the same place
• All changes and comments are recorded for both students and instructor
• He also uses color-coded writing. Each student is assigned a different color for text.
• Presence is key. No matter the software used, the instructor needs to be present.
• Students need to know the instructor is aware and active in development of the work.
• Instructor presence develops accountability and builds motivation.

Students develop the contracts for team projects.

• In conjunction with developing guidelines, students have ownership of the process they use to complete the work.
• Students develop their own responsibilities, dates, and repercussions.
• All team members write the contract, which gives exposure to a new genre of writing.
• Writing the contract increases student awareness of the process and responsibilities.

Both group and individual student conferences are vital to team project development and success. Class time works well for group conferences, according to Martin. He uses office hours for individual one-on-one conferences. The instructor needs to be aware of up-to-date progress on the project. 

Open communication is also vital. Students need to be able to contact the instructor with any issues, questions, and concerns regarding the class.Limit rules to correspondence within reason. Work to get students talking to you. The more comfortable they are, the better questions students ask.

Martin created a Twitter account for his students so they could ask him short questions for quick answers. This type of easy access keeps the instructor from giving out personal contact information. 

If you are interested in developing team projects with your class, I hope you will read through Martin's ideas here and take what works for you. It is my personal opinion that these ideas would work best for second year college students, but team projects can also be used for first year and even developmental classes. I wish you all the best as you challenge yourself to try these team projects with your students. Data shows that classrooms doing project learning activities have higher retention as students get involved with one another and develop accountability.

Oral Readings Plus for College Students

A few years ago I attended a SWADE (Southwest Association for Developmental Education) conference in the Phoenix area along with several other staff and instructional employees from Yavapai College. Along with presenting with three others, I also enjoyed learning from other developmental education instructors from colleges in our region. The best tip I picked up was the oral reading activity to assist students with fluency, pronunciation, and comprehension.

Here is how the oral reading works. First, I read a passage out loud for about two minutes. Then I mark how much text I had covered. Second, I type this text into slides. Third, I add a background and clip art to make the slides visually appealing. Finally, I record myself reading these slides in Jing.

Once these slides are recorded, I save the file in Screencast.com. Screencast gives me a link that I paste into Blackboard. You can use any site that you like, but this one has worked well for me. (11)

When introducing these readings to the class, sometimes I have the students do a pre-reading activity such as completing a K-W-L sheet. K-W-L sheets are broken down into three columns. In the "K" column, students write what they already Know about the topic in the reading. In the "W" column, students write what they Want to learn about the topic. 

If we do the K-W-L activity, now is the time to share the recording. I dim the lights and play the recording. Students have the choice of following along in their textbook or of watching the PowerPoint slides roll through as they listen to me reading the text. Hopefully the modeling of intonation, pronunciation, and pace train the class to use similar positive reading habits.

So what if we don't do the K-W-L activity? Sometimes we skim-read the passage. Some days we annotate the reading. Some days we just dive right in and create an outline or a summary later. But the main point here is that students do more with the reading than to just read it through one time.

After the class listens to the slide presentation, we get into pairs. If we have an odd number of students, one reads with me. I watch the clock and have student A read the beginning of the passage for thirty seconds. Then student B reads the same passage as A. Then both A and B read the same passage a second time.

Over the semester, students get better and better at being able to read out loud, they gain comprehension in a noisy environment, and they gain enjoyment reading in a social environment. If you have a class that needs to comprehend a lot of reading materials, please consider adopting some of these techniques, and you can always ask a reading teacher at Yavapai College for ideas to work with your specific curriculum and/or situation. Enjoy!

Why I iPhone

Why am I glad that I got an iPhone last year at Thanksgiving? Well, it certainly wasn't so that my bill would increase. But I certainly have experienced many benefits, and so have my students.

1. I can receive all of my personal and work email up to the minute in this device.

2. In addition, the college and personal email are separated, so I can choose to view either one, or ignore either one.

3. Students now hear responses back from me far more quickly because they don't have to wait until I sit down at a computer to respond to them.

4. The iPhone has the ability to become a hot spot, so even when I am in an area where there is no phone signal, I can log in and check email, grade papers, and so on. Yes, it does run up the data plan, but seriously, I do it so seldom, that even on the long trip I took this summer, I never came close to using up the data available.

5. And then there is the all-too-popular Yavapai College app. Okay, so it isn't too popular, but I can still log in and see what the dining opportunities are in Prescott just in case I need to work on the main campus.

6. Navigation with the Maps or Google Maps apps has gotten me many places. All I have to do is type the address of the location I want to go, and these heavy-weight navigation programs get me there at least 90% of the time.

7. "Reminders" is another useful app for teachers. How many times do we think of something when walking back to the classroom only to forget about it on the way? With "Reminders," all we need to do is tap the app, hit the microphone button, and speak the reminder into the device. It will remain their until we delete it. Okay, so we still need to check the reminder.

8. I really appreciate the Calendar app. When I am in a meeting and need to check my schedule, I can see what is already scheduled to see when I am available. I can also add new appointments on the spot rather than waiting until I get back to the office.

9. "Spider," a solitaire game, also comes in handy when my brain is on overload, when I am stuck in the airport waiting for the plane to take me to a conference, or when I need a diversion. I do not suggest using Spider during class or office hours, of course, but I do think that a healthy mind is one that finds moments for relaxation.

10. And last, but certainly not least, is the Dropbox app. I seriously use "Dropbox" for all of my work files these days. I can access all of my files from work, home, and even iPhone whenever needed.

I hope you have found at least one reason to consider using a smart phone to enhance the options available. I know I have found even more ways to use the iPhone than listed in this blog, and I am sure you will find ones I haven't even discovered. Blessings!

Gearing Up for a New Semester . . Soon

Every semester when I see things winding down, the faithful students seeking to finish well, I think, wow, my work is almost done here. But then it hits me . . .  Think again! Now is the time to start building for the new semester.

So what process do instructors go through to prepare for a new semester? Instructors receive a new Course Management System (CMS) shell to build new content. That means we don't just copy the course from last semester and change the dates. Why not, you may ask? Each semester instructors find ways of teaching the class that they can improve upon. Often I write notes right onto the syllabus of the face-to-face classes to help me remember what changes to make. In online classes, I sometimes change the assignment the week after the students finish it so it is already ready when I do roll over content into the new Blackboard shell.

But I thought you said you don't copy the course. Well, since I am a limited human being, I do copy the main portion of the course, especially between fall and spring, and then I do the major rewriting during the summer . . . when I am off contract. But I still change textbooks, content, assignments, the way the directions are written to improve clarity, and so on.

Instructors also go to conferences and develop new ideas. In addition, most instructors network with other faculty at their campuses to gain insight into new and better ways to deliver instruction. We also network to make sure that students taking a particular course are getting a similar experience regardless of which section they take.

In fact, blogging here in this TeLS 9x9x25 challenge has become one more way for instructors, both locally and around the country, to similarly learn from one another and to network. I was pleased to get a great idea from a professor of writing from another institution today that I will definitely incorporate. And with funding for professional growth shrinking, we as instructors need to turn to the Internet for more and more ways to learn from one another.

One important point I would like to make about developing an online course is to write into it your conversational voice. Use proper grammar and punctuation, but write your personality into the course. Be warm and open in the voice you present to the students, and they will find you to be inviting. They will be more likely to contact you when they have trouble. The first time I taught online, I inherited a course from a professor at Northern Arizona University. I spent most of the rewriting just changing the information into my voice. And as Matt Pearcy taught us at the last Summer Institute, be sure to make your syllabus friendly for students.

And all throughout that semester, when students sent me an email asking to clarify directions, I was logging into the CMS to see how I could improve them. Each semester I seemed to have fewer emails with students having difficulty. If one student had an issue, I didn't consider it to be a problem, but as soon as I heard from two, I figured that a lot of others probably had the same issue, but didn't have the courage to ask or hadn't gotten to that point in the lesson yet. That is when I made sure I got into the course and changed things.

So here it is, November. Time to get started with Spring semester courses. Let's get our fingers nimble and go to work. After all, isn't that what Thanksgiving vacation is for? Well, at least after filling ourselves with turkey and thanking God for all of his many blessings, but seriously.

Signing off . . .

That Ning Thing

A number of years ago I took a great class from Yavapai College's TeLS staff, ENG255, and in that class I found a tool that I thought would transform the online experience for my students. Its name: NING. Also, I was so glad that I got the domain I wanted: Thinkingcritically.ning.com .

For years all of the ENG140 students created their own pages here. Students had access to Critical Thinking videos, pictures of charts for the Elements of Thought, Intellectual Standards, and Intellectual Traits. Students also had a link to Richard Paul and Linda Elder's Critical Thinking site where they could see even more electronic tools to help grasp the concepts for critical thinking, download further books, and have access to other material available to instructors.

One day Ning decided that FREE wasn't going to continue. Ning decided to charge for this service. Suddenly FREE was converted to $2.95 per month. Along came Pearson who decided to pick up the tab for deserving educators. I was one of the blessed. For the next few years, Pearson paid the fee for Thinkingcritically.Ning.com as well as a number of other educators' sites to remain up for the students.

And then it happened. Out of the blue I was sent a message that I had a bill of $5.90, and that I would be turned over to the creditors if I didn't pay. I was informed that I had been sent a number of bills and reminders, and that I needed to pay up. A few days later, ZAP, right after the students posted their pages for the semester, Thinkingcritically.Ning.com went down.

In the next few weeks, I pondered what to do. During the last few months, not only had I NOT been told that Pearson had pulled its funding, but at the same time, I was getting bombarded with all kinds of requests for all kinds of people with weird email addresses and addresses from around the globe, literally, to join the site.

Seriously, I did not want a bad credit rating, but would anyone deny loaning me money to buy a car just because I hadn't paid a $5.90 bill for Ning??? Seriously??? And how could they do that anyway since I hadn't agreed to anything personally.

I talked to Todd about it since he also had a Ning account, and I found out he was having a similar situation. Previously, he had told me how to change the settings to the account to limit the visibility of my site, so I had already taken care of that issue. No new strange people were sending me requests, which was in fact becoming a burden to this online instructor who gets plenty of email every day anyway, especially at the beginning of the semester. I would personally rather focus on my students.

Since his previous advice had worked, I asked for more. Todd encouraged me to talk with Dean Holbrook, which I decided to do. Dean was gracious and is covering the $5.90 previously billed along with the $2.95 through December so my current students can enjoy their Ning site. Yeah! No more threats of destroying my credit, and my students can see their site again! However, at the end of the year, the site will go down permanently, and all of the students who have taken the class all of these past years will lose access to all of this information. Their pages will go away.

So what. Really. Did the students actually go use the site after class ended? Did they ever go in and look up old classmates and reconnect? Did the students taking the class find it useful? Honestly, I didn't do the research. It just seemed like a great idea at the time. It was a great way to preserve some of the learning we did as a class, which was shared with later classes. And it was awesome to have something left of my students after the class was over.

The best part of all is that students had a place to post images of themselves, their families, anything they wanted to share so we learned more about each other than just a name in a Blackboard shell. Was the Ning thing worth all of my time and effort, and that of the students? You decide.

Signing off. Tina

Constructivist Theory and Web 2.0 Technologies

Constructivist Theory (http://tip.psychology.org/bruner.html) focuses on a way of learning where students construct meaning by going beyond what they are taught. The new Web 2.0 technologies that are emerging today certainly can  facilitate constructivist thinking and learning. The students and teachers are responsible to create this reality for themselves and their classrooms respectively. Learning will not likely take place regardless of the learning tool without desire, discipline, and dedication. Each of the Web 2.0 tools we read about in Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning by George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger create the connectivity to allow for better teaching in hybrid, online and the face to face environments.

Social learning can be greatly enhanced when using Wikis. Barb Davis created a vocabulary Wiki for her class last semester. The students chose their own words they came upon while reading The Kite Runner and loaded them into this Wiki. At the end of the semester, the instructor used these words for the Vocabulary Final Exam. Matt Pearcy created a Facebook account to give his students a creative way to access him throughout the semester. I created the http://thinkingcritically.ning.com/ site to allow students to access diverse resources to support learning the Critical Thinking terms and concepts from Richard Paul and Linda Elder's materials. Since this information is housed at Ning, it continues to be accessible after Blackboard closes its doors for the semester.

Situated learning can be enhanced using YouTube videos. Many instructors create these videos to demonstrate how to complete assignments. Artists can show students how to paint, draw, sculpt, and so on. English teachers can show students how to write various types of papers, and math teachers can demonstrate solving various math equations. Tegrity and Camtasia are other video tools that have even greater potential since the students can view the demonstration as well as a slideshow to narrate the main ideas.

Reflective learning is another benefit of Web 2.0 technologies. I have personally polled my own students asking them how they feel about using discussions in college online courses, and the majority prefer these over face to face discussions. The more quiet students have the time to think and reflect on what they want to say without being in “competition” with those for whom words come quickly and easily. Many students feel they have more time to give a well considered response and to listen to their peers. Very few students actually would confess to preferring the classroom situation where they can jump in and “monopolize” the discussion.

Multi-faceted learning relates to Multiple Intelligence Theory where proponents believe the more options instructors give students to access curriculum, the more likely students are to gain understanding of the material. When we add the visual aspect of video and other computer-based graphical interfaces, the aural aspect of recorded messages and text readers, and the kinesthetic aspect of interacting with a computer through the keyboard, mouse, and various drawing and selection tools, we can only increase the likelihood that students will engage in the material being presented. How much more interesting is it to study and learn while watching, listening, and keying into a computer device over reading a textbook! Oh, did I really say that?

I have purposefully created this learning situation in the GED classroom. Students would come into the room and work out of textbooks for part of the class time, listen to a short lecture, and then participate in groups. Finally, students would get onto a local computer to study through software programs, computer math games, and more. Students who were mostly playing with their pencil during the first part of the class period still found the program worthwhile because they knew that more engaging activities would follow. Students who preferred working in the book often returned to the book refreshed after the various activities as well. Indeed emerging technologies deserve our attention as serious tools to enhance learning for students of the 21st Century.

Contacting Students by Phone

Call me, don't be afraid, you can call me. Maybe it's late, but just call me. Tell me and I'll be around. Okay, so as faculty, we're not Nancy. Yet, students tell me over and over again how glad they are that I called them when I haven't seen them in class or heard from them in awhile.

One time in the semester students appreciate a phone call is the first week of class. Especially in the online classes, students are out there struggling to get their textbooks, to learn how to receive college email, and more importantly figure out how to navigate our Blackboard courses. Each one of us has a different set up, and that frustrates some of them. So why not call a student who has not logged in yet or sent in an assignment?

After reaching students on the phone, often I will hear them say that they are okay and will log in by the end of the day to get started. But many others will tell me that they can't figure out what to do. "How do I send in an assignment?" is one of the most repeated phrases not only via email, but also on the phone. It only takes a few minutes to have them get to a computer, follow along with phone instructions, and achieve success.

So what about all of the videos we create in YouTube and/or Jing to help them learn how to do this on their own? These are great for most of the students, but for the students who need a helping hand, the phone and email responses are still necessary. Let's face it. Some students haven't taken the time to locate the Announcements tab, and perhaps that isn't obvious to them either.

If you wonder why I take the time to call students, I have taught GED in the past, and part of the job was to call any student who missed class for a week to check up on them and encourage them. When I moved into this faculty position, I still find myself working with the newer students to campus and feel the same treatment serves to support the students and improve retention. Oakton Community College Research agrees.

So what effect has calling students had? I have had students who were dealing with death in the family tell me what was going on. Then I was able to work out a plan for them to catch up. Another student had a child in the hospital in Phoenix in a life or death situation for a few weeks. She realized that someone out there in cyberspace from Yavapai College actually cared and wanted to work with her. The student did finish the course. Other students have been overwhelmed with work, life, and other situations. Just calling them gave them motivation to carry on.

Okay, enough of the emotional reasons, right! It is just plain good personal relations for the college to call our students. When we capture the moment when a student is trying to decide if s/he should continue in the class, we can retain that student. Then we will have more students moving on to further semesters here at the college filling the higher level courses as well. We will also create a more supportive, positive atmosphere on our campus, and students will likewise share about us as a college that we are a more supportive, positive place to go to school. And we know that students have choices. Let's encourage them to come here, and to stay.

Effects of New Student Orientation

Each decision a college makes effects change within the institution. Some have profound effects that can be seen immediately. Others take years to realize. Last year the Developmental Education committee studied research and learned that new student orientations often make no real difference. Although students stated that they felt more prepared for college, these same students had the same drop out rate and did no better in the long run.

But then our college sent a group of advisers and faculty to the First Year Experience conference in Florida. Experts there claimed that new student orientations do make a difference. Our Student Services director became excited about the concept as well as the others who had gone. The director also was able to share statistics with positive outcomes to administration, and they likewise supported college involvement in these new orientations.

Realize that this does not mean that our college has never offered orientations. We have. But now we have decided to blend faculty and staff involvement to create a stronger support for the students. Student Services also decided to coin the phrase "mandatory for students success" as part of the launch. Although the orientations would not be mandatory, we felt all students would desire success.

So this summer a larger group of staff and faculty developed a series of orientations to be held at various locations across the county. Faculty and student services personnel met weekly and designed a general session, three concurrently running breakout sessions, and set up resource tables for students to browse between sessions. The cost to organize and run these orientations are as follows: weekly or biweekly staff meetings, faculty giving up personal time without compensation, office space and utilities expense, prizes and packets.

The rewards measured so far include: over 300 new students came to these orientations voluntarily, anecdotal reports exist of students coming to class the first day on time. Some classes actually had all students in their seats ready to learn the first day of class. In my online classes, I actually had more students logging in and getting busy at the beginning of the first week.

Can all of this positive change be due to the new student orientations? Or are other factors involved? One that occurs to me is that the college has better management of financial aid fraud. Perhaps we have more motivated students. Either way, it appears that new student orientations will be mandatory next year, and then we will be better able to measure the value of this new shift in the environment here at Yavapai College.