Think Outside the Canvas for Students Sake

What inherent effects do online classes make to the sense of self and empowerment for the average college student? Feminist theorists claim that when we place a course into the online environment, there are consequences. Learning Management Systems such as Canvas tend to heighten instructor presence and flatten student presence. Most online courses primarily function with the student reading what he/she is to do and then turning assignments in for grading. Much less interaction typically takes place between students in the online setting.

In addition, social scientists Fyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram claim it is more difficult to send "ethics of care" or caring messages to students. This situation is labeled phronesis--the kind of knowledge that grows out of intimate familiarity with practice in contextualized settings. You can read more about their research in their book, Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, Cambridge University Press, New York. 2012.

Because of this research, we need to rethink our current practices in the online environment. It is important to remember that those taking our classes are students, not customers. We need to keep academics at the top of our priority list and not "customer satisfaction." Just this week I had an online FYE103 student tell me that my class had given them the most homework of any online class this semester. I scratched my head, asked my face-to-face class students what they thought, and they similarly scratched their heads. Our teaching practices need to continue striving toward student excellence.

On the other hand, we can embrace phronetic online spaces for teaching. Students can be given spaces to posture individuality and sharing of the self. Blogs, Wikis, Facebook, YouTube, and many other online spaces are available for us to allow creativity. We should work against getting students stuck in the Canvas-only environment when creating assignments.

For example, a few years ago I created space in Ning for students to post their picture, write responses to critical thinking questions, and use multi-media tools to enhance understanding of concepts taught in the course. The students' space was still available semester after semester, and students had access to return and visit with new students along the way. The experience was rich and meaningful. Using external tools does increase grading time to check an outside location, but the rewards were worth it. Ultimately Ning began charging money. Otherwise, I would still have this site up and running.

While exploring likely external tools to build student efficacy, remember that K-12 schools do not have digital literacy outcomes. College students did not have standards for these in the past, so some will know random areas of digital skill based on personal interest and digital access. For this reason, don't introduce new tools without making tutorials available, but be brave and think outside the Canvas.