How and where am I improving my teaching effectiveness?

• How accessible is the tool to each user?

• What is the learning curve for myself and my students?

• Is it designed to correspond to the learning outcomes selected for the course?

• What kind and level of support is offered for using the tool or troubleshooting problems?

• How often is it updated? Will updates interrupt use?

• Will my students like it? Will they be encouraged to use it?

Using technologies strategically

Several important changes I have made include learning how to use technology to make the most of class time, improve feedback on student work, and more effectively engage students both in and out of the classroom.

Flipping

In the summer of 2012, I submitted a proposal to receive a grant to “flip” curricular elements of my course. “Flipping” my course required training on how to strategically incorporate technology to deliver content, engage students, and assess learning outside of class so that my time in class (the opportunity for face-to-face interaction) would be most effective. The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed. A flipped format introduces lecture material online so that class time can be spent on problem solving, discussion, and group activities that reflect higher levels of learning. (A fuller description of flipped classrooms is at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7081.pdf.) In addition to flipping my own course, I have delivered a presentation at a national conference “Flipped Over Folios” to audience members including university provosts, presidents, deans, department directors, faculty, and staff from colleges and universities across the U.S.

Creating and Improving Portfolio Template and Resources

I continue to improve the ChemE-folio template, including more prompts and case studies, to help students prepare documentation of their learning. With the encouragement and help from TAMU Division of Marketing and Communications Services, I developed guidelines and instructional cases for using branded material in online publications to help students determine appropriate uses of trademarked materials, logos, graphics, etc. in their own publications within and outside of the university. Thus, I am continually revising my instructional materials to address challenges posed by changing policies and online publication. The goals of this instruction include teaching students how to evaluate content so that it appropriately (and legally) meets the demands of the context.

Using Voice Comments to Supplement Written Feedback

I have recently learned how to add voice comments to each paper evaluated through the new voice comment feature at turnitin.com in GradeMark. Students can listen to my comments, which are different from (or an expansion of) the written comments they also receive on their assignments. I find that combining voice and written comments reaches a range of students with different learning styles. Some benefit from reading the written comments, while the aural learners may benefit more from hearing the comments. Also, the turnitin GradeMark feature allows me to see who has consulted their feedback (and who has not) through an analytics tool. Last, students have concluded that they can tell by the amount and the quality of feedback I give that I do actually read their work, which likely inspires them to improve the quality of their work on future assignments.

Engaging Students through Social Media

For CHEN 301 Technical Communication course, I created a Facebook group to encourage peer-to-peer discussion about course-related topics. I believe that this platform (over other discussion tools) is most effective for student interaction because it a venue that students already use. Thus, participation does not rely on their “checking in” to Blackboard or some other platform. Facebook also allows for e-mail updates on posts, which is an efficient feature for the instructor—thus I don’t have to check in to Facebook to monitor activity in the group or to answer questions they have for me.

Engaging Students in the Classroom

I frequently experiment with online software (virtual bulletin boards and polling software) to increase and document class participation. For class samples see Pros & Cons of Teamwork (Padlet) and Where Does this Question Fit (PollEverywhere). The latter tool was used to assess how well students understood the writing process when addressing a particular need. The question was this: “Should a student include extracurricular activities on his/her resume?” Responses to the polling software were input via mobile devices. This process works much like the clicker system but is at no cost to the student (they don’t have to buy a clicker for the few times we would use it in class). In addition to using the software to gather data, we also evaluate the effectiveness of each technology tool in different rhetorical contexts. My goal is to encourage student to think critically about every communication decision, including the technologies they are using.

The Bad News: Language Barriers, Previous Writing Courses, and Cognitive Expectations

Considering that CHEN 301 students’ prerequisites include a wide range of writing experiences (from high school English classes to community college courses and AP exams), I can only say that some students begin the course with average-to-strong writing skills and some do not. In addition, some students taking the course are influenced by the conventions of another “first” language, i.e., English is not their first language, and they may not have basic English writing competencies. The most significant area where I have noticed a lack of “background” is at the level of cognitive expectations regarding course outcomes. In other words, many students enter the course expecting it to look like other writing courses where the instruction and assessments are very prescriptive: the instructor provides a set of guidelines and even templates, and the students simply comply more or less by “filling in the blanks” of a writing assignment. While my course does instruct students on guidelines and conventions, the writing assessments move along a cognitive continuum: the assignments require the student to assess the rhetorical context in order to determine which principles and conventions apply. (Thus, I don’t tell them what to do but instruct them how to think independently.) Many students have not been challenged in their writing classes at this cognitive level and often fail (or score very low on) the first few assignments. I have also concluded that the range of students’ understanding of rhetoric (logic and argumentation) presents a challenge with assignments requiring persuasion. However, ChemE students are very smart and eager to learn. They quickly discover that they will have to “think harder” than they may have done in their past writing courses.

The Good News: They Can Do It!

My teaching strategy focuses on how to best “forge ahead,” not to lament about current language limitations or expectations gleaned from past courses. My students have wholeheartedly cooperated in that they are eager and ready to learn new lessons as well as review familiar ones. In addition, I believe that because ChemE students are expected to secure at least one internship (and more, if possible) on their own (i.e., the department doesn’t provide an internship for them), they embrace technical communication instruction in that they know it will prepare them early in their academic career for immediate “real-life” applications. Thus, they have “buy in” for the course, which is not always the case for other writing courses they make complete. Overall, ChemE students, as a group, have proven to be the best writers I have instructed in my 26 years of teaching students from all disciplines.

Receiving training

I frequently attend workshops, conferences, and webinars to learn best practices for providing college-level instruction. Please see a complete list of my professional development activities.

Improving course delivery

Moving writing instruction out of a lecture hall and into a computer classroom where writing “happens” permits teaching to focus less on lecture and more on skills. Currently, our CHEN writing courses are scheduled in lecture halls, rooms that (1) make organizing small and large group discussions as well as facilitating peer review sessions difficult and that (2) make directing instruction on writing almost impossible (because writing is done primarily via computers and peer reviewing is done collaboratively). Writing instruction is much like driver’s education. Some can be done via lectures (including covering rules, guidelines, practices, etc.), which can be delivered in a lecture hall, but some instruction must be delivered “hands-on,” through simulation and through test-drives with the student “driver,” writer. I currently use the graduate lab as my “simulator,” but my student class size has outgrown it, and, frankly, even these labs are not set up to be classrooms. Thus, while most of the JEB classrooms are very nicely equipped for lectures, they simply aren’t designed for other kinds of instruction.

Reflecting on teaching and learning

I frequently record observations and reflections in posts at my professional blog Rhetorical Musings. Improving how I teach requires making adjustments to course content, delivery, communication, and assessment based on several factors:

• differing learning styles of students

• student feedback from both course standard and instructor-generated (IRB-approved) evaluations

• availability of new or different resources

• availability of training and support for implementing new curricula or technologies

• research results on effectiveness of teaching methods and assessments

• feedback from networking with peer professionals and industry leaders

• informal exit interviews with students

• self reflections