Many schools are moving towards integrating technology more completely into their writing programs, often in the form of a commercial web-based product, such as Web CT, BlackBoard, or First Class. These web-based applications allow for some pedagogically sound writing process, interactive, peer critiquing activities both in and outside of class, which is why teachers were initially attracted to them, but I would like to both point out other possibilities and, at the same time, some potential hazards of adopting this kind of technology institutionally, or at least programmatically. While most of the topics in this forum have centered on some aspect of actually teaching composition, I would like to start there, but then look at the act of teaching with technology from two other perspectives—those of the students and of the administrators—then revisit the teacher to see what the impact of all of this might eventually be. Technology, in addition to other things, seems to be able to make the process of writing and even evaluating writing transparent: suddenly things that were often shrouded in the past are made visible. Here are some brief examples: technology allows for a student to have more power, in that she is able to conduct more work outside of class on her own time, have immediate access to classmates/teacher, and, with most programs, the student can know her class standing and grade at any time by simply logging on. Similarly, teachers have power in that they can see when students log on, when work is turned in, how long students have spent online, how many words have been generated, and so forth. Finally, administrators who are techno-savvy now have power, too, in that they can see who has graded (and who has not), how extensive comments seem to be, how consistent teachers are with their grades, how frequently class is held, what is happening in class, and what students are turning in. Suddenly a seemingly harmless, pedagogically sound integration of technology becomes a weighty issue, one I hope we can spend some good time talking about.
At Texas Tech, we have a fairly robust, locally grown interactive writing, revising, and editing web-based application, TOPIC (Texas Tech Online-Print Integrated Curriculum), that we are now using in all FYC courses. However, “using” is a tricky word here—we can’t force TAs to make their students integrate all of the online peer editing, email, or submit a draft functions that TOPIC provides, but we can require them to keep administrative data online so that students know up front where they stand in a course, and so the program has a record of their work and how it has been assessed. To this end, all FYC teachers are required to keep attendance online (since our institutional policy states that “more than 2 or 3 absences—depending on how frequently each week a course meets—can affect a student’s final grade in the course”), submit all graded work online, as well as to post all grades online (using a nice database that figures final grades for you). We strongly encourage teachers to comment on student papers online as well. This scenario has worked well for us in the past few years as we’ve gained greater compliance, and teachers who are comfortable with TOPIC really like using it in their classes. Students like being able to know exactly where they stand as soon as they log on—when a student logs on to the particular class, after entering a secure password, she is immediately greeted with an opening screen that is available only to her and includes any syllabus/course information that the teacher has entered, as well as the number of absences to date the student has accrued and the grade she has earned thus far in the course. If a student has been absent more than the allotted number of times, a note saying as much appears—also, a note is sent to the dean of the student’s college as soon as she goes over the allowed number of absences. In some cases, a student can also see (anonymously, of course) where her grades fall relative to other class grades.
We’ve found that this kind of individual visibility has helped defer a lot of end-of-the-semester anxiety (“but I didn’t KNOW I’d been absent seven times! I didn’t KNOW it would affect my final grade!” and “I didn’t KNOW I was failing the class—I would have dropped!”). Just as in years past, students get a copy of the policy statement at the beginning of the semester, and they often have access to it in their texts, online, and as a handout, but a daily reminder of exactly where a student stands in regard to those policies and in regard to class standing has helped to lower our complaint rate (or at least focus it on non-administrative topics). In a sense, by posting administrative information on TOPIC, students have been given a sort of private window into the teacher’s grade book, one most of them felt they didn’t previously have until the teacher bestowed it upon them at the end of the semester. Of course, it works the other way, too: teachers can see when students posted their work, how much time they spent online, and so forth.
But another window has appeared, too, one that allows Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) to view student and teacher work. All of the WPAs have access to TOPIC, and we can see if, in fact, TAs are posting the data they’re supposed to be posting—attendance, student drafts, grades, and syllabus and policy information. We can also see when grades are turned back to the students, and even what kinds of grades and/or comments have been made. In effect, we can be the proverbial “fly on the wall” in terms of being able to see what’s going on, virtually, in the composition class.
I begin with this example because via technology and a relatively sophisticated database, the traditional power structures of the classroom have been inverted, at least in part.
Students are given more power as they are aware of where they stand each time they log in; Administrators can, if they so choose, use the program to effect a kind of “quality control:” are grades given in a timely fashion? Is attendance up to date? Are comments of substance? And so forth.
This model could be a real boon for administrators who are responsible for each first year composition student having a “comparable experience” which helps prepare her for future college writing, as well as to write as a professional. It is possible with this kind of database to have an administrative record keeping system in which portions of records are privately available to students, portions privately available to teachers, but also available to those administering large writing programs. Such a database would allow for a better, more consistently-run, more accountable (and assessable) writing program, as well as an inversion of power so that students could feel informed and take on a larger, more reflective part in their own professional development.
Yet I’m not naïve enough to think that such a database would be without problems. Teachers have a lot of pressure on them now, when their grade books are physical and private; when these become virtual and public, will the pressure to perform become too great? Will a semblance of quality replace real quality interaction? Will timely feedback become more important than quality interaction? Will the one-sided story this database portrays overshadow the multi-dimensional face to face interactions? In the past, we’ve been able to assess teachers of composition (mostly Teaching Assistants at my institution) in these ways only: we get a syllabus/policy statement; we might observe a class; we might see a set of graded essays (because our program is large, this only happens in a TA’s first semester); we can peruse student evaluations; we can see add/drop rates and grade spreads; and we often get unsolicited feedback from students in these classes (coming to us AFTER the fact for a grade complaint, for example). Again, most of this assessment/quality control is post-mortem; what this database offers us is a means to assess in process, and perhaps to intervene in the process for students and the professional development of the teacher.
I would like to talk about an assessment rubric which operates on a database structure that's kept, maintained, interactive, archival, and available (but at different levels for different audiences) online. But because I think this is a complicated, touchy situation, I'm going to situate it in a narrative.
Once upon a time, a brand new assistant professor took on the job as associate WPA at a mid-level university. She was thrilled to be part of a collaborative program in which each member of the composition/rhetoric faculty helped to run the writing program. Her job was to make sure undergrads in FYC had a comparable experience; to train new TAs to teach FYC; and to assist with professional development. She thought about her job, discussed it with her colleagues and some of the grad students she met, then tried out a few of her ideas, including peer evaluation teams, workshops, reading all the FYC student evaluations, asking for sample syllabi, conducting teacher evaluations, asking the writing program secretary for copies of data that we had on all teachers, such as breakdowns of grade distributions. She tried to keep track of who did what in terms of professional development, and how well they accomplished their—and the department’s—goals. Due to time constraints, her record keeping wasn’t perfect, yet she found that she needed resources like these to draw upon when students came to her for letters of recommendation, advice about teaching portfolios, or to write a letter for an award or scholarship. With all the fragmented sources of data, it was a nightmare to keep up with, and to do her job well meant that she had little or no time for her own scholarly pursuits (which were mandatory if she were to remain at the institution).
Too often, however, even with all the fragmented data, she found that one piece didn't always support another, or she didn’t have all the pieces together when she needed them. For instance, she had to identify TAs who could be offered the opportunity to mentor new, incoming TAs as part of a newly conceived, institutionally based program. She went to the student evaluations, and came up with quite a list of good people. Later, however, she was asked to target some of these same TAs for counseling, as they had a horribly skewed grade distribution (all A's and B's, or mostly A's, for example), which the institution found problematic (and might have accounted for the high student evaluations).
At a weekly composition meeting that the collaborative program used to run a consistent program, one of the associate directors suggested a database with information like that listed above for all the TAs, and it seemed to be a good thing. After all, she could use it to write letters of recommendation, citing real specifics; she could find consistent, good teachers to ask to be mentors; she could address specific questions students (and parents) had when they came to ask questions or even to complain; and so forth. She thought it would be good for the TAs, too, since they could log in to their own “space” and see data that pertained to them—they could see their own growth, they could use specific information for projects such as teaching portfolios, and they could have real "proof" of teaching excellence, since so many jobs ask for this.
But when the idea was pitched to another committee, she was surprised at the reaction: some thought it sounded too much like "big brother is watching you." She was puzzled; this was data, after all, that the writing program gathered every year—it would simply be centralized, and accessible to those running the writing program, and because it would be password protected, individuals would have access to (and the ability to add to) their own private information only. It could be a central location for them to keep track of their own professional development so that when they revised their letters, their vitae, or their teaching portfolios, they could simply go to the database and pull out information.
I’m going to ease out of my story now, and talk a bit more about the implications of such a database in terms of what I know, as well as information I’ve received from others about this topic. As a WPA, much like the one in the story, I know that much more of my time than I can afford professionally is spent on keeping track of exactly the kinds of things related in the story. I would love to have a database of information that I could go to and use to write letters, to see patterns, to catch problems (and HELP FIX THEM, not punish) before they get to be overwhelming. But I can also see the problems with such a database in terms of who has the power, who has access, and who interprets it.
Linda Hanson noted that TAs, adjuncts, and staff need to have a discussion about what matters, what should be assessed, and how it should be assessed. “The conversation would clarify the overlaps and gaps between mentoring and professional development and evaluation,” she asserts, and perhaps that’s the key—yet it was in such a conversation that the red flags went up. Perhaps I didn’t present the idea well. In the same conversation, Jeff White wrote: “A database like this should be useful in their own teacher development, and it should be a service to adjuncts in composing letters for merit pay, contract renewal, and for application files if they are looking for employment elsewhere. It seems that the more open the access the better (as long as individual instructors cannot check up on other individuals).” But Kathi Yancey countered with a cautionary note: “I take Becky's point that it would make her life easier and serve the needs of many of the faculty to collect these data. [But] this makes me nervous. What I'm afraid of is something like Hawthorne's “The Birthmark,” in which a fascination with technology--what we are *able* to do rather than what we *should* do—leads to disaster.”
Keith Rhodes suggests an alternative: “I've always kept data on comp programs as a whole, but I intentionally leave out identifiers of instructors. If instructors want me to make a comparative study of their practices against the over-all norm, I will do so—but they have to give me the key information about which sections were theirs. If it's programmatic adjustment I want to make, programmatic information will do.” Yet I’d argue that programmatic information isn’t all we need; for instance, when I needed to select mentors, I needed to find out which TAs were exemplary teachers in the context of our institutional confines. I had to look at individuals.
Finally, for Kathi Yancey, it's rhetorical: “What's the purpose? And not least, who's the author?” I tried to address some of these rhetorical ideas below. I agree—this is rhetorical—and it presents a variety of competing, possibly conflicting rhetorical situations.
Ideally, among the purposes and audiences I see for such a database would be:
For the Program:
· to ensure that FYC students were having a comparable experience by being able to compare syllabi, policies, and other course materials· to be able to get information—accurate information—quickly, in the case of a complaint, serious or otherwise· to have specific, important information to address the strengths and weaknesses of the program, and of individual teachers when it comes time to select mentors, teaching awards, write letters of recommendation, etc.· to be able to see patterns that evolve so that possible problems—such as, for instance, consistently low teaching evaluations (not just a few disgruntled students, but over 1/2 the class—which has happened) can be addressed in an "intensive mentoring" situation, with a WPA, so that they both might negotiate ways that the TA can address the problem. We've done this, too, and it's been fairly successful· to be able to see patterns among the whole group of TAs so that group patterns might be rewarded or addressed in professional development workshops or other means of "non-voluntary opportunities for growth and reflection"
For the WPA:
· ease of record keeping so that information that does intersect can be viewed as a whole· opportunities for good PR: the WPA can identify specific things that teachers/the program are doing well, and broadcast this information· and, since when bad things happen, the WPA is usually the one who takes the heat, the WPA has a chance to know exactly what's going on
For the TA:
· immediate access to things like student evaluations (there is a move afoot to put all student evaluations on the web--I think Clemson does, or has conducted a study about it. Also, check out web sites like http://www.pickaprof.com/) so that the TA can use this information to chart successes and trace patterns that can be used to help inform her teaching for next semester — real reflective practitioner stuff· specific information (grade spread, student evaluations, for example) so that the TA can construct a teaching portfolio and/or provide evidence of excellent teaching while seeking a job· specific information so that when the TA asks for a letter of recommendation, he/she can provide the writer with this specific infoWho would have access to this information? Ideally, the WPA(s) would have full access; the Composition staff, limited read/write access (a WPA secretary, for instance, might be able to enter data like add/drop rate, attendance at workshops, or grade spreads); and the TA would be able to check his/her specific information only (it would be password protected), and have read access to all, but write access only to things like adding professional development items, reflections on courses’ success/problems, or notes about what to do the same or differently the next time. In a sense, it would be like the FYC students having access to their grades and attendance from day one; not always a comfortable position to be in, but an informed position, which is good.
Finally, I want to stress that we’re looking at this possibility—that of online reflection, assessment, database information—reflectively and critically and rhetorically. When I shared these ideas with Fred Kemp, one of the database builders (along with Susan Lang), he reminded me that, in a sense, what we’re doing is a heuristic. He continued:
Seymour Papert says that computers are "naturally heuristic," because one can't try to computerize any activity without having to (1) completely rethink the activity, including all the assumed behaviors that have become virtually invisible, and (2) discover in the new perspectives afforded by such rethinking possibilities for actions that were never possible through the old perspectives. In other words, the sheer act of re-coordinating all this data through the efficiencies of the database and universal access to it (breaking through the time/space problem of access) provides a new lens through which to view the whole picture. This lens shows us new ways of conceiving of the very mission itself and supporting it.
As long as we are thinking about the activities we’re entering, the perspectives of those involved, who has access and when, as well as the impact of this type of electronic database, I think it can be used as a boon for administrative record keeping, institutional decisions, and professional development, rather than a tool for “big brother.”
Questions to Consider:
Who should have access to information?How much?How should this information be used?Does it make a difference if the course is required?What if the course is taught by a TA who is also a student?Who should the WPA answer to? The TA?What are the responsibilities of students, teachers, and administrators?How might "surveillance" affect the performance of TAs? Of students?Is "timely feedback" all that important?How might this model fit in with or contradict a larger philosophy of teaching?
Works Cited
Hanson, Linda. Online Post to CW Online List. 18 April 2001
Kemp, Fred. Private email. 24 April 2001.
Rhodes, Keith. Online Post to CW Online List. 19 April 2001
White, Jeff. Online Post to CW Online List. 18 April 2001
Yancey, Kathleen. Online Post to CW Online List. 19 April 2001
Related Resources
“Beyond the
Panopticon: Expanding out Notions of Foucauldian Power”
http://writing.syr.edu/~pebender/texas/cwc2000.htm
“Freire's Dream or Foucault's Nightmare?: Teacher-Student Relations on an International Computer Network”
http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/freire.html
“Technopower
and Technoppression:
Some Abuses of Power and Control in Computer-assisted Writing Environments”
http://corax.cwrl.utexas.edu/cac/archives/v9/9_1_html/9_1_4_Janangelo.html
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol1/issue2/aycock.html
"Practicing Technology: Incorporating Technology in the Undergraduate Writing Class"
http://www.millersville.edu/~resound/*vol3iss1/practicing_technology/practec10.html
http://www.firstclass.comhttp://www.firstclass.com
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.1/coverweb/galin/newmodels.htm
http://chronicle.com/free/v46/i14/14a06701.htm