PARS
Sometimes just setting up your online writing course can be difficult. There are a number of things to contend with such as the Course Management System (CMS) you will be using, document delivery, and wondering if your pedagogy will translate to an online space. There are a few things that you can do first to streamline the rest of the semester and make your class a better knowledge making space for you and your students.
We believe there are four elements (PARS) that can allow you to create a great knowledge making space for an online class:
Preparing the online space for your pedagogy is an essential step and takes some time in the beginning, but using PARS will save you time overall and provide a better knowledge making space for you and your students.
As we discuss in our book Personal, Accessible, Responsive Strategic: Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors, the PARS an approach spans several layers (design, instruction, and administration) and these layers equal the student user experience. We feel that if you apply all of these layers within each letter, you get a unique user experience where students will engage in an online space. We believe this equation is a simple one: PARS + UX = OWI.
We believe there are four elements (PARS) that can allow you to create a great knowledge making space for an online class:
- Personal
- Accessible
- Responsive
- Strategic
Preparing the online space for your pedagogy is an essential step and takes some time in the beginning, but using PARS will save you time overall and provide a better knowledge making space for you and your students.
As we discuss in our book Personal, Accessible, Responsive Strategic: Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors, the PARS an approach spans several layers (design, instruction, and administration) and these layers equal the student user experience. We feel that if you apply all of these layers within each letter, you get a unique user experience where students will engage in an online space. We believe this equation is a simple one: PARS + UX = OWI.
Online instruction doesn't have to be impersonal just because you never get to actually meet your students. In fact, being personal is one of the most important things you can do as an online writing instructor. Every instructor usually develops his or her own way of showing their personality online, but there are several direct ways instructors can make themselves more personable to their students.
By personalizing your syllabus with your contact information and availability, you invite students to communicate with you and reiterate that you are in fact a person, not a computer. Other things such as personalizing the classroom/CMS with images, putting your picture on emails, combining your voice with written feedback, and creating videos that walk students through assignments and lesson plans can help you engage in a personable and engaging partnership with your students. These can also help to establish your ethos with your students as you put forth the extra effort to get to know them as you demand of them when it comes to extra effort and the class. By doing just these few things, you can create a dynamic interaction and collaboration with your students and bridge the challenge of physicality, which you normally get automatically in face-to-face classrooms.
By personalizing your syllabus with your contact information and availability, you invite students to communicate with you and reiterate that you are in fact a person, not a computer. Other things such as personalizing the classroom/CMS with images, putting your picture on emails, combining your voice with written feedback, and creating videos that walk students through assignments and lesson plans can help you engage in a personable and engaging partnership with your students. These can also help to establish your ethos with your students as you put forth the extra effort to get to know them as you demand of them when it comes to extra effort and the class. By doing just these few things, you can create a dynamic interaction and collaboration with your students and bridge the challenge of physicality, which you normally get automatically in face-to-face classrooms.
Being accessible is not just about ADA compliance. We view accessible similar to its many definitions: “able to be used or obtained,” “suitable or ready for use,” “available,” “obtainable.” Inclusion is also about things like making content mobile friendly to expand access, and about access in the economic sense as well. Further, access is about setting up an online space that works for you and your students so no miscommunication occurs and no queries go unanswered and everyone of all learning styles, preferences and ableness can access the course. The virtual playing field is leveled.
Being accessible is supporting your students by providing them with course materials that they can make sense of and sharing access to campus resources so that they have all the tools they need to succeed; access should not be a barrier to learning.
Being accessible is supporting your students by providing them with course materials that they can make sense of and sharing access to campus resources so that they have all the tools they need to succeed; access should not be a barrier to learning.
Being responsive is the end gain of the previous three elements: you taking time to work with your students. You have made the class personal, established your credibility as an instructor, and made yourself available. All of these culminate in your ability to respond and collaborate with students. Just making yourself available is not responding or collaborating - responding is responding. You may set the schedule as the means of being available, but you still have to respond. By stipulating that you will return feedback and emails on various topics and assignments within a certain time frame, you can create a stable space where students know what to expect when it comes to your availability and their own.
An example of responding can be providing feedback. Returning papers with your comments or writing notes within Eli Review as you discuss their Revision Plan and peer feedback. Because some online classes are condensed into smaller timelines, instructors can put a clause in their syllabus that stipulates they will return all material that has been turned in on time (rough drafts and final drafts) within 48 hours of the submission deadline. It is impossible to ask instructors to be available 24/7 when it comes to online writing classes. In fact, this cannot be achieved in a face-to-face environment, so to suggest it can be created online is a disservice to students and instructors. What we can do, as educators, is promote a sense of a Return On Inquiry (ROI) time.
This is important to for two reasons: 1) students can see instructor feedback on initial drafts around the same time as they see feedback from their peers that they are required to submit via Eli Review, and 2) students are able to see how they did on the final draft to help them prepare for the next assignment. While the turn-around time is quick, instructors can use this as an important way to capitalize on the ethos they have established in the class as a teacher who is there for his/her students and wants them to get as much feedback to revise and learn as possible.
An example of responding can be providing feedback. Returning papers with your comments or writing notes within Eli Review as you discuss their Revision Plan and peer feedback. Because some online classes are condensed into smaller timelines, instructors can put a clause in their syllabus that stipulates they will return all material that has been turned in on time (rough drafts and final drafts) within 48 hours of the submission deadline. It is impossible to ask instructors to be available 24/7 when it comes to online writing classes. In fact, this cannot be achieved in a face-to-face environment, so to suggest it can be created online is a disservice to students and instructors. What we can do, as educators, is promote a sense of a Return On Inquiry (ROI) time.
This is important to for two reasons: 1) students can see instructor feedback on initial drafts around the same time as they see feedback from their peers that they are required to submit via Eli Review, and 2) students are able to see how they did on the final draft to help them prepare for the next assignment. While the turn-around time is quick, instructors can use this as an important way to capitalize on the ethos they have established in the class as a teacher who is there for his/her students and wants them to get as much feedback to revise and learn as possible.
There are a lot of ways to use strategy in online writing instruction, but these three specific elements of being strategic in the online writing classroom seem most consistent: course design, instruction and administration. In designing and teaching the course, an instructor must be strategic, for all online instructors and their administrators must have a plan.
Strategic Design:
When planning the content of an online writing course, it's important to be strategic in your course design. It helps to plan out the entire semester, whether or not you share the whole semester layout with your students. There is a lot of research done on strategic course design. Robin Smith's Conquering the Content and Scott Warnock's Teaching Writing Online: How & Why, both offer great suggestions on how to be strategic in course design and maintenance.
Strategic Instruction:
There are many elements of being a strategic instructor: responding to students in the discussion forums, responding to student writing, responding to daily student communication, such as posted questions or email. In the discussion forum, it's good to have a personal strategy that includes how many posts you will be responding to. Beth Hewett's The Online Writing Conference is a great example of providing strategic instruction and feedback.
Strategic Administration:
Traditionally WPAs establish the content and philosophy of a writing program. However, with the upsurge in courses moving from face-to-face to online, this can get lost. Administrators can be at a loss for who to assign the online writing courses he/she must offer. Oftentimes, these courses get assigned to faculty with little experience or interest in OWI and the administrator usually has little resources to provide professional development opportunities in OWI to the instructors assigned to teach the OWCs.
There are a lot of ways that administrators can be strategic, from the planning and developing of OWCs, to the instructor assignments, assessment and evaluation practices used. There is not a lot of research currently out there on this subject, but one can refer to Deborah Minter’s “Administrative Decisions for OWI” in the book Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction (OWI).
Strategic Design:
When planning the content of an online writing course, it's important to be strategic in your course design. It helps to plan out the entire semester, whether or not you share the whole semester layout with your students. There is a lot of research done on strategic course design. Robin Smith's Conquering the Content and Scott Warnock's Teaching Writing Online: How & Why, both offer great suggestions on how to be strategic in course design and maintenance.
Strategic Instruction:
There are many elements of being a strategic instructor: responding to students in the discussion forums, responding to student writing, responding to daily student communication, such as posted questions or email. In the discussion forum, it's good to have a personal strategy that includes how many posts you will be responding to. Beth Hewett's The Online Writing Conference is a great example of providing strategic instruction and feedback.
Strategic Administration:
Traditionally WPAs establish the content and philosophy of a writing program. However, with the upsurge in courses moving from face-to-face to online, this can get lost. Administrators can be at a loss for who to assign the online writing courses he/she must offer. Oftentimes, these courses get assigned to faculty with little experience or interest in OWI and the administrator usually has little resources to provide professional development opportunities in OWI to the instructors assigned to teach the OWCs.
There are a lot of ways that administrators can be strategic, from the planning and developing of OWCs, to the instructor assignments, assessment and evaluation practices used. There is not a lot of research currently out there on this subject, but one can refer to Deborah Minter’s “Administrative Decisions for OWI” in the book Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction (OWI).