{"id":5575,"date":"2018-04-24T20:18:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T03:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistoryblog.wordpress.com\/?p=5575"},"modified":"2018-04-24T20:18:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T03:18:05","slug":"transferring-the-burden-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2018\/04\/transferring-the-burden-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Transferring the burden of learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may know if you follow me, I am edging closer to a methodology based on the self-assessment for student work. There are a number of reasons for this. This post will focus on just one: I am concerned about the increasing dependency on the instructor, especially in online classes. As students have adjusted to learning in online environments, as they become more comfortable with the technology, I’ve seen the reverse of what I anticipated. While I expected increased familiarity with learning technologies to increase self<\/em>-direction, it has instead increased communication with the instructor in a manner designed to, shall we say, selectively individualize a student’s experience.<\/p>\n

While I am sympathetic to the ongoing need to experience contact with the instructor on an individual level, I am less enthusiastic about answering multiple messages and emails asking for a repetition of feedback I’ve already given through multiple means, both individual and class-wide. There seems to be difficulty applying public or general feedback to ones own work, even when that feedback (like a rubric) is attached to an individual assignment. It is easier to just contact the instructor and ask, “why did I get this grade?”.<\/p>\n

For those of us who provide extensive examples, clear directions, detailed rubrics, and continual feedback to the entire class, this insistence on individual comments which (most of the time) simply repeat what’s been already provided, takes up valuable time that is better spent interacting about the subject matter and the discipline.<\/p>\n

In my syllabus, I have a list of expectations, which include:<\/p>\n

Students should\u00a0respond to guidance\u00a0from the instructor, learn from full-group (rather than individual) feedback, and get help from the Help page and college resources as needed.<\/em><\/p>\n

The ability to apply generalized feedback to ones own work is an important life skill, and yet I often succumb to the quick email or message response. This is because it is easier (and seems nicer) for me to just say, “oh, you just need to cite correctly as noted in the instructions” or “be sure to use only primary sources” than to encourage their independence in a helpful way. I never want to be the type of prof who barks, “read the syllabus!” Providing the information and pointing to it is one way to encourage some independence, I suppose, but it’s still telling, directing, prescribing. I want a slightly different tone.<\/p>\n

So today I got a message:<\/p>\n

Hello Professor, I do not understand what I am doing wrong on the essay prompts. Can you help me?<\/em><\/p>\n

Normally I’d go look again at the student’s assignment and my rubric, and answer specifically. But this time, I wrote back:<\/p>\n

Sure! First, take a look at the rubric, to see the areas that need improvement.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, take a look at the list in my Announcement – do any of those items apply? If so, how might you fix it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, take a look at the work of your colleagues (especially those I put a “Like” on) – notice any differences from your own work.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, go to the Help page and look at the samples.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me know what you think as you compare your Writing Assignment, and what ideas you might have for what to do for the Final Essay. Happy to provide feedback!<\/em><\/p>\n

\nCertainly there is a chance this will be interpreted as “she refused to tell me”, but I hope not. Instead, I hope that I’m teaching how<\/em> to do what I’ve told them I expect<\/em> them to do, and in a friendly way.<\/p>\n

The burden of learning, you see, shouldn’t be on me – it should be on them. These days I am taking ever more to heart Stephen Downes’ idea<\/a> that the professor’s job is to model and demonstrate, and the student’s is to practice and reflect. How can they practice if I do it for them? How can they be encouraged to reflect on their own work?<\/p>\n

When students write or rewrite something, and send me, say, their new thesis, I am always happy to provide specific feedback, and they really appreciate that. But I’d like to have a better response to the more general “I just don’t get it” message, so we’ll see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may know if you follow me, I am edging closer to a methodology based on the self-assessment for student work. There are a number of reasons for this. This post will focus on just one: I am concerned about the increasing dependency on the instructor, especially in online classes. As students have adjusted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}