Experiences with Online Writing Instruction
Regarding their overall experiences teaching writing online, survey participants highlighted their pedagogical efforts in multiple areas. This included adapting their pedagogy to encourage greater student engagement and sense of classroom community, increasing their focus on communication with and support of student learning and wellbeing, and decreasing attention to coverage models and deadlines. Additionally, despite heavy added workloads, particularly in the early part of the pandemic, participants largely perceived their work with OWI as contributing to an improved effectiveness as teachers. As one respondent put it, “Initially, the workload to transition from in-person to online was brutal. Too much to do in too little time. Anticipating what had to be designed and loaded online was mind boggling. However, once that was achieved (and constantly tweaked and retweaked), online teaching became enjoyable. I felt much more creative with more effective assignments and the students seemed to respond.”
As the second research question for this project outlined, this survey sought to understand what scholars can learn from online teaching experiences during the pandemic that can inform future academic training and ongoing professional development needs. Three open-ended questions asked participants about various aspects of their OWI experiences to help address this inquiry. These included prompts about any successes or innovations they had (question 32), reflections on any online pedagogical practices they might carry over to their in-person teaching (question 31), and any final thoughts about OWI and teaching during the pandemic they would like to share (question 36). For the sake of space and because there is some redundancy in responses, I have identified several categories that emerged in analysis from the 206 combined comments to these three questions. These capture a diversity of pedagogical lessons learned that influenced participants’ teaching in multiple instructional modalities. They also offer insights on how pandemic experiences can inform future OWI professional development and classroom practice.
The most discussed category of responses was a focus on OWI that engages students and accentuates both class participation and collaboration with peers. Many instructors’ responses described their increased emphasis on classroom community building, student engagement, and collaborative activities. Several respondents noted their amplified use of small groups, regular start-of-class check-ins, and more intentional focus on community. Other instructors reported using tools like Hypothes.is, Perusall, and shared Google docs for group annotations. Not only do these platforms afford opportunities for digital writing contributions and communication between students, they also, as one respondent noted “allow for accountability (meaning all members of the group are obliged to participate) and [for] others to discuss the annotations an individual is making.” Additionally, respondents highlighted their focus on “creating multiple modes for engagement and participation.” Respondents called out their new (or continued) use of applications like Padlet and Jamboard as means for integrating multimodal content that appealed to a broad swath of students and that had been helpful in creating more classroom interaction.
A second category of responses concerned instructors’ efforts to offer a more intensified level of support for students. Several respondents mentioned making themselves more available to students, particularly through Zoom, while others focused on how they have increased the ways in which they check in with students. Some mentioned strategies such as regular use of anonymous polls at the start of classes, allowing them to ask about both course progress and personal wellness. As one respondent noted, they have carried over to in-person classes a focus on “compassion and self-care.” Others highlighted the ways they seek frequent feedback on their courses and their focus on “communicating with students through multiple channels to amplify and reinforce messages.”
A third and related category that emerged was that many respondents have become more intentional about issues of workload and pacing of curriculum, more flexible with due dates, and more attentive to student wellbeing as it related to course success. The following comments are illustrative of such shifts:
- “I have found the ‘less is more’ approach to be pretty effective in terms of student learning. I will continue to work to keep my course content clear and manageable for students.”
- [I have] focused on “creating multiple modes for engagement and participation; letting go of a ‘coverage’ model for some classes and attending more to deep engagement with topics/ideas/practices.”
- “I have also learned to be more accepting of late work and offering extensions. This has become very important to me because prioritizing one's family or health is sometimes the more responsible thing to do than completing an assignment.”
A fourth and final category that emerged concerned the ways in which respondents saw their pedagogies and classroom practices in all modalities improve as a result of OWI professional development and teaching experiences. Despite the many challenges of teaching during COVID and undergoing an unexpected transition to online modalities, many respondents reported instructional benefits. Some suggested that their new experiences with technologies such as an LMS had led to better, more intentional course design. As one participant put it, “I feel like my courses are much more organized, and I'm much more thoughtful about how/where students find things, having everything appear on Canvas (all handouts, assignments, slide decks, activities, etc.)”. Others suggested that professional development for OWI was beneficial for instructors in any modality. As one comment noted, “Even though it was a ton of work getting up to speed with teaching online, I learned an immense amount… and I now use some of the technology when I teach in person because of the benefits.” Another respondent wrote that “all the additional skills I gained in using technology…have now improved my way of conducting classes, giving me the flexibility and comfort in teaching online that I didn't previously have, as well as strategies that also work well when classes meet in person.”
Along with these four categories related to experiences with OWI, a small (8%) but striking set of responses among participants focused on professional stresses exacerbated by the online transition. A repeated theme was respondents’ feelings of burnout, lack of institutional support, and being undervalued for work performed. While these comments may have had less to do with OWI itself and more to do with broader working conditions and the pandemic context, they are still important to recognize. When asked to describe any instructional successes or innovations, the remarks below provide a sample of these sentiments:
- “Honestly, none [no successes]. I feel like I've been hanging on by the skin of my teeth.”
- “I feel like I've learned a lot, but I'm so angry and burnt out and frustrated with how badly I am treated by my department that I don't have the time or bandwidth to be innovative.”
- “Innovative is about the last thing I feel right now…”
- “I was so hopeful at the beginning that this [innovation] would happen. I thought people would do the kind of re-seeing of their courses that online pedagogy invites. And I think they did. I do see more of my faculty using multimodal composition and using tools like jamboards, and I see them moving towards more compassionate pedagogy and using non-punitive grading schemes. But the main message I hear isn't that they are excited to have discovered new pedagogies that will inform their teaching moving forward. The main thing I hear is that they are tired and they have reached their limits of compassion and flexibility.”
- On the experience of teaching online during the pandemic: “It was truly awful, a real low point of my career.”
Despite the enthusiasm for learning new pedagogies and teaching writing expressed by most participants in comments about their OWI experiences, the added workload of preparing for and transitioning to OWI should be acknowledged by departments, administrators, and institutions. For some instructors, OWI may be a great fit for their teaching styles and skill sets. For others, regardless of a pandemic, teaching online may not align with their approach to classroom practice, student engagement, or the realities of their working conditions. As I will discuss in the conclusions and recommendations section, it will be critical for scholars and writing programs to reflect on issues of instructional experiences, workload, preparedness, and faculty satisfaction, particularly as programs think about expanding OWI offerings in the future.