First, a quick peek into the Workshop Window:
(The following conversation between three Writing Mentors was taken from the Canvas Discussion board of the Writers’ Workshop Practicum.)
I’m somewhat old-fashioned when it comes to learning. I do my best to incorporate new techniques and strategies when applicable. But by and large, when I take a class, I prefer the experience of sitting in a classroom, interacting in person with my instructor and peers, and enjoying the teachable moments that unfold through the process of conversation and Socratic-style dialogue. I know: so old-school, right? But the mind wants what the mind wants.
When I returned to school after a nearly twenty-year break, the idea of learning a new way to learn (through asynchronous, wholly online delivery from halfway across the world) was more than a little intimidating. In fact, the fear that I might not thrive in such an environment kept me from enrolling in a program for almost ten years after I figured out what I wanted to be when I grow up. It was a mentally paralyzing situation.
Part of my mental block with online learning stemmed from my deep-seated belief in the benefits of constructivist educational theories and the notion that my full engagement with and mastery of the subject matter would require socially constructing the knowledge…together…with peers and instructors...whom I would never see in an online scenario. Having immersed myself in knowledge about social constructionism in my previous graduate program, I experienced first-hand how my knowledge of the subject matter was richly and meaningfully enhanced by engaging in co-constructive exchanges with my classmates and professors. How would that look in an online situation?
If you have explored any other part of this portfolio, I think you probably know the answer to this question and have marked my very willing conversion to “the other side.”
Perhaps it is karma, but I have often found myself in the role of online learning advocate through my position as a Writing Mentor at Arizona State University’s (ASU) Writers’ Studio. So far, I have had at least one student from each session approach me privately, through email, to lament that they feel very uncertain about ENG 102. I have heard students express concerns such as, “I’ve always been really bad at writing and so I think this is going to be extra hard to do online” and “I really don’t know what I’m doing on the computer so please be patient with me as I work on this project.” I have heard students complaining they are not getting enough online peer feedback. I have heard students complaining that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of peer feedback. And as can be documented through our online Writers’ Studio study hall platform, InScribe, there are always students who are completely (and pleasantly) surprised by what they are able to accomplish in this format—and others who swear they have never had a less enjoyable student experience in their lives. In short, the ups and downs of student life seem comparable to what I experienced with my students in-person twenty years ago, when I was a teaching assistant at University of Alaska. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. My job now is to stay on my toes as a guide for these students so that no one feels left out of the conversation and each student is encouraged to try on new techniques and solutions to meet them at their current ability level.
Fortunately, this vigilance to make the most out of socially relevant learning moments has proven valuable to me as a current graduate student as well. As I work through the Writing Mentor Practicum at ASU, I have noticed that I am still very much engaged with my fellow mentors as we dissect our experiences as mentors then co-construct (or is it re-construct) new professional understandings from the lessons learned. In fact, I have even found opportunities to regularly connect with fellow mentors over a cup of coffee (well, I am sipping a hot beverage while reading their Practicum commentary—I am not sure what they are up to). As I reflect on my time as a mentor and consider how I have developed professionally over the past several months, I got to thinking about some of these conversations and how much I have enjoyed the fellowship that has emerged in the Practicum. As an example, I offer an example of one of these conversations below, where I and two other mentors contemplated the role of the literacy myth and multiliteracies in shaping (co-constructing) one’s social reality. I particularly appreciated how our very lofty ideas were tied to actually “doing” mentor activities (e.g., the last part of the thread connects the theories in the reading to her own Digital Narrative writing and the second participant connected this conversation to the need to value individual identity in developing literacy, a critical consideration for mentoring exchanges).
Interestingly, I think having the time to prepare and critically analyze the discussion threads have provided me with even deeper insights into the subject matter: I am actively co-constructing my understanding of literacy, refining my understanding of effective teaching skills to promote literacy, and renegotiating my role as a multimodal guide and model within a diverse and vibrant multiliteracies space. As I prepare to move forward in my academic career, I sincerely hope that I will have additional opportunities to engage with classmates as engaged and thoughtful as my Writing Mentor peers.
