Q. What were some significant challenges you faced in terms of designing a curriculum for your students and assessing how well they were able to meet the assignment goals?
A. I initially started out the semester believing I would have the time and capacity to create a detailed powerpoint each week to teach lessons with. By week three it became clear I did not have the bandwidth to research materials, generate content copy, design homework AND design a powerpoint. So, I ended up relying more on Blackboard's content folder system more than I thought I would.
I also had to pivot away from my initial plan of relying on our McGraw-Hill textbook for our weekly readings. The publishing company had a significant delay in sending out textbooks to students who ordered hard copies. Only a third of my students had the textbook until halfway through the semester! I mailed out my five "instructor only text copies" in order to try and help some of my panicking students out. I ended up choosing to use the website content on the department's suggested UShouldBWriting.com and also finding tutorial and explanatory videos on youtube to supplement content focused on our learning goals each week. It turns out that this approach worked out better for my students! Many of them during our one-on-one Zoom sessions commented about how the videos and online articles were more helpful and easier to understand than the textbook.
When it came to assessing students meeting assignment goals, I heavily relied on, not skills demonstrated, but on participation in our activities and assignments. This was strategic. If a student got an assignment in on time and followed instructions, then they typically would receive full credit. I ended up going this route because almost all of the assignments fell into the following categories:
discussion board posts requiring reflection on the new things they learned that week and commenting on other student posts,
personal reflection journal entries,
projects and essays specifically designed to demonstrate a particular skill or understanding of theory,
and participating in zoom meetings with me to talk about their assignments, grades, areas they wanted to improve in, and academic aspirations
I didn't want to penalize students for needing to improve. Instead, they were rewarded for doing each assignment. Every single assignment built upon the previous one so that, by design, the next assignment submitted to me would be their chance to demonstrate to me their improvement upon certain prior weaknesses that had received constructive previously. This structure was highly motivating for my students and worked well.
I opted to do this thanks to some advice from my mother-in-law who's been a public high school Spanish language teacher for the past twenty years. Positive reinforcement of following expectations is what brings about results, not negative reinforcement through punishing shortcomings. My husband whose professional career background is in Applied Behavioral Sciences thoroughly agrees with this and provided plenty of research to back this fact up.
What do you hope to do differently to increase or maintain presence and interaction with your students in the future?
A. Well, it seems like my teaching approach this semester has paid off! You can check out my process pedagogy here. Many of my students have expressed that my style of teaching worked well for them and also told me during our end-of-semester Zoom meeting that they'd be signing up for (or switching instructors to) take my offering of Composition 2 next semester! Their genuine excitement, kindness, and belief in me meant so much to hear after what was a rough couple of months personally.
I hope that new and returning students will continue to reach out to me when they need support or schedule accommodations. I was able to start some genuine dialogue with a few students that enriched both my teaching experience and helped improve their situations to be conducive to learning in a safe and respectful (digital) environment.
Next semester I'll be offering to help students with editing resumes and cover letters as well as offering to write recommendation letters if they happen to be applying for internships or jobs. In this way I hope that I can continue to be a resource for them even once they move past taking composition courses and I myself graduate out of my master's program.
Q. What advice might you give a new TA starting next fall about teaching Composition 1?
Don't overload yourself with plans and idealizations of what you think your class experience is going to be like. It's imperative to "go with the flow" and alter your plans when it becomes clear that your students' needs are pointing you in a new direction. Also, be honest with your students and empathize with their stories and shared experiences. There's a profound vulnerability that you can foster when you're down to earth with students that in turn leads to them feeling comfortable enough to dare to try new things and grow in their skills, knowledge, and experience. Providing students assurances that they are on the right track for learning and applying concepts, letting them know that you are proud of them for choosing to do hard things, and encouraging them to pursue their interests inside and outside the classroom can change the entire classroom dynamic through having developed a respectful and trusting mentorship between you the educator and they the student.
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