Colleagues,Because I'm so involved with training and tutoring, one of my first News sections will involve the ways we help our writing teachers and writing tutors learn the ropes. The special considerations our discipline requires, and the special limitations and possibilities we face in digital constructs, force us to re-vise how we approach the task of training new teacher/tutors. I'm collecting a cross-section of thoughts, "best practices," and lessons learned.
Would you be interested in engaging in a small Q&A with me for Kairos? I'm interested in seeing what you have on say on several issues confronting writing teachers who are relatively new to using webbed environments for their writing-teacher work. I've created a short list of questions that address these experiences, and I'm sending them out to several people who may some level of acquaintance with new-paradigm pedagogies and practices. I'd like to use the responses to the questions as a frame for a discussion of questions raised by recent listserv exchanges on these issues. (This would be published in the 5.1 issue.) The list is not long (6 groups of related questions), so it would not take that much of your time, and the results will be, I think, immensely helpful to lots of folks who are the "silent strugglers," who are experienced but might not've thought of things you've considered, who are thinking about taking the leap but are reluctant to go it alone. Please respond to the questions which seem to speak to your needs and experiences.
1. Tell me more about what you are doing, or have done, to prepare to begin tutoring/teaching writing online. How will (did) these face-to-face practices change, if at all? How far do you go to prepare new tutors and teachers to work in online and computer-mediated situations? What is/was your primary goal in taking things online? (from wcenter/DEOS/WWWDEV)
2. What are your predictions for the way that the sociology of virtual interaction might shift what diPardo calls the whispers of coming and going, those nuanced breaths and glimpses we fear we might miss online?
3. Early in our careers, many of us felt we needed the guidance that textbooks and teachers' guides offered; later in our growth as teachers of writing, we chafe at those directive constraints. Is this tendency any different in the online classroom/workshop? If so, what (or who) is the mentor? Who, or what, is suggesting "best practices" for these virtual learning spaces? How long *after* we've mastered the curve before we begin to chafe at our original "theory of the month" pedagogies and begin to move on to the higher ground of inventing our own theories and best practices? What comes first: the pedagogies, or the practices? (WPA, www, deos)
4. How do we help instructors transform their classrooms into student learning communities? How have *you* done it, and what do *you* have to offer as mentor? If we are trying to transform our f2f classrooms and writing centers into collaborative learning spaces, how do we go about training new instructors (and retraining entrenched instructors/tutors) in these new pedagogies? (altlearn, DEOS)
5. A teacher suggests that we create a group definition through collaboration with other writing teachers (not necessarily online). What kind of group definition are we creating with the online practices and pedagogies we attempt to share? Is the sharing helping to grow and improve our practice, or is the growth and improved practice building the shared discourse? What has primacy/priority? (WPA)
6. What is next?
I would also love to spread word of your newest work, maybe with a link to any informational pages you may have online.
Thanks so much in advance,
Trish