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Week three of the #ACEFramework is winding down with @PSUOpenCoLab, and the theme this week is Equity (acE). I've been thinking a lot about how to build equitable structures between synchronous and asynchronous learners. #PandemicPedagogy
A rambling thread!
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A rambling thread!
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I'll be teaching my classes remotely this semester (my Asthma + COVID = BAD). As is my usual, I'll be building my classes around student WordPress portfolios, which have been a flexible tool during the pandemic. I'll also be holding synchronous class discussions in Teams.
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Both live discussion and written reflection are valuable tools that push against my readings of literature. I'm reminded of the early modern (and classical) myth that bear cubs are born as formless lumps of flesh that are then licked into shape by their mothers.
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Conversation and writing lick my ideas into shape in different ways!
[Image: manuscript image of a Bear licking a lump of flesh into a cub]
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f15r?ref=15r
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![Conversation and writing lick my ideas into shape in different ways![Image: manuscript image of a Bear licking a lump of flesh into a cub] https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f15r?ref=15r4/x](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeLhK4hWAAAnApH.jpg "Conversation and writing lick my ideas into shape in different ways![Image: manuscript image of a Bear licking a lump of flesh into a cub] https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f15r?ref=15r4/x")
[Image: manuscript image of a Bear licking a lump of flesh into a cub]
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f15r?ref=15r
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But now I've got the HyFlex conundrum: how can I offer synchronous and asynchronous options to my students without doubling my work load or (more importantly) creating different standards for different students?
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Right now my answer is to build assignments that work in both modes. Here's the assignments page of my WIP course website:
https://brit.lit.nrhelms.plymouthcreate.net/blog/assignments/
(I still need to add a Comments category. Working that in today.)
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https://brit.lit.nrhelms.plymouthcreate.net/blog/assignments/
(I still need to add a Comments category. Working that in today.)
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My hope is that the processes of discussion and reflective writing are merged together in these assignments. Students (synch and asynch) will prepare for discussion with Questions about the reading. They'll interact and Comment upon others' work...
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...and they'll spend time after the discussion reflecting on the experience and how their ideas have been licked into shape.
(As this metaphor gets away from me, I should note that the mama bear isn't the teacher, it's the classroom as community!)
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(As this metaphor gets away from me, I should note that the mama bear isn't the teacher, it's the classroom as community!)
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There are pedagogical pitfalls here, however!
[Image: Gameplay image from NES Super Pitfall of an 8-Bit man in blue jumping over a pit of spikes. This game definitely gave me my first night terrors.]
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![There are pedagogical pitfalls here, however![Image: Gameplay image from NES Super Pitfall of an 8-Bit man in blue jumping over a pit of spikes. This game definitely gave me my first night terrors.]9/x](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeLtZLIX0AAr0p7.jpg "There are pedagogical pitfalls here, however![Image: Gameplay image from NES Super Pitfall of an 8-Bit man in blue jumping over a pit of spikes. This game definitely gave me my first night terrors.]9/x")
[Image: Gameplay image from NES Super Pitfall of an 8-Bit man in blue jumping over a pit of spikes. This game definitely gave me my first night terrors.]
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First, I could treat synchronous learning as the "real" class and build an inferior class experience for my asynch students. In this pitfall, asynchronous assignments would imitate synchronous ones and synch students wouldn't engage much with asynch students.
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(I'm not requiring attendance, by the way, because we're in the middle of a PANDEMIC, and even in normal times I find attendance to be an ableist and capitalist standard.)
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In the second pitfall, I could require synch students to complete asynch activities in addition to synchronous class discussion, treating class discussion as an additional workload.
(Going to school isn't a job, and it certainly shouldn't devour all your waking hours.)
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(Going to school isn't a job, and it certainly shouldn't devour all your waking hours.)
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What's a teacher to do? Well, rather than anxiously leap over the pit of spikes - or force my students to do the leaping - perhaps I could just avoid building a pit of spikes in the first place!
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First, I'm going to instead build time for the asynchronous activities into my synchronous class sessions. That means time to read and comment on other student posts in class. Time to write reflectively in class. (I need a student-curated #PandemicPlaylist for this.)
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Second, I'm going to take the class alongside my students! Much thanks to @OnlineCrsLady for this suggestion. I can post Questions, I can write Comments, and I can write Reflections as a way to model and engage in the classroom community.
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Third, in this process I can emphasize the asynch students in the synch class time. Which questions and which comments am I seeing that I can give voice to in video chat? And which synch students can I encourage to speak?
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And if you're wondering, "Isn't this class online? Where are all the VIDEOS?" read between the lines of my previous tweets. If I'm already chunking up my class time with asynch writing activities, the intervals of video chat discussion can be recorded and captioned.
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Teams does this pretty slickly by the way. Just hit record, make sure auto-captioning is on, and stop the recording once the class has finished a six to nine minute beat of conversation, such as close reading a passage or discussing a moment of renaissance animal lore.
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Teams then posts the video to your chat channel and to Stream. The text chats are included and can later be expanded upon, and you can edit the video in Stream.
Don't forget to fix your captions! Auto-captions are a beginning, not the end, of accessibility!
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Don't forget to fix your captions! Auto-captions are a beginning, not the end, of accessibility!
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TL;DR: Worried about how to balance synchronous and asynchronous learning? Spend class time creating content with your students - videos, reflections, comments - and incorporate content into your class time ("Student X couldn't be here today, but their essay was fabulous!")
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You made it to the end! Here's a kitten for your trouble:
[Image: Calico kitten Maisie sleeps in a cloth drawer than she pulled out for this very purpose]
![You made it to the end! Here's a kitten for your trouble:[Image: Calico kitten Maisie sleeps in a cloth drawer than she pulled out for this very purpose]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeLs_m0WAAEGHf8.jpg "You made it to the end! Here's a kitten for your trouble:[Image: Calico kitten Maisie sleeps in a cloth drawer than she pulled out for this very purpose]")
[Image: Calico kitten Maisie sleeps in a cloth drawer than she pulled out for this very purpose]
