JENNIFER L. SHAW
Online Writing Instruction Certification
Over the course of the OWI program, I learned how to create an online classroom and develop a curriculum for that class that appropriately and thoughtfully uses pedagogical theory to achieve the required departmental outcomes. I have found that the skills I developed in this program have also improved my overall academic performance, my ability to collaborate, and my instructive capacities outside of the classroom. Working as an assistant at graduate school, I am in charge of reviewing and editing ProQuest submissions as well as assisting in the creation of various materials like charts, spreadsheets, and other internal documents. The digital skills and instructive strategies that I learned in OWI have made, what I believe is a substantial improvement in my ability to provide suitable and understandable asynchronous feedback. Instructive techniques that I learned in OWI, like illustrating, modeling, encouraging and the (diplomatic) identification of problematic issues as belonging to the document, have all helped me to minimize the mutual agony that is the ProQuest submission revision process. The digital skills that I acquired and practiced during OWI have also helped me to navigate the various software programs required by my assistantship position at the Graduate School.
Online Writing Instruction
(7371, 7372, 7373)
O.W.I. 1
In OWI 1, I learned how to create assignments and give synchronous and asynchronous feedback, how to use online conferencing software, and how to set up a collaborative space/discussion board. I was also privileged to participate in a video conference with Digital Pedagogy superstar Scott Warnock, and co-author, Diana Gasiewski, where they discussed their collaboration, "Writing Together: Ten Weeks Teaching and Studenting in an Online Writing Course." and answered questions about facilitating student participation and collaboration in online classrooms.
I learned how to create assignments that follow guidelines set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. I also learned about fair use laws regarding using copyrighted materials for educational purposes and how to identify and select appropriate resources for student reading materials, thereby maximizing accessibility by utilizing open digital sources. Students were paired up to exchange roles when creating and evaluating each other's assignments.
The collaborative nature of this peer review required reading the work of other writers and offering constructive and reasonable feedback as well as accepting and incorporating constructive criticism.
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O.W.I. 2
As I took the certification program non-sequentially, this was actually my first OWI class. During this first section, I learned basic but necessary digital skills like hyperlinking, and digital document creation, sharing, and naming conventions. OWI 2 served as an introduction to Google docs as the English department’s preference for printed copies during my undergraduate studies had left me somewhat unprepared for the exclusively digital domain of this program.
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O.W.I. 3
In this course, I learned ways to improve student accessibility through maintaining redundancy in my site design and by including multiple points of access to the assignments and materials. I practiced providing effective asynchronous feedback both locally and globally. I learned how to prioritize the problems or mistakes found in the student’s writing, and why it is important to focus on identifying and correcting high-order concerns (H.O.C.) rather than obsessively correcting issues like minor grammatical or spelling errors (lower-order concerns, L.O.C.).
I practiced my assignment building skills while incorporating the theory, document design, and other writing skills that I was simultaneously learning and developing in my other courses.
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Assignment created for my first semester in the OWI Program
Assignment created during my final section of the OWI Program
O.W.I. Practicum
For the OWI practicum, I decided to design a first-year freshman composition course that was based on the UALR writing department course outcomes. I created a google site, a syllabus, and an interactive schedule for the course. Utilizing open-source online materials that were affordable and audience-appropriate, I paired my assignments with the appropriate readings to create a uniform and comprehensive first-year curriculum. I strategically addressed the goals of the course by creating modules that fulfilled specific departmental outcomes and included frequent discussion board assignments that facilitated student collaboration and "group knowledge construction".
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For this portfolio, I decided to revisit my schedule to revise and correct any identified issues. As I examined the schedule, I found my numbering system to be potentially confusing. During the final evaluation in practicum, the hyperlinks to course assignments from the original schedule had been purposefully broken per the advice of my interim instructor who thought it was confusing and did not subscribe to the same school of hyper-redundancy. For this portfolio, I decided to go back to these documents to test and repair all of the hyperlinks on the schedule and site.
Practicum Schedule 2019
Practicum Schedule
2018
Practicum Schedule
2019
In addition to the copy editing revisions that I applied to my schedule, I also duplicated my class google site and completed similar editing revision there as well, using multi-pass editing to produce consistently error-free documents for specific audiences, situations, and purposes.
This was time-consuming and detailed work as the numbering on the assignments had been revised in the schedule and needed to be changed in the body text and in the summary section at the bottom of each page to reflect these revisions.
Every internal link on the site also had to be updated after this revision or users would accidentally be redirected back to the original site pages. I believe the revised site is more professional looking and the simplified numbering of the assignments is less confusing for students.
Revised site
