Translating summer into fall

So here's the deal. I like a lot of things about the summer-edition of DMA. To be honest, my review is almost entirely positive. I feel better about the summer-edition than any of the other versions I've tried over my six years working on it. So mainly what I write below are issues related to translating the summer goods into an extended-edition in the fall!

In this post I first describe my main plan or 'rough translation' as it currently stands. Then I describe more specific and detailed things I'm planning on doing in the areas of communications, workflow, and assessment.

A rough translation

The very basic or rough translation program I am currently running involves composing a three-module extended-edition of the summer-edition of NMC for the regular term. The five-week summer-edition materials and activities would basically be ported into the extended-edition as the first of the three modules (see diagram and descriptions below).

Proposed three-module structure for the fall term

• Each of the three modules would span five weeks of the term, which leaves room for a one-week orientation at the beginning of the term and a one-week wrap-up at the end. So, the basic regular-term structure would be comprised of three five-week modules and two one-week bookends.
• What we did in the first three weeks of the summer-edition --getting our hearts and minds around 'composing' in general (week one), and then identifying and exploring concepts, processes, principles, genres, tools, and exemplars of new-media composing in particular (weeks two and three)-- would form the core of the first five-week module of the extended-edition.
• What we did in weeks four and five of the summer-edition --exploring both sides of the dynamism principle of new media, the hyper-individual and the hyper-social-- would become part of the second, self-focused module in the extended-edition. This module would naturally include projects that are practical and discipline-oriented (i.e., self-promotional websites, video auditions, and so forth),  autobiographically-oriented (i.e., personal Digital Stories), and personal creativity-oriented (i.e., self-selected projects involving creative experimentation/learning).
• The third module in the extended-edition would be society-and-service-oriented rather than individual-and-career oriented. There are several projects currently going on at UNCSA that warrant, and would benefit from, the involvement of skilled new-media composers. There is for example the 21st Century Student project, the ART\Islam project, the Music Academy of the American South project, and the Student Health project. 
• The basic idea of the third module is that empowered students, and the world, can benefit from power-sharing. Students would have an opportunity to look outwards, and apply the skills and dispositions learned in the first two modules to relevant larger-than-self projects. Students might, within any of the above options for involvement, compose documentaries, engage in citizen-journalist reportage, do ethnographic research, create marketing materials, build research databanks, and so forth.

In terms of staffing, I plan to subdivide the overall enrollment of one hundred twenty students into twelve sections of ten students each, and run it as a fully-online offering (in essence, creating twelve sections of what we did this summer). Sounds daunting, right? It certainly does to me! But it's an interesting compositional problem so I'm down for it.

For starters I can make the content and assignments available on a central course website. Then, I can also create a Facebook "page" to serve as a kind of central communications hub. Blackboard can continue to serve as a distribution point for copyright-protected content and streaming-media content. Then, as the final piece, I can create one Facebook "group" for each discussion section. This is all pretty do-able stuff.

Communications-related details

The extended-edition will inevitably --due to the multiple sections and single instructor-- need a slightly different communications dynamic than existed in the summer edition. In the summer I am able have a relatively high level of direct conversational involvement in the Facebook group discussion, but it will not be possible for me to read and respond to twelve different discussions in the same way or at the same level that I am able to do when there is only one section. So here's my plan in this area:

• I will need to recruit one person from each ten-person section to take on Facebook discussion group leader status in exchange for points/credit. 
• With that provision, I can work out a system for myself whereby I read and take part in the group discussions on a rotating basis --for example I might check-in on four discussions each week, or something like that.
• I can also set and maintain a routine for sending out email and notices to everyone --sort of like all-points-bulletins. In a distributed online environment this can serve as an important convergent element, it can provide needed non-random structure, and it can also provide me with an avenue to establish and maintain 'instructor presence' in the learning environment.
• Routine yet relevant communications can also establish and maintain the presence of the course itself in the consciousnesses of students. This is a key point: part of the overall goal is to have the course exist in the thoughts and conversations of students.
• Here's the main/whammy point. Online courses ultimately exist in the hearts and minds of students, not in wires, computers, and websites. We're talking neural design, or designing with quantum materials here! So I will want to give significant attention to finding out what works best in terms of the channel(s) for communication and conversation. 
• The media-studio in Workplace West III will also be open --during times when students would have had to attend the DMA class F2F-- so conversation and tutoring on a Newtonian scale will also be an option for students who have enrolled in the course.
  
  Okay, so weekly emails to kick off new weeks of work/play, preview-the-week texts included on the course website, end-of-week reflections posted on this blog, answering questions posted to the Facebook "page" --coupled with rotating participation in the Facebook groups-- may be adequate. Yet the discussion leaders will be crucial, so I will likely need to meet with that group of twelve once per week to check-in and make suggestions. And F2F interaction will be part of the menu of options. I think this should make for a well balanced and effective communications context.

Workflow-related details

Unless I hear otherwise from the summer students in their feedback on the summer term, I will assume that the learning-cycle structure is a keeper, and I will continue to use it in the fall.

• Each week will start with talking in Facebook about an essential  --and, initially anyway, pre-framed question-- and the work-week will proceed through the remaining phases on a five-day cycle.
• Gathering will take place each week on Tuesday, in order to allow a full three-day window in which students can schedule the time they need to create the required composition(s) for the week, and reflect on the process.
• In part for the reason mentioned above --namely the need for a regular kind of beat or rhythm as a structuring principle-- I want to stay with a five-day work-week, so that each week will feature one trip through the learning-cycle, with projects due at midnight on Friday. I want to stay away from assigning weekend work!
• Some editing and tightening-up of assignments on my part will be needed to optimize this. For example in the first five-week module I will probably stipulate that for each week there will be a required "project brief" blog post, such as the one we did in the summer for week four, organized in subheadings that match learning-cycle phases. (This is the type of procedural detail by the way that can will need to be taught in the orientation week of the course.)
• Also for my part, I will revise and edit the assignments to make sure they mirror the learning-cycle phases. For example, "In this week's talking phase, discuss the question for the week in your Facebook group, and copy-and-paste your contribution --along with any other messages composed by others that you found interesting-- under the talking subheading in your blog post for the week. This is due on Monday no later than midnight." Etc.

Asssessment-related details

Grading has the potential to make fools of us all. What matters of course is the person's learning, and feedback is part of the learning process in formal education settings. But the needed feedback can be implemented in a variety of ways, and by various people in the learning environment.

• One of the aspects of the summer-term that I thought worked well was the explicit allowance of time for  students to look at and comment on each other's work. This is a meaningful form of assessment. It involves comparing another's persons choices and work-products to one's own. On my part this means I will have to incorporate this into the assigned work for the week --i.e., it might be the "reading" for the week to check-in on and read groups members' blogs.
• I will enlist the help of discussion-section leaders to let me know how the Facebook group discussions are going. This can occur in the weekly meetings mentioned above.
• I will basically be the person responsible for critiquing the blog post compositions, and also critiquing the entire blog as a composition unto itself. This is manageable.