Finding meaningful ways for students to engage in an online format with both their peers and the instructors is crucial to the success of the course. In developing my course prototype, this is something that I will need to pay close attention to. With my course prototype being a blended learning design, I have the benefit of being face-to-face with my students for the majority of the course –with some components (i.e. workshops and EdTech activities) taking place online.
Within this blended structure, I will need to make sure that my students are provided with opportunities to engage meaningfully in both face-to-face and online settings. This will help with creating community amongst the students as well as impact the positivity and safety of our classroom environment.
In reading Amy Amy Brusini’s post about building community in an online course, I found her suggestion of creating an introductory video to be a great idea. This is something that I could easily bring into my course prototype, even though it is not stated in my ADDIE template. I hope to include this. As of now, with it being a creative writing course prototype, I would include elements in my video that speak more to me as a writer and a facilitator of creative writing, rather than a traditional ‘teacher’ introductory video. I could also include favourite books, writers & authors, personal inspirations in writing, genres I both prefer and find challenging, etc. I am sure that I could make it creatively through Lumi as our course suggests. I found this resource on how to make an engaging introductory video.
Writing is community! It’s important that writers do not feel siloed in their craft or alone on an island – using each other for inspiration, feedback, and for a break from the writing is important for success.
“While solitude is an inevitable part of the writing journey, communities can provide accountability, inspiration, and tremendous growth” – Ginelle Testa
The following are forms of Student/Student-Instructor Interactions in my Course Prototype along with their justification and rationale as to why I included them as a part of this blended course:
- LMS Workshop function for providing peer feedback during online workshop opportunities
- Justification: this provides students with a more anonymous approach to a typical writer’s workshop and eliminates the face-to-face interactions that may cause some discomfort on the outset when sharing their work with others for feedback
- Recording audio-files for teacher-feedback so that students hear directly from the instructor about their writing submissions. Written feedback will also be attached.
- Justification: this allows for a personal touch from the teacher in response to the student’s writing where the respondent can be expressive in ways that writing the same feedback would not allow for.
- Encouraging students to leave voice-memo messages through Edsby
- Justification: encourage dialogue and conversation between student and instructor as a means of building relationship
- Video Reflections on Workshop submissions with Video Response from Teacher with written feedback attached
- Justification: students will be able to provide context on their work that will allow for greater understanding and thus allow for more focused feedback
- Peer-Peer Writing Workshops
- Justification: students will work together in a pair and establish a rapport for future interactions in class (re: writer’s workshop) by critiquing each other’s work and providing constructive feedback
- Quick Rounds: students have 30s-1m to give an overview of what they are working on in their own free-write time
- Justification: this will engage students in quick, informal dialogue with this classmates as a means of building relationships
- 1:1 meetings during available preps/spares for students
- Justification: this will allow for students to meet with the teacher about their writing at a time that might be more convenient for them than in the class period, or if they were absent during the class period
- In-class Student-Teacher conferencing
- Justification: allows teacher a chance to build in 1:1 conferencing as an informal check-in with students about what they are working on, allows for formative assessment pieces to be completed if outstanding, and to engage with students 1:1 about their works-in-progress
The following are guidelines and assessment practices that will be a part of my course prototype to ensure that interactions are meaningful, supportive, engaging, and relevant:
Writer’s Workshops
- We will collectively set expectations for workshop feedback to ensure that it remains both critical and constructive
- Teacher will implement a structured peer review guide (at least in the initial stages so students become familiar with the process) that contains guiding questions and encourages feedback that is specific to the writing instead of open-ended and general praise
- Students will also partake in self-assessments so that they are able to go through a revision process and learn from their own writing based on the goals they have set for themselves
- Teacher will use a voice recording for feedback on student writing submitted to workshop so as to be more personal
- Students will be able to choose whether all of their feedback will be audio, or if they would like the companion written feedback as well
Classroom Community
- Use of EdTech tools and collaboration at various stages in the writing process
- Students will engage and participate in genre-based activities such as free writes, quick writes, carousel writing, and conferences
- Inviting guest writers to be a part of our class and to learn from others in their craft
- The teacher will schedule 1:1 conferences with students throughout each week to discuss their writing, their challenges and successes in the course, etc.
Students: Self-Reflection
- Students will submit a video/audio self reflection with each of their final genre submissions so that they have an opportunity to speak to and about the context and background of their work
Assessment: Final Portfolio
- Students will submit a portfolio of their writing at the end of the semester that they feel best reflects their growth, their best writing samples, their passion for writing, etc.
- Students will be encouraged to submit their work to formal publishing throughout the semester through initiatives and programs through both the school’s library and their local library
- There will be a class anthology created wherein students can submit their top/favourite pieces from the semester. Teacher will create a bound book and provide each student with a copy upon submission of their final portfolio.
Hi Jessica,
I really appreciate how intentionally you’ve designed opportunities for student engagement in your blended course prototype! Your emphasis on fostering a strong sense of community, both in-person and online, is essential—especially in a creative writing setting where feedback and collaboration are so valuable.
Using Lumi for this is a fantastic choice—I’d love to hear more about how that process goes for you!
Your use of multi-modal feedback (voice recordings, video reflections, peer workshops, and written feedback) is particularly strong. Giving students different ways to engage ensures that they feel supported while also helping them build confidence in sharing their work. I also think the “Quick Rounds” activity is a great low-pressure way to encourage students to share their progress without overthinking it.
The final portfolio and class anthology idea are wonderful ways to celebrate students’ growth. Encouraging them to submit work for publishing opportunities adds an authentic real-world connection to their writing, which can be incredibly motivating.
I’d be curious to know how you plan to balance feedback so that it remains constructive but not overwhelming for students. Do you have any strategies in place to help students process and apply feedback effectively?
Hello Gagandeep,
Thank you so much for your feedback. I agree – collaboration and feedback are so valuable in a course such as creative writing and this is something that I kept top of mind as I structured it to exist in a blended learning environment. In reading others’ blog posts, many are using Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) and I think that this is something I could incorporate!
I hope that students are able to find a way to engage that works for them – I know that an elective like this can seem daunting, combined with it being blended – and so it was important to me that all students are able to find a way to feel and be successful.
In terms of balancing feedback, I agree with you that it must be delicate! In a comment to a different class colleague on this post, I discussed how we do mock workshops wherein I present the students with exemplars that have been workshopped to various degrees (i.e. feedback is clear/not-quite/overwhelming, etc) and we evaluate the feedback, more so than we evaluate the writing. In doing this, students are able to engage with feedback that is already done and we can come to a consensus on what should be focused on, what is ‘too much’, etc. In terms of applying it, this is where I have students meet with the person who did their workshop and they can go over the feedback together so that if they have any questions, they can ask that person directly and then the student has a chance to respond/clarify, etc. As well, I usually will do 1:1 conferencing with students after workshops so that I can go over it with them, do a check-in with how they are feeling about it, etc. Having a smaller class size in this elective is helpful. It is not a perfect system, but it is one that I am hopeful can be impactful over time.
Building community engagement in a blended course is such an important aspect of fostering meaningful learning experiences. I really like how you’ve prioritized interaction and collaboration, even in an online setting. Have you found any specific strategies or digital tools that work particularly well for maintaining engagement and participation over time? Also, how do you plan to support students who may be less comfortable engaging in an online or blended environment? Your approach to community-building is well thought out, and I’d love to hear more about any challenges you anticipate and how you plan to address them.
Hey Allysia,
Thank you so much for your feedback. So far with digital tools, I am still in the researching stages of what can be used outside of the course Moodle with the Workshop setting and the video/audio options.
For strategies, we model in class opportunities with use of sticky notes so that the originals remain untouched, participate in round tables wherein students must identify something within the writing that is unique and wasn’t said by a student ahead of them (essentially a model of the 3-2-1 but tailored for a creative writing workshop), we do mock-workshops where students can practice giving feedback, and I also provide them with exemplars of workshopped work wherein the feedback was not clear/well-done/quite clear/etc, and we evaluate the feedback more than we do the work to ensure that students are given many examples of what constructive and critical feedback can look and sound like. The hope is that this is then translated to when they participate in the online and face-to-face workshops. Additionally, I conference 1:1 with students when they are workshopping a piece and discuss with them their thoughts, ideas, feedback areas, etc and if they have questions on how to phrase something (for example) then we can work through that process together.
The biggest challenge I anticipate is students feeling safe in being vulnerable to share their own writing with the class. To combat this, I start with a teacher-student workshop wherein I have students submit a piece to me that was built using a Mentor Text and I provide feedback initially, and then follow up with a 1:1 conference. Having a smaller class size in an elective is definitely a huge help with this.
Great post, Jessica. I appreciate how well-thought-out your plan is. The use of video reflections and voice memos seems particularly engaging. It creates multiple avenues for students to demonstrate their knowledge and will undoubtedly benefit students who may struggle with sharing their work in a traditional setting. I also liked your commentary on introductory videos. I never considered this an avenue for engagement, but it may have to be something I look into incorporating into my future classes.
The biggest question I am struggling with right now is how to support students who are hesitant to engage in online discussions, especially when tone can be easily misinterpreted.
Hi Mariah,
Thank you so much for your feedback. I also liked the idea of the video and audio feedback/reflection options and I have been finding a trend within my ELA classes where this is a more popular option than in the past. I had never considered introductory videos as engagement either until reading about them in this week’s reading sections. As well, in having taken online courses before where profs have provided a video introduction, I appreciated being able to ‘meet’ them in that way rather than just through written communication.
Your note on how to combat online tone in feedback is providing with me inspiration on what I can do in a face-to-face setting with the students as we start out the course in discussing and practicing feedback (especially written in an online forum as the video/audio option will allow for better and more genuine interpretation of what is being said) so as to mitigate any issues in that regard. I am going to include a lesson on this to my introductory part of the module and I hope to model this throughout our mock-workshops in the course as I am teaching it right now!
Hi Jessica – your post has many great resources and ideas. Thank you for that!
I also plan on creating a introduction video and appreciate the resource you posted – that will be very helpful! In addition to that, I enjoyed getting some ideas of how you plan on making your video personal (i.e. including your favourite authors/books). This will create connection when students learn about what you like to read in your spare time or if you have similar tastes in authors/books! 🙂