Research Motivation

This course is a little strange. I don't know you, won't recognize your face or voice, don't know about your work, your life, or your family. I won't hear you laugh (or complain!) or know when you're kidding or serious or confused. I won't know when you know more than what's in your paper, won't know how much time you spend working on papers. There are lots and lots of things I won't know about you. But I will know how you write. And that's what we'll talk about. It will be fun. (Sorsa College Writing)
 
 

 This quote, from the syllabus of an online freshman writing course, reflects the kind of mixed emotions most teachers have about distance learning. Like this teacher, many of us fear that technology will alienate us from our students and make teaching writing impersonal. But for some of us the technology used to enhance distance learning, tools like chat rooms and bulletin boards, are "fun" ways for students to communicate with us and with each other. Whether the thought of a freshman writing course that exists completely online inspires fear or excitement for you as a teacher, there is no doubt that distance learning classes are becoming more and more popular in both community colleges and four-year institutions. According to Peterson's Guide to Distance Learning, in 1997 390 accredited American or Canadian colleges used computer-mediated distance learning. Between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1996, 150 new colleges began distance learning programs (qtd. in Phillips). Certainly, distance learning will play a greater role in the freshman writing courses of the near future. But what might this future look like?

I collected interviews, syllabi, and assignment sheets from twenty distance learning freshman writing instructors in order to a get a glimpse of the online, "cyber" classroom of the future. Understandably, for many writing teachers this future is frightening, with images of the old-fashioned correspondence course transferred to the online classroom. My own fear before I began this project was that the distance learning writing courses I surveyed would be lonely places, bereft of the kind of discussion, collaboration, and teacher/student rapport that I value in my "conventional" classroom. But after talking to teachers who are already online, I believe it is likely that most online writing courses will have the kind of discussion and collaboration that we as composition teachers value in our conventional classes, as long as we make effective use of the available technology to transfer what we do in our conventional classrooms to the distance learning classroom.

 

Introduction
Research Motivation
Constructivism Defined
Research into Distance Learning and Technology
Student-Centered Learning Online
Collaboration Online
Discussion Online
Conclusion
Research Method
Works Cited
 
Currents: An E-Journal Currents in Electronic Literacy  Fall 1999 (2), <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall99/melzer/>