The school has created a graduate certificate (15 hours of coursework) in OWI. Heidi Harris then shared what the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is doing for OWI. (As a result of this suggestion, I began to journal my experiences in my own hybrid courses.) He also suggested that online writing instructors-in-training create teaching journals and portfolios to reflect what they are learning and doing in their classes. Grover suggested methods of education to include role playing, class observations, teaching journals, reflective practice, research and publishing, and writing program administration training. They can take advantage of tools that include listservs, conferences, and published research however, currently, no OWI body of literature exists, and research is lacking. (He referenced “Report of the State of the Art of OWI,” Hewett et al., 2011.) Instructors need training, collaborative opportunities, and brainstorming opportunities.
Teaching assistants are an important part of this growth, but we need to begin educating instructors now. He stated that online education is growing 15% while colleges are only growing 2%. David Grover, from Texas Tech University, began by talking about the importance of online-writing instruction (OWI). I am glad I stayed in town for this panel’s presentation! I was surprised at the small size of the audience, but the panel presented on Saturday morning at 9:30 A.M. Thus, I was eager to attend this panel and hear what other instructors are doing to successfully train graduate students. David Grover, Texas Tech University, “How and How Much? Results of a Nationwide Survey on the Development of OWI Preparation Programs”Īt my university, we are considering a transition of some of our freshman rhetoric courses to hybrid courses, and I have recently shifted a traditionally face-to-face technical communication course to a hybrid format to expand our offerings. Kevin Eric DePew, Old Dominion University, “Why Tiaras Matter in OWI: Using Experiential Instructional Delivery to Prepare Online Writing Instructors” Kelli Cargile Cook, Texas Tech University, “Developing an OWI Infrastructure to Support Novice Instructors” Speakers: Heidi Harris, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, “When OWI Meets QM: Online and Graduate Student Response to Principles-Based Course Design” Tucker King, The University of Texas at Dallas Elif Demirel, Karadeniz Technical University
L.07: Develop, Design, Deliver: Teaching Graduate Students to Teach Writing Online