{"id":6758,"date":"2016-05-04T10:26:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T15:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/?p=6758"},"modified":"2018-04-13T14:15:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T19:15:02","slug":"hearing-feelings-and-visualizing-readers-integrating-screencasting-into-asynchronous-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/hearing-feelings-and-visualizing-readers-integrating-screencasting-into-asynchronous-instruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing Feelings and Visualizing Readers: Integrating Screencasting into Asynchronous Instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Dominique Bourg Hacker –<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"Author<\/a>
Dominique Bourg Hacker is the 2015-16 TA Coordinator of the Online Writing Center at UW-Madison, where she has been a tutor since fall 2010. Dominique is also a PhD candidate in English literary studies writing a dissertation on contemporary South African and Caribbean fiction, gardens, and environmental imaginaries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before my work began as Coordinator of the Online Writing Center, I knew that I wanted to integrate screencasting into the email consultants\u2019 workload. Screencasting is a video recording of your computer screen accompanied by voice narration. My predecessor, Mike Shapiro, had experimented with the technology in Summer 2014<\/a> and the student response was overwhelmingly positive; many students stated that they would rewatch their screencast 5 or more times. The recent studies I came across, likewise, heaped more praise on screencast technologies. Chris Anson et al. found that students:<\/p>\n

\u201cperceived that screencast technologies facilitated personal connections; made transparent the teacher\u2019s evaluative process, revealed the teacher\u2019s feelings, provided visual affirmation, […and]\u00a0 seemed to account for students’ face-related needs (belonging, respect, and autonomy) and hence mitigated the predominant face-threatening potential of the evaluative space\u201d (3).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Riki Thompson and Meredith Lee\u2019s study revealed:<\/p>\n

\u201cthat explanations within video feedback made the thought process of the reader visible, allowing [students] to identify problems. Thus, [f]eedback provided students with greater guidance about how to improve.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was so excited by the possibilities of helping students gain audience awareness as they heard their reader talk through how one moment was confusing or interesting while simultaneously enabling tutors to make personal connections without face-to-face interaction.<\/p>\n

But I was faced with wondering how? How do we make screencasting a regular part of our current asynchronous instruction? What would training look like? What effect would using this technology have on the kinds of in-text comments tutors write? What pedagogical standards would we hope to meet?<\/p>\n

In this post I hope to tackle the practical side of integrating screencasting into the UW-Madison Writing Center\u2019s email instruction and what I learned in the process.<\/p>\n

Training<\/h3>\n
\"digital-student-expectations\"<\/a>
CC BY 3.0 (Google Images). https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/legalcode<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When our typically overwhelming demand in email instruction slowed a bit this Spring, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to train email tutors and try to blend screencasting into each tutor\u2019s weekly shift.<\/p>\n

In order to present a cogent plan to the tutors and make them feel confident about trying out a different tutoring method, I considered these questions:<\/p>\n

1) What does the process of creating a screencast look like?<\/h5>\n

UW-Madison Online Writing Center tutors, as well as the entire instructional staff, are trained to respond to email drafts by first looking over the student\u2019s assignments and concerns included in the request the student submits with their draft. After reading the draft, the tutors are asked to identify 1 or 2 important revision issues, such as if the draft is attending to the assignment requirements or if the draft\u2019s main ideas are strong. Tutors then write a response to the students identifying specific strengths and explaining the issues they saw in the drafts by giving examples, talking about the significance of the issues, and providing revision options. Finally, tutors embed 3-4 comments in the drafts to reinforce the main lessons.<\/p>\n

All of the hardworking grad student email tutors have developed their own efficient approach to this process, which they are scheduled to complete in 30 minutes for six page drafts. I was concerned that the length of time to create the screencast would extend beyond the 30 minute limit because tutors would need to do almost every step in the email instruction process for a screencast with the exception that they would talk through their response rather than write it up. They would need to become familiar with new software and might spend time editing their screencasts (Tutors had the ability to use any screen and audio recording software they had access to including Kaltura CaptureSpaceLite, Jing, and Camtasia Studio).<\/p>\n

When I convened the tutors to discuss screencasting as a group, we talked about how the initial notes we made on the drafts to determine our feedback might need to be reorganized in order to limit the amount planning we would do in advance of the screencast. Too extensive of a script begged the question as to why a tutor wouldn\u2019t just send an email response.<\/p>\n

2) What is the relationship between the screencast and the draft the student receives?<\/h5>\n

All the email tutors agreed that a draft with embedded comments needed to be sent in addition to the screencast, but it wasn\u2019t clear what these comments should like. Part of this question stemmed from our concern that any kind of asynchronous feedback can have the tendency to be overly directive. In order to make the feedback more dialogic, we considered posing more questions in the embedded comments as opposed to using them to cite specific examples of the issues we noticed or providing a specific revision direction.<\/p>\n

3) What kinds of drafts are best suited for screencasts?<\/h5>\n

Students can submit drafts up to 10pgs for email instruction and the Online Writing Center sees papers and applications from disciplines across the university. After a couple of screencasts with a veteran tutor and former Online Coordinator, Jessie Gurd, we questioned whether some drafts were better for screencasts than others. Although tutors first have to check if the student is interested in a screencast based on their submission form, after that it is up to the tutor to decide if a draft should receive a screencast. Jessie and I wondered if longer assignments might be better for screencasts because there would be less of a tendency for a tutor to be directive. Scrolling through a longer assignment, might give the tutor more of an opportunity to provide a reader response as well as pose questions that might engage the student more in the revision process.<\/p>\n

4) How does screencasting pedagogy differ from email instruction? What do best practices for screencasting look like?<\/h5>\n

We strive to make email instruction above all dialogic and collaborative. When I train email tutors, I emphasize focusing on big picture concerns, asking crucial questions, giving revision options and inviting students to self-critique. Although many of these goals are shared with our face-to-face instruction training, I wondered what additional or different goals or practices there might be in screencasting. For example, Anson et al.\u2019s \u201cStudents\u2019 Perceptions of Oral Screencast Responses to Their Writing: Exploring Digitally Mediated Identities\u201d interrogates how students and teachers \u201cperform digitally mediated pedagogical identities\u201d (2). Screencasting provides the opportunity to play different roles. The sound of a tutor\u2019s voice, the phrasing of suggestions, the pace of the tutor\u2019s movement through the draft or jumps to web resources, have the ability to may make a students feel comfortable, affirmed, confident or collaborative. At its best screencasting seems to enhance the dialogic nature of feedback, but the question still remained for us as to what strategies would most enhance this outcome.<\/p>\n

Results<\/h3>\n

18 screencasts were completed between March and May and the response from tutors and students was overwhelmingly positive. Students said they felt like tutors were \u201cactually talking to me\u201d and feedback was \u201cclear and super easy to follow; [the screencast] gave more detail through \u2018vivid\u2019 explanation.\u201d Tutors Emily Loney and Matthew Fledderjohann both said screencasting \u201cwas a surprisingly intuitive and easy-to-manage process.\u201d Matthew added that the process was not very different, but he did focus on \u201cpersonalizing [his] thoughts more for the context of [the student\u2019s] writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the two examples below you\u2019ll notice how tutors, Emily Loney and Maggie Hamper, by and large keep with the format of email instruction (clearly and precisely providing specific and concrete positive feedback, and then focusing on teaching two lessons). Both videos highlight the way that tutors used screencasting to build students confidence. Maggie praises her student\u2019s draft in her screencast and used many of her in-text comments to point out effective parts of the student’s draft.<\/p>\n