 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
Freshman Comp, Revolutionized
Wednesday, March 8, at 1:30 p.m., U.S. Eastern time
At Texas Tech University, graduate students teaching freshman composition are divided into two groups: "classroom instructors," who meet students once a week to go over grammar, style, and argumentation, and to discuss weekly assignments; and "document instructors," who grade the assignments anonymously using a computer system. The new approach has cut class time in half and increased the amount of writing students do -- to about 35 essays, peer-evaluations, and self-critiques each semester. It also allows faculty members to monitor the graders closely, determining whether some are giving higher-than-average marks and reviewing their commentary. Commercial versions of the software used in Texas Tech's program will be available this fall for other universities to try. But the English department at Texas Tech is divided over whether composition should be taught in this way. Does Texas Tech's approach insure a consistent quality of teaching across a huge program? Or will students get mixed messages about what makes for good writing? Does the system eliminate bias from grading? Or does it undermine the student-teacher relationship and turn graduate instructors into pieceworkers? Has technology become the tail wagging the dog?
» A New Way to Grade (1/7/2006)
Fred O. Kemp is an associate professor of English at Texas Tech University who began working with and writing about computer-based writing instruction 20 years ago. He designed the software used by the university to create its unusual first-year composition program.
Paula Wasley (Moderator):
Welcome to Colloquy. I'm Paula Wasley, a reporter at The Chronicle. I'd like to welcome Fred Kemp, who is here to answer questions about Texas Tech's unusual first-year composition program. Thanks for joining us today, Dr. Kemp. Let's get started.
Fred O. Kemp:
I would like to thank The Chronicle and Paula Wasley for inviting me to answer questions this afternoon. The article has stimulated considerable discussion on several email lists and there are a couple of points I would like to make at the beginning just to be clear and maybe save time. First, we are not promoting the composition program at Texas Tech as a good fit for all institutions in all circumstances, or even most. We find it solves serious problems at Texas Tech and may solve similar problems at similar institutions. Second, in the four years that our distributed grading program has been in effect, we have suffered no significant variation either in either freshmen enrollment or retention or in graduate student recruitment and retention. I will be pleased to answer any other questions you may have.
Question from Shirley K Rose, Purdue University:
Fred--When you and other faculty from Texas Tech have discussed TOPIC and ICON at professional conferences, I've been most intrigued about the research potential your database of student writing and instructor response offers. What are some of the research questions you most want to investigate, and what are the main roadblocks to conducting that research?
--Shirley
Fred O. Kemp:
Hi, Shirley. Each of the four composition faculty has different questions, but mine centers upon the relationship between assignment, first draft, comments (peer and instructor), second draft, etc. I want to know in a statistical sense how assignments affect student writing, and how that affects commentary (again, peer and instructor), and how commentary affects revision. I think the chain of interactions is much more easily revealed, and the various influences on that chain, than possible in a system that doesn't capture the huge amount of data we do. I think that we will eventually be able to describe in great detail how effective each part of this process is, or is not.
Question from Anita August, UTEP, Ph.D. Student, Rhet & Writing Studies:
What is the student-teacher relationship? I'm not asking for a "poetic reflection" of how we "imagine" the student-teacher dynamic. I'm asking us to consider the nature of this 16 week marriage and how is it weakened by this system?
Fred O. Kemp:
Ideally we would want a mentorship connection, a skilled and empathetic teacher working with fifteen or sixteen students. And, I understand, in some places that is logistically possible. But, as Derek Bok notes in his new book, in many cases the numbers and money don't work out that fortuitously for composition instruction, and we have to make compromises with that model. If we believe that seat time in a classroom is not as helpful as more writing and more and better commentary -- and researchers repeat this often--, then the personal relationship between what are usually inexperienced teachers and brand new college students is less important than the actual writing and responding. By submitting writing to the entire cadre of graduate student instructors, we definately lower the peaks of terrific instruction, but we also ensure that we don't have serious valleys, since there is a lot of evaluation overlap and good evaluation eventually balances out poor evaluation. So the question, and you are right to bring it up because it lies at the center of ICON's controversy, is whether we can depend on the personality and personal teaching skills of people who -- through no fault of their own -- are right at the beginning of their teaching careers and in many cases are not hoping to teach composition and, in a few cases, not particularly sympathetic with composition theory and practice. Most of them do all right, but a significant number founder, and when they do in the self-contained classroom, they each affect the attitudes and possibly the college careers of 50 of the most problematical and fragile populations in college, the first-year student.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
Hi, Shirley, Other questions that we're interested in involve the interaction between instructors and students in regard to comments on student drafts. As you may or may not know, students have the opportunity to rate the effectiveness of instructor commentary and offer comments in return. I think there's much to learn, both qualitatively and quantitatively, from that process.
Question from Gavin Moodie, Griffith U, Australia:
35 pieces of writing per semester seems a lot, and an average of 10 minutes' grading time per document seems pretty brief. How long are the pieces of writing?
Fred O. Kemp:
The writing requirements differ. We have students writing drafts, peer reviews, writing reviews (reflection pieces), and portfolio reviews (more global reflection pieces). Some of these can be evaluated very quickly, in a few minutes. Drafts, on the other hand, because the commentary is more complicated, take 10 minutes, say, on a first draft to 30 minutes on a final draft. As you probably realize, skilled writing can be evaluated rather quickly, while difficult writing could take as much as 40 minutes or an hour. We encourage speed and accuracy and find that each semester the graduate student instructor teaches for us, the more effective the commentary and, correspondingly, the less time it takes.
Question from Pat at USC in LA:
How do international students, and other whose native language is not English, fare?
Fred O. Kemp:
Although we haven't yet studied this particular issue, my experience in the past working with computer-based classrooms and peer-interactive document-management software is that those whose second language is English contribute more easily in writing. In fact, we have some Asian graduate students who prefer to read and evaluate student writing than manage classes, because of both the cultural differences between the different types of classrooms and, sometimes, pronunciation issues. We used to call this "textualizing" the class, moving from orality to online interaction. There have been studies (Jerry Bump's 1989 study, for instance) that suggest that those students who have difficulty speaking up in class because of gender or ethnic or language issues participate more freely in instructional situations in which the principal mode of intereaction is in writing. This is, going back to Shirley's question, obviously something that we would want to look at thoroughly to see if our feelings about this are true, and we certainly have a great deal of data identifying students and matching them with writing of all sorts -- drafts, reflection pieces, peer reviews, responses to commentary, and so forth.
Question from Kathy Fitch, The Sibery Group:
What aspects of the teacher-student relationship do you think that those who might have a "gut" negative reaction to TOPIC most fear losing or changing?
Fred O. Kemp:
Hi, Kathy. I will be frank here. I think some people enjoy the power relationship in a class and see their power resting on the power to grade. For years we've been talking about "student-centered" classrooms and distributing authority, and ICON certainly does that, but now there is appearing a sense of loss. Some of the local commentary on this issue suggests that graduate students are expecting to control things and that the loss of grading power makes them think that they can't exert authority to keep the room disciplined and so forth. There has been a tendency for new instructors to want to work around the objective grading system by assigning lots of "extra credit," or classroom work, which, in enough numbers and weighted enough, subverts and distributed grading process and reasserts teacher power. I think, as I suggest in my chapter in Handa's book, that we need to carefully look at this and not be so quick to take away that power. On the other hand, sometimes, as lots of theorists have suggest, that teacher-centered authority may not be beneficial to learning.
Question from Thomas Rhyne, Appalachian State University:
Does the grading program contain an algorithm to monitor and report plagiarism to the grader? If so, how widely does the program check for potential plagiarism?
Fred O. Kemp:
We do not have any automatic way to check for plagiarism, such as Turnitin or anything like that. However, every draft is read at least twice, sometimes 3 times (by a 3rd reader or the classroom instructor), and sometimes 4 times. The chances of somebody in those sets of eyeballs sensing something is wrong is much greater than just a single reader. And we do have a clunky means of checking a draft out against the 500,000 drafts we already have in our department's SQL server. But the process isn't automatic. I have to insert a phrase into an html form. I think the way we check for plagiarism is much like anybody else: put a phrase into Google. But the fact that we tell the students that they will be having multiple readers I believe inhibits plagiarism. We have not yet analyzed data on that, though the information is certainly in our database.
Question from Ed Merwin, Jr., Univ. of South Carolina Salkehatchie:
One of the ways professors combat plagerism is to recognize the difference between a student's performance in the classroom and how he/she writes essays and other papers. Wouldn't there be a better chance of plagerism happening, inadvertantly or on purpose, if this professorial-student relationship is rremoved?
Fred O. Kemp:
If we did classroom writing, yes, but since we have them write so much during the semester outside of class, we spend class time in group work negotiating elements of effective writing, brainstorming, and so forth, and answering questions. So much of the writing the student is doing is responding to other writing (peer reviewing, reflective pieces), that the traditional essay draft takes up a proportionately less amount of the writing found in other composition course, so we speculate that even if the plagiarism rate is as high as it was before ICON, the student is still getting a lot of writing done, and it is graded much the way drafts are. So maybe we're just patting ourselves on the back, but we think that for that reason and the multiple readings that drafts get lessens the harmful effect of plagiarism.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
Shirley also mentioned roadblocks to research. One of the keys for us is finding the time to really come to a better understanding of working with the information we have. Every piece of writing submitted by a student ends up having about 60 discrete fields of information attached to its record in the database. And, at this point, we're approaching one million pieces of student writing.
Question from Anastasia Coles, Lecturer Texas Tech University:
I taught for over two years with ICON. The sheer number of assignments and the anonymity does increase student dishonesty. Because there is no continuity in assessment and no connection to the human student, the obvious cases of work that doesn't match the student's in-class performance or writing that is obviously the work of a different student can't be easily identified. When plagiarisms are identified (depending on how overworked the grader is), it is often late in the writing cycle. I believe a teacher can persuade a student not to take the easy route. But if the student knows you won't be the one reading his work, it's hard for him to care. Do we really need to eliminate the so-called bias if it also means we throw out the discernment and guidance that actual human interaction makes possible?
Fred O. Kemp:
Of course, I disagree, Anastasia. I think there is a connection to the human student through his or her writing, something should be seen as a plus for a writing course. I see writing as "actual human interaction," and don't just limit that to orality. Nor do I think we have more plagiarism, but there was very little of it caught prior to the data collection of ICON that we have no way of comparing before and after. And we also have indications that students do care about their writing. We've disagreed about this for some time, Anastasia, and probably won't ever reach an agreement.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
This is in response to Ed's question: instructors who are responding to a student's work can also see the previous drafts written by that student, in order to enable them to have a better sense of how the student's writing is evolving.
Question from Kelly Mortensen, Student at Texas Tech University:
As a former student in an ICON class, it seemed to me that writing for the class was more about "beating the system." One can copy and paste sections from previous essays into the final composition for that section and get an A. I think this is because there is not enough time spent on grading the students' papers. If the ICON class expects effort put into every draft, shouldn't the grading have more effort/time put into it?
Fred O. Kemp:
Prior to ICON we had plenty of pieces of student writing that were not graded very thoroughly, it was just harder to tell when and by whom. And I agree that there are plenty of students who just want to beat the system, and we certainly had plenty of that before too. I don't think ICON perfects composition instruction or takes us to the promised land. I think it solves major problems that we had prior to ICON (wildly inconsistent assignments and grading, for instance, and the presumption of bias on the part of many students), but it certainly doesn't solve all the problems. There is a lot of copy and pasting in the way you suggest, and therefore we have moved from the developmental progress on essay drafts to a more "chunking" model (Becky Rickly would have to explain) that tries to counter unhelpful activities that are particular to ICON and a document-management system. We'll never get it perfect, but I think we're much better off than we were before.
Question from Patty Strong, VCU, Richmond. VA:
What modifications, if any, would you make to the system if you could? I am most concerned that this process would interfere with the concept of audience and the social nature of language and learning. What are your thoughts on this?
Fred O. Kemp:
We're attempt to refine our assignments in such a way that they respond more to the disciplines or disciplinary interests of the students themselves, what we call the "smart curriculum." In the past we have attempted to put groups of students in particular sections for "special topics," and generate interest and a stronger sense of audience, but scheduling always torpedoed those attempts. But with our document-management software, we can have students who are in the same section writing "somewhat" in the discourse of business, engineering, education, agriculture, and so forth. In other words, we can let students write about issues in areas they themselves are interested in, and not worry about scheduling. This we call "writing in the discipline," or approaching it anyway. I believe this will help students envision a more legitimate audienc. In any case, I think the "objective" audience of anonymous reader is healthier than simply psyching out and writing to an individual for the semester. And there is also indication that the certainty of being peer reviewed makes some of them aware of multiple readerships out there. The question of audience in writing classes is always problematic, but I think the smart curriculum will eventually help. We'll see.
Question from ben reynolds CTY Distance Education Johns Hopkins:
Fred, you chose to have second readers see the comments of the first reader. I see how those comments help the second reader become a better reader, but don't they also change the second reader's response?
Fred O. Kemp:
Yes, good point Ben. That's one of the things that lessens any objectivity we might claim, but the value of letting the second read the comments -- for the professional development of the second reader -- is one of the most powerful things about ICON. And, of course, the second reader can add a comment too, and on occasion (although we try to caution against this), the two comments work against each other. Then the student appeals to the classroom instructor to mediate. We think these occasional multiple interpretations are extremely healthy, much closer to uncertainties of actual writing than the presumed universal authority of the teacher as single reader. But we don't claim that the grading is objective, just more objective than in a single-reader system. And, to return to this very important point, the effect on the second reader who reads the document AND the comment of the first reader, over and over, is extremely valuable in developing that second reader's discriminatory reading. And, of course, all draft readers read as a second reader 50% of the time. It is a terrific means of distributing skill.
Question from William Wenthe, Texas Tech:
Fred, I would like to comment on your assertion that those who have a gut reaction against TOPIC/ICON do so because they fear losing the sense of power that comes from being a grader. What about the love of teaching? I teach at Texas Tech, and can say that this love of teaching is a strong force in our program, both among the faculty at large and among the graduate students. TOPIC/ICON, on the contrary, minimizes the student-teacher possibilities, and replaces them with a power relationship--the WPA centered power of TOPIC/ICON.
Fred O. Kemp:
Bill, I think the love of teaching drives us all who get into this business, but many of our graduate students are not diven by the love to teach composition. People in technical communication, literature, or creative writing are not necessarily engaged in composition theory and practice, nor sympathetic to it. That's not true for most, but it is for a significant few. So we have competition between graduate student teachers who feel that the best way to teach composition is through literary criticism or showing movies, and the composition faculty who are following the tenets of writing research over the last thirty years. I think it is a little naive to assume that "love of teaching" is a generic quality that hits one in every type of class. If we have a responsibility to the freshmen to actually teach them something, and we have lots of research and our own training and experience that indicates a good way to do that, and we were hired to direct the program thusly, then we need be able to ensure that the freshmen are getting that sort of instruction, regardless of what sometimes is the innocent assumptions of people who have very little teaching experience. What some see as administrative power, others see as our administrative responsibility to the most vulnerable population in college.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
In response to Patty, we will continue to learn from the body of student writing and instructor commentary, and from the various comment/feedback loops that are part of ICON. ICON is very much a research environment as well as an instructional one. I don't think any of us involved with it see it as "finished"; it will continue to evolve as we understand more about writing instruction.
Question from Kathy Fitch, The Sibery Group:
Can't resist asking just one more question, then I'll subside into polite (and quiet) reading: The students' rankings and reviews of the comments they receive on their writing seem to me like a potentially powerful source teaching and learning. How have you harnessed this student feedback to foster discussion and learning, not only for students, but for their instructors--classroom and "document"--as well?
Fred O. Kemp:
We actually collect feedback on instructor commentary in three ways. Students rank and comment on their instructor comments, the second reader can rank the first reader's comment, and the program administrators can read and rank and comment on instructor commentary. All this ranking and commenting is done anonymously. Obviously the judgements vary a lot, and often one can see an agenda at work (as when a student trashes a comment on a low grade), but in the aggregate, it provide extremely interesting sets of attitudes from students, colleagues, and administrators. We are extremely interesting in how people interact in such a complex system as ANY large composition program, but all of that has been hidden prior to ICON and the database. We don't do all this to control and dominate (although we do have rare situations when intervention is called for), but rather to understand the best way to set up assignments and criteria and reader instruction. We call ICON a "learning organization" in the Peter Senge sense, of a system that has embed and continuing self-assessment built in, so that we see where we are on course or off course.
Question from Scott Smallwood, Chronicle:
Paula writes in the article about tension between technical communication people and creative-writing people. Is that tension unavoidable? Should creative-writing graduate students even be involved in teaching composition? How have you as one of the administrators of the program tried to address that?
Fred O. Kemp:
We have three distinct instructional units in our graduate program: creative writing, literature, and technical communication and rhetoric. The tensions that may be in our department seem to be similar to those in other english departments, as rhetoric programs and TC programs have grown in the last 10-20 years. The units tend to see writing and language as serving primarily different purposes, with (and this is an extremely crude depiction) creative writing and literature coming down on the aesthetic/philisophical side of language and TCR coming done on a more pragmatic and communication side of language use, although this description does everybody some injustice. How writing is taught in the general education courses, those required of all freshmen, therefore experiences controversy. Some people would like us to use literary texts in composition, for instance. There are other distinctions that cause friction, as the TCR side moves more into the sorts of interests and principles found in communication studies and the social sciences. Whether the conflict can be reconciled is a tough question.
Comment from Anastasia Coles Lecturer Texas Tech University:
In the name of fairness, I believe it should be pointed out that while drafts are "read" by two to three sets of eyes, the strain on the graders with quota numbers and deadlines makes it very difficult for people to give the kind of consideration per draft that would make those backups useful. As a grader I was very dutiful about keeping track but I also know that it took me about twice as long to get through my quotas as many of my peers and for that I was censured for falling behind on my numbers. I think there is a lot of good and thoughtful pedagogy behind ICON but that isn't what the problem is at Texas Tech, the problem is that the implementation does not bear much resemblance to those ideals.
Question from Bob Johnson, Michigan Tech:
Fred, What do you have to say to those of us who have fought long and hard to maintain small class sizes in writing for many decades? What do you say when a dean or provost says, "Oh, so you CAN each writing in large classes. Let's do it!" I ask this for faculty amd graduate students.
Fred O. Kemp:
Good question, Bob, and it pains me to think that what we are doing will be used as the poster program for throwing away the long understood basic requirement of low class size. And our experiment, if it succeeds (and it seems to be succeeding), will no doubt be used that way. But it's a question of all or nothing. Increasing class size without taking the other measures we have in ICON, reducing class time and using a document-management system and tripling writing and professionalizing commentary, won't work. Larger classes under what Shirley called "the standard model" simply means less writing assigned, as we see in the public schools. On the other hand, I think the way we're doing it compensates for many of the problems of larger class size. A reason to keeping classes small is because of the grading and commentary burden on the individual teacher. But we have worked things so that the burden is not increased, although the writing is. All I could say if administrators use our program that way is that they need to do it all or do none of it.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
In response to Kathy's question about the rankings, we've had nearly 1000 rankings and about 500 written comments from students submitted to our document instructors so far this semester.
Question from Virginia Kuhn, Institute of Multimedia Literacy at USC:
Are there any authority issues in terms of the classroom teacher since she does not grade? Who gives the final grade and is it based only on writing or does attendance, missing work and the like also impact the student's grade?
Fred O. Kemp:
The classroom instructor can override any individual paper grade the students receive, so they can go to her to defend a raised grade, and they do this a lot, which helps populate office hours, something we've wanted for some time. And the classroom instructor assigns the final grade. We strongly discourage the CI from deviating from the average the software provides, or we open ourselves back up to the old accusation of instructor bias or the fact that that sections makes mostly A's and another section makes mostly C's. If the instructor feels that the accumulated work (from 35-40 pieces of writing) do not reflect, in the accumulation, the proper grade, then she should see an administrator and argue her case. Very few do. Admittedly, this removes some authority, as I said before. Everything is a compromise, and we simply try for the best combination of tradeoffs.
Question from John Gravois, The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Your system, as I understand it, randomizes who does the grading of each student's work and makes it anonymous. But does it standardize the grading? I.e. Are the graders using the same criteria? I noticed in the story one student got high grades on two drafts and then a low grade on the final version of a paper. Was it just that the three graders involved had different ideas of successful writing?
Fred O. Kemp:
Yes, each assignment has criteria determined and that criteria displays on the screen just above the student's writing. And we have plenty of workshops, email list discussions, and face-to-face counseling to try to ensure consistency in the application of criteria. It doesn't always work, and that is why the classroom instructor can override a grade if the student comes to her and defends an improperly graded paper. We see that as one more healthy thing about ICON, the ability of the student to use the teacher as a mediator and advocate. We do find, of course, and probably always will, some people who grade easy and some who grade hard. The problems with people who are at either end of the scale are lessoned with the multiple readings and resolved grades. Otherwise one set of students who go through the entire semester with an improperly hard grader, and another with an improperly easy grader, and the effect on students can be serious.
Question from Brad Bostian:
Dr. Kemp, one thing that I would like to see us guard against is the tendency to want to put a floor under every student rather than helping every student reach toward the sky. Instead of outsourcing grading, as if it is possible to objectify the process (without making it overly narrow), why not improve instruction? That is the harder path no doubt, but it is possible. Typical answers are to standardize and increase quantity. Wouldn't an atypical answer work better for students as we move toward a learning college model, where students take on authentic writing projects rather than continuing to do exercises that are meaningless to them and to graders?
Fred O. Kemp:
Brad, we are using graduate students as our teachers, and these are extremely bright and often personable and committed people. But they come to us very inexperienced, often never having taken the course they are to teach, and we only have them for 18-24 months, and 12 of those months if they are MA students we can't put them into the classroom because of our accrediting body (SAC). So we have about a 25% to 30% turnover of our composition teaching faculty every fall. Improve the instruction? In this kind of situation, even if everything fell into place properly, it can't be done. You can't make excellent teachers of everybody in so short a period, especially since teaching is a secondary role for them. But I do agree that there are other models that might work as well. All I know is that what we were doing before, during my 18 years as an administrator, was creating criticism and charges of subjectivity and impractical assignments.
Question from Rich Rice, Texas Tech University:
How do first-year composition students learn to write the types of assignments that define "composition" best?
Fred O. Kemp:
I think, if I understand your question, they do it by writing, getting good feedback from peers and instructors, adapting to that feedback, and then revising, and doing this over and over and over. It's a simple process to envision, that lots of writing and feedback and revision leads to better writing, but it is devilishly hard to put into place administratively over a large program taught by, as I say, mostly inexperienced teachers. The technology allows us to move writing around the ether in ways that support all this writing and feedback, and the administrative structure we've set up in ICON lets us do this without burdening the instructors. It seems to be working out okay.
Comment from Sean Grass, Texas Tech University:
In response to Dr. Gravois's question and Fred's response, I'd say this issue of criteria-based grading has been one of the causes of concern among some faculty, and certainly among the graduate student instructors. No ethical teacher would suggest that students should be left in the dark about criteria, or that grading criteria ought not to be applied to written work that's more "subjective" than math problems or multiple-choice tests. But as Grad Director here, I can say that several (though certainly not all) grad students have expressed concern that they're "teaching to the criteria" in the way that too many grade school teachers must "teach to the exam". I'm not sure where the proper balance lies, but critical writing and critical thinking would seem to be complementary or even symbiotic skills. Many of our most responsible grad student teachers worry that students aren't so much learning "critical" anything as they're learning to check off the parts of an essay one at a time, as they work.
Comment from Susan Lang, Texas Tech:
John, also, of course, the criteria for successive drafts in an assignment series evolve, so it is also possible for students to simply not do as well on a particular draft, perhaps a final draft that requires a synthesis of a number of different writing tasks.
Question from Patty Strong, VCU:
It seems that your staff of primarily graduate student instructors drive many of your decisions and attitudes about TOPIC/ICON. I find that problematic. What things would you do differently with an experienced, enthusiastic, and committed faculty?
Fred O. Kemp:
I think that with an experienced, enthusiastic, and committed faculty we would have them long enough (more than the 18 months we often have our folks) to bring them into the theory and practice of composition as researched and presented in the professional literature. Our problem with a faculty that turns over 25%-30% fresh each year is that we are constantly in almost a beginner's training mode. We have, or had, little institutional memory or prevailing community experience outside the composition faculty. This is not the graduate students' fault, even though we are sometimes charged as picking on them; it is a fact of the administrative structure. One way we see of getting around this is to build the institutional memory into the process, to make the activity in composition into a continuing self-reflective, feedback instence, embeded assessment process, and let the whole organization "learn" though the database. It is a weird idea to most people, hence the controversy.
Question from Derek G. Ross, Texas Tech University:
This speaks to Pat’s question about international students in the classroom: As a teacher in the ICON/TOPIC system, I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with international students outside of the classroom. Folks in my classes know that they are welcome to meet with me during my office hours to work through complicated writing problems. Do you find that students in the system (I honestly don’t know) take greater advantage of the fact that they only meet in a classroom setting once per week by spending more time in one-on-one consultation with their teachers?
Fred O. Kemp:
Yes, Derek we have indications that office hours are used more than they were in the past (and they weren't used much in the past, according to anecdotal report). But, unfortunately, I don't think they are coming to see their classroom instructors because they want to add more general contact because of the reduced class time, but because they want to negotiate draft grades. Frankly, I think that's fine, but I've always believe the site of most learning lies in the one-on-one writing conference, and nothing motivates a shared examination of a paper than the presumption that the readers missed the point and now the students has to prove it to the classroom instuctor. I simply don't believe -- call it my cynical nature -- that much very productive goes on in general education required classes taught by inexperienced teachers. In upper division classes taught by professors or graduate courses? Sure. Many people see the reduced class time as something I would promulgate for all instruction, and that isn't so. We are responding to a specific instructional and administrative situation.
Comment from Susan Lang:
Patty, in answer to your question, we'd also do much more research!
Question from Dr. Steve Smith, Austin Community College:
What has your personal experience been like as a classroom instrutor since the inception of the ICON system? Have you experienced any of the issues with say classroom authority that you mention in The Chronicle article?
Fred O. Kemp:
Yes, I've been a classroom instruction in ICON and I agree with Lonie and others who feel a sort of disconnect. After all, we are following somebody else's syllabus, somebody else's book, and teaching somebody else's writing criteria. I understand fully that sense that we aren't able to spread our wings and do what we feel comes naturally, especially those teachers who have taught before and successfully. That's why I say everything is a trade off and nothing ever seems to be completely satisfactory. I believe that sense of disconnect (and it wasn't total or debilitating in my case) can be alleviated as we become smarter about what we expect in the classroom and how we train our instructors. This is all still very new and we are still wrestling with brand new problems. If it's a problem, we will try to solve it, but I don't these these issues of so-called alienation are ICON stoppers: I believe they are opportunities to do things more flexibly without having to give up what is good about ICON. To do this for 3 1/2 years and say that our problems mean we should shut it down, when so many good things come out of the process, doesn't seem rational to me.
Paula Wasley (Moderator):
That's all the time we have for today. Many thanks to Dr. Kemp for taking the time to join our colloquy today, and to all those who participated and sent in questions. I'm sorry we weren't able to get to all the questions. If you'd like to revisit any of the topics discussed here, a transcript of this discussion will be available on The Chronicle website in a few minutes.
Fred O. Kemp:
Looks like this is it, folks. Terrific questions that really made me think. I learned a lot from the session and I hope you did too. Good afternoon.