Author: Jessica Webster

My teaching artifact is guidelines for the implementation of Slack as as class discussion and community building platform. In the past I’ve used Blogs@Baruch discussion boards and other forums to try to encourage my students to interact, but it hasn’t taken well- they mostly write to me. It also ends up being a lot for me to read and keep track of. The plan below will hopefully allow students to interact more with each other, as well as puts the onus on them to read and engage with the material and each other on their own, first, before discussing it as a class.

My biggest lingering questions are about how to encourage students to actually do this- how to grade them or assess them or convince them it’s important. I really want this to take off and feel fulfilling for them, and not just another box they have to tick. Also, logistically, I want to figure out the right number of channels, because I tend to go overboard and want a channel for everything but I don’t want to overwhelm the students. And, finally, I’ve never done semester-long study groups before, so I’d like to think through that a bit more and make sure I know what to do if, say, some groups are not gelling or don’t get along, etc.

Artifact:

For the purposes of my course, I’d like to set up the following prior to the start of the semester:

1. Study groups of 3-4 students, with a dedicated channel for each
2. Channels for each of the following:
   1. General questions
   2. Fun stuff unrelated to class
   3. Each week of class
   4. Each major assignment (Question: is this too many channels? I don’t want it to be confusing!)

The first week of class, I’ll assign each student to answer a few Getting to Know You questions in the Fun Stuff section and have each student reply to at least two other students, in a bid to encourage discussion and camaraderie.

For each week of class, I’ll encourage students to post questions and comments on the readings to their study group thread and challenge the groups to answer each other’s questions. I’ll monitor to make sure the students are posting as required but I won’t read them closely or grade the quality. I’ll also answer any big serious questions that come up.
Also for each week of class, I’ll assign one or two students to lead a Slack discussion thread that will be hosted on the weekly channels (number 3 above). The leader will be asked to prepare discussion questions regarding the readings for that week (maybe prepare five?) and moderate a discussion, which the other students will be asked to contribute two at least twice over the week. That student will also present a short report on the discussion in the next synchronous class.

I will also encourage use of the assignment-specific channels for questions and comments regarding the assignments, and maybe assign peer editing using these, too, but I have to think through the functionality of that.

For my teaching artifact, I’d like to implement a Slack channel. My main goal with this is to build community in my online classroom, which I hope in turn would foster better group and class-wide discussions.

I have never moderated a Slack group before, though I have used the product in my own personal and professional life. In Slack you can have channels for different purposes. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm the students with channels, but I think I would have a general questions channel, along with channels for each major assignment (short papers and the final paper). I would also have a just-for-fun, getting-to-know-you channel.

I want to avoid implementing Slack as just another thing they have to do. I want them to use it and get something out of it, rather than be forced to do so. For that reason, I’m thinking about setting up semester-long study groups for them to participate in- each group would have a channel. I would want to develop a scaffolded approach to sort of “seed” participation, though- I want to set it up, and encourage it, but not force it? And hope it takes hold and increases from there? That is the part I’m trying to work out how to do. I’d be very happy to see any guidance or tips from someone else who has used Slack in this way!

I don’t have a current version of this to paste here, as there is no extant version of this for my course. However, I can tell you what I have done so far to build community that hasn’t worked/has only worked a bit:

• Have students each post a self-introductory blog post, and then have students start a conversation off those posts by commenting on someone else’s post
• Comment on each other’s blog posts
• Comment on Hypothesis comments for readings
• Breakout rooms
• Shared Google doc annotation

1. Hi! Nice meeting you! Could you introduce yourself? What department are you from? What courses are you teaching or have been teaching? What are the classes you teach like, such as format or class size? Is there anything you want to tell us about your teaching, research, or other projects? 

I’m Jessica Webster, and I am on the library faculty. My work is in the Archives and Special Collections department and I focus on Digital Initiatives. I teach in the information studies minor; my courses focus on the interplay between archives, digital materials, history, media, and current events. This is my second semester teaching an online synchronous course. My classes tend to be small (15-25 is average) with a lot of lecture, discussions, and group activities. I focus a lot on active learning techniques but have really stalled on implementing them in an online environment; I seem unable to get students to really engage with each other and have the vibrant discussions I foster in in-person sessions.

1. Could you talk a little bit about that course you’ll be working on during this seminar? 

I’m preparing to again teach LIB3030, Archives, Documents, and Hidden History, which focuses on ways to locate, think about, and use a variety of types of primary sources (along with some basic archival theory). In this course we have units learning about how to think about, engage with, and use different types of primary sources in research. I’m also planning to apply techniques learned here to future versions of my Digital Archives and Current Events course.

1. What are the listed learning goals of your course? They could be ones provided by the department, or ones that you have written for your syllabus? Please list them (pasting is fine!).

1. Understand the origin, storage, retrieval and use of primary and secondary information sources.
2. Identify the relationship between finding aids used to describe archival collections and primary sources.
3. Access and use archival and/or primary source materials for research projects.
4. Interpret historical, social and cultural issues through the use of archival primary source materials.
5. Employ organizational skills to formulate and interpret research questions as necessary.      

1. What class materials are you planning to develop? What goals do you have for them?

I’d like to develop an approach for students to engage with each other outside of class sessions more readily, to help build a course community that feels more engaged and foster discussion during classtime. But I don’t know what this should look like yet: a discussion board? A slack channel? A google doc? Standing discussion groups? I’d like to get some ideas for this during the class.