Creating CommunitiesCreating CommunitiesBlended Learning in First Year English (ENL 101)

Susan Hagan and Louise Nadler

Student Learning Student Learning ObjectivesObjectivesWe selected three SLOs to Focus on:

1. Develop college level writing that addresses needs of audience, situation and purpose

2. Demonstrate accepted patterns of rhetoric

3. Summarize, paraphrase, synthesize, and analyze material from sources

Our Objective: Student Our Objective: Student Buy-inBuy-inENL 101 is a Writing –intensive course,

students are expected to write 5 major essay with revisions and a minimum of 5 pages per week

In order to create a sense of community and support we break students into groups of 5 for the semester

These groups help students become vested in the large volume of work required of them throughout the semester

Our goal was to extend the sense of community and support we create in the f2f classroom by maintaining a high level of group interaction in the online classroom

Tool: Small Group & Full Tool: Small Group & Full Class DiscussionsClass DiscussionsASSIGNMENT: Threaded discussions

asked students to respond to questions about the reading homework and make connections to other texts or personal experience

SLO: 1, 2, 3

ASSESSMENT: We created and applied a new rubric for evaluation of homework focused on analysis and the rhetorical situation

Issues/SolutionsIssues/SolutionsHomework rubric not detailed enough

◦Solution: Created new homework rubric in Week 6/15

Retaining and applying key concepts◦Solution: Added power point presentations

to supplement and reinforce key concepts from class and text

Having small group discussions was part of our original plan but we realized (based on student feedback) that there was need for whole class discussions online as well◦Solution: We created several whole class

Group Discussion Boards for Essays 4 & 5

Benefits & DrawbacksBenefits & DrawbacksB – Quiet students had the

opportunity to speak up/ respondB – Students returned to points

of interest in the discussionD – Students with weak

comprehension may have been intimidated by the open format

Tool: Small Group & Full Tool: Small Group & Full Class DiscussionsClass DiscussionsASSIGNMENT: Students posted their

first draft of each essay for analysis and advice from their group. Within each group students responded to all postings

SLO: 1, 2, 3

ASSESSMENT: We created and applied a new rubric for evaluation of Peer Letters focused on summary, analysis of the rhetorical situation, and offering persuasive and specific advice

Issues/SolutionsIssues/SolutionsPosting as attachments rather than in

the discussion◦Clearer instructions on DB – Post =paste in

not attachAnalysis of sources not covered enough

◦Solution; Added annotated bibliography to essay 2 - 4

Not improving as semester progresses◦Realized in Week 11 that students did not

have access to our comments or the rubric in their “my grades”

Benefits & DrawbacksBenefits & DrawbacksB – Students get the opportunity to see each peer

respond to all essays rather than just their own◦ Definitely raises the bar

B - Students (hopefully) are exposed to superior responses and feel a need to dig deeper into their analysis and advice◦ Uneven – some groups more than others

B – Save paper (paper and print costs for students approx 15 pages per essay cycle per student)

D – Discussion/advice is not synthesized – the student must decide which advice to take◦ Solution: Revision Group Discussion Board (RGDB)

added in Class 9: assignment was to post a minimum of 2 questions about their own revision draft to the group and respond to all peer questions within the group