The comments on a recent posting on Wikis have turned to teaching methods and student evaluations of same. Since those issues are of interest to a broader audience (not just people using Wikis) I'll start a new thread here by introducing a related concept -- how senior faculty members (who are much more experienced as teachers in general, but typically much less experienced with new media) interpret the same situations we struggle with on KairosNews.

The instructional methods that help students learn technology ("Do X or else undesirable Y will result; don't do A or else undesirable B will happen; you must do Z first and then C, or else you will have to start over again") are so alien from the "Everybody's opinion matters; the instructor's voice should not dominate the classroom; don't damage anyone's self-esteem" paradigms of humanities pedagogy, that not only students but colleagues who might be observing your teaching may have a hard time adjusting to what you're accomplishing.

I have two responses to this...

One, if you're teaching new/emerging software for the first time, mention that it's the first time you're teaching it, and ask your students for feedback.

But some pre-education is also appropriate. In my tech writing classes, I gave students a simple task (fold a paper airplane, tie a knot, etc.) and asked them to write instructions for their classmates to follow. When they saw how much trouble their classmates had following even instrucitons that they (the authors) thought were simple, they were much more appreciative of the difficulty of writing the step-by-step instructions that they demanded of me.

Two: separate form from content when first introducing a new software. Reward the students just for getting a web page up, or just for creating a sample document... then, move gradually to more complex tasks that build on these skills. Make this progression very clear, so that students know what you are trying to accomplish, and they don't feel you're suddenly expecting them to develop in a few weeks the skills you have developed in years.

For instance, I first ask students to create a personal home page, and I have no requirements whatsoever (other than that they actually put links on the page).

Then, I ask them to create an "ugly page" -- using all the blinking text and fancy typefaces they can muster. That satisfies their urge to experiment, and when they present their ugly pages in small groups, it's usually a good bonding epxerience.

In the new course I hope to teach for Seton Hill, I would probably over the next couple of weeks gradually shift the focus of the assignment towards critical thought, for example, asking students to choose a topic, and then write a rant, an annotated list of links (on a topic they will present to the class), and then an original web collection (all on the same subject). They get to build on the work they've already done, so if they did a lame job on the annotated list of links, they have a harder time researching the subject for their oral presentation, and they get the idea that each assignment really does have a purpose.

I've had to curb my urge to ask students to jump right in to using the software that I don't remember learning. And I grew quite frustrated when I scheduled extra office hours or optional lab time and the students wouldn't come -- those few students who did come would have probably ended up with great work anyway.

But the class worked most smoothly when students felt comfortable asking each other for help. At the end of term, I ask students to write down tips for future students. They tend to be "read the instructions carefully," "don't be afraid to ask Dr. Jerz for help," and "Don't procrastinate -- aim to have assignments due two weeks before Jerz wants them". Since I feel like a broken record announcing these points myself, it's refreshing to let students read their peers giving them the same advice.

By contrast, the more time I put into writing complex instructions, the more frequently I found myself saying, "Oh, that problem is covered in step 4," and the student feels embarassed for asking a "dumb question". I had to adjust my phrasing so that I said, "That's an excellent question -- so good, in fact, that when it came up in the past I added a section to the instructions to cover just such a case. Let me show you where it is."

I still ran into poets who drop "Writing Electronic Text" because it's a computer course, and computer science students who dropped it because it's a writing course... and one reason students drop early is because I am so passionate in my desire to help them avoid the problems associated with procrasination that they object to being asked to work so hard in the first month of term. The students who actually DO start that early typically admit the course isn't that hard after all.

I wish I had a solution to the problem of students using teacher evaluation forms to vent their frustrations with technology (though I find that if I pass out those forms after the students have finished and submitted their final projects, the students who were only temporarily angry because they are overloaded have settled down, leaving only the ire of the students who are devoutly committed to punishing me).