It is always an adventure finding out just how well (or not) my classrooms each semester will physically meet the needs of my course. In my ten years of teaching composition on two different campuses, I don't believe I've ever taught in the same classroom for more than one semester. Flexibility, therefore, is something I've had to get pretty good at. I could spend my time reminiscing about that one semester at the University of Tennessee Knoxville when I got to teach in the magical (except for the weird shades of orange and green - seriously, who passed off on the "science" of those being colors that are conducive for learning) revamped classroom in HSS that looked rather like this, but that doesn't help me to meet the needs of my students now in the classroom I have access to.
If I'm lucky, I'm in a classroom big enough to accommodate everyone with enough desks/tables/chairs to keep the beginning of class from feeling like a game of musical chairs. If I'm really lucky, the furniture is also not bolted to the floor or so heavy that moving it is out of the question. I don't surrender and just start lecturing for 50 minutes straight during those semesters when I am proven unlucky, but making group work and eye contact happen takes up way more of my energy and creativity than I would like in those classrooms.
The bigger struggle I am finding in terms of learning space right now, however, has to do with my practice of grade conferencing. Basically, I don't take stacks of student essays home with me to ignore for several weeks before grading late at night in a self-loathing induced panic. I schedule 15-25 twenty-minute-long conferences each week of the semester after my students turn in their first major assignment and I grade their work with them sitting in my office next to me, listening to me read it aloud. In general, both my students and I love this. I can't procrastinate or have my weekend ruined, and they get to ask questions, explain what they were trying to accomplish, and help to create a plan for revision that they are actually on board with. The problem is that not all students find it easy to physically make it to my office for these meetings because of scheduling conflicts, transportation difficulties, or other responsibilities.
I've been trying to figure out a way to give the same quality of assessment interaction through technology so that our physical space wouldn't be so limiting. I think using Google Docs could be an important part of the solution because if we were both in the document at the same time, the student would be able to see where I was in the document when I ask a particular question. I still want the freedom of being able to talk, though, so it might be Google Docs plus a cell phone for the most basic conference. Of course, Skype offers screen sharing options that could allow for talk, video, and the ability to point to specific places in the text, but students may not be as comfortable with it (especially with video - who wants their professor to see their dorm room?!).
One of my biggest limitations is that I'm committed to avoiding asynchronous formats (meaning we're not both present at the same time) because no matter how many bells and whistles the technology I use for that might have (say doing a screencast of myself reading the essay and making comments that are linked to the text), it still prevents the student and I from having a dialogue, a dynamic interaction, regarding their thinking and writing and the work they can do to improve both. I might as well just pull out a red pen and scribble indecipherable comments on their paper essay that won't get revised if I'm not going to give them a voice in the process.
So yeah, I'm open to suggestions for finding a new and better digital space for meaningful interactions with students who may have limited access to quality technology off campus. No pressure.
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