I teach an online asynchronous course, Creating Arguments. It’s a Creative Thought Direction gen ed with all levels, freshmen through seniors.

For a long time, it seemed that students could ride a solid C in this class from beginning to end and not necessarily learn anything new about argument or rhetoric. Because it’s an online asynchronous course, it can be hard to know what students are really learning. Last spring, in order to combat this issue, I turned the course into a portfolio course, and the final 2 weeks of the semester is a portfolio module that is 30% of a student’s overall grade for the course. That module is open for them at the very start of the class, and I give an overview of it in my opening video lecture. I also mention it frequently in my videos and announcements throughout the semester, and I require a one-on-one video conference with me to make sure they understand what they need to do.

The goal of the portfolio is to revise 4 of the 6 major assignments from the semester and to reflect on the changes between each version of the argument. It also forces students to use a variety of different modes of creating their arguments: a written piece, a visual piece, an audio/video piece, and one of their choosing. That way they keep in mind that anything and everything can be an argument, which is one of the themes of the course. In their reflections, they show what they’ve learned from one draft to the next and defend their rhetorical choices and why they chose a particular mode for a particular argument. They also defend how they used information technology to help them with that argument. This change in the structure of the course has been helpful for me to see that students have actually learned something about rhetoric throughout the semester.

My goal for this module, then, is to know how effective this portfolio is and whether there is a better way to conduct it. Is there certain technology that might enhance the experience for students? Are there other modes that I might ask students to use for their arguments? Are there other aspects that they should reflect on to show me what and how they’ve learned?

I’d also like to learn how to make this course more collaborative and interactive in general. There is an element of collaboration in their regular rounds of peer review throughout the semester, but that is your typical discussion forum and it’s not very stimulating (should it be?). But other than that, a student can spend most of the semester not interacting with anyone other than me. I wonder if there’s a way to encourage more collaboration in this course.