1. Identify the challenges veterans may face in your online course.
a. Something Nate said in the above video struck me; that many veterans, while pursuing training in specialized military disciplines, also experience a gap between their high school and college experiences that other students may not. I appreciated how the video emphasized veterans’ more nuanced perspectives of the world and how they have special skills, but they may at least feel as if they’re returning to subjects and concepts they haven’t directly thought about since high school. My hope would be that college writing would both remind them of skills they practiced in high school and also build on tools they developed in the field, and I think there are ways that college writing always requires a shift in thinking from high school writing, but I can certainly appreciate how veterans would feel that they’re returning to concepts they may have set aside for a while or reencountering them in different circumstances. I could also see how, without the face-to-face rapport building of a classroom experience, veterans may feel like they can’t ask questions or that everyone around them already knows xyz, when really these are concepts that the whole class is working on together.
b. Many of the veterans in the video also mentioned memory problems or needing extra time to complete assignments or extra leniency around attendance. In an online class, attendance wouldn’t be a concern, but I’d want them to feel comfortable reaching out for extensions or other accommodations they might need.
c. Additionally, the veterans discuss how some topics may be more personal to them or bring up triggers. In any writing class, students might discuss or explore these topics in depth, and so we’d always need to know how to navigate those conversations in a sensitive and nuanced manner, but I think in an asynchronous class where students are primarily interacting by reading each other’s work, it may sometimes be more difficult to tell immediately how their writing is affecting others.
2. How might you address these needs?
a. One aspect of addressing all the above concerns is rapport-building. Offering office hours and scheduling more conferences, perhaps, creating videos to introduce certain content and also create face-to-face rapport, and also incorporating many opportunities to talk through readings and exercises in forum posts. By emphasizing writing as a process in forum posts, peer reviews, and learning journals, I would hope to ease some of the pressure of feeling “behind”—both by creating a lot of opportunities to check in, but also by showing that we’re all learning and developing as writers, and everyone can practice the concepts. It’s about development rather than “mastery.”
b. I would hope that hosting many group discussions and maybe having group Zoom conferences occasionally would also build a sense of community where veterans would feel more comfortable reaching out for support. I will also have explicit policies allowing for extension requests that would emphasize how I want to help students complete the course rather than hold them to punitive standards.
c. Clearly establishing courteous communication guidelines and also moderating forum posts and creating channels for discussion with me about any issues students are encountering in communicating would hopefully help with “C” above.
3. What other types of students (other than Veterans) might have challenges that will need to be addressed when you deliver course content and instruction?
a. My course will primarily be written exercises, so I would want to make sure that students with disabilities could access all my teaching documents and knew about all the options for read-aloud technology and speech-to-text. I would also provide image descriptions and closed captions on any videos I created for instruction.