Assessing Facebook-based Writing Assignments: A Need for New Pedagogical Content Knowledge?

In my March 14 post, I wrote about a dialogue in my Digital Technology in the Writing Classroom course between several graduate students about how to use blogging and Twitterfall in writing assignments. Another discussion focused on aspects of using Facebook-based writing assignments.  These group members (one who is a middle-school teacher and two who are TAs of freshman composition) concurred that implementing such an assignment is daunting. 

My interest lies in the assessment of a Facebook-based writing assignment. To even think about how to develop an assessment of such an assignment, though, I am snagged by the potential problems of implementing such an assignment, as shared by these teachers:

One felt it was important to harness the student’s interest in Facebook and other social media, but expressed a concern about the drawbacks of using such an idea. Daily in her classroom, she encounters the constant need to monitor what her students are looking at on the computers, and whether or not they are on task. So, she says a Facebook-based assignment could “defeat the purpose” since the students are kids and don’t self-manage. Perhaps this suggests that such an assignment should be given to college students of the responsibility level to self-manage their time and stay on-task.

Another student argued against social media-based writing assignments in the classroom due to her frequent encounters with computers serving less as a help with engaging students and more as a distraction in the course room.  However, she did support the idea of using Facebook if there was a clear, purposeful way to go about it.  One idea was having students do a rhetorical analysis of a Facebook page to gain an understanding of the rhetorical triangle within the content.

I found an article through onlineuniversities.com,

“100 Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media in the Classroom” that lists exactly that.  One of my student group members reviewed this article after I recommended it and said she found some great ideas on how to implement some of these suggestions. However, among these innovative ideas, I see no information for assessing or grading any of these activities. Nor did my group member mention anything about how, if she did implement any of these ideas, this would fit in with her overall planning for student development or how she would grade the projects or assess her student's work. I didn't ask her for a response on outcome or assessments, but it's interesting that her consideration of using this did not automatically include a comment about that.

As I listen to pros and cons about implementing Facebook-based or other social media-based writing assignments, I notice that students  aren’t expressing ideas about the outcome and the grading of such assignments as much as they are looking at the process of the assignment. This suggests to me that the process could appear so daunting that the student instructor has trouble getting past the idea-implementation phase before she can even think about how to assess the product and grade the assignment. I wonder, is it the newness of the process, the newness of the technologies (hardware and software) that creates this effect, or another factor? 

One response I found to my question comes from Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler at Michigan State University in their article, “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge.” Their article proposes a conceptual framework for educational technology that addresses the phenomenon of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy:

          “Part of the problem, we argue, has been a tendency to only look at the technology and not how it is used. Merely introducing technology to the educational process is not enough. The question of what teachers need to know in order to appropriately incorporate technology into their teaching has received a great deal of attention recently...the primary focus should be on studying how the technology is used.” 

While Mishra and Koehler emphasize how teachers would learn to use technology, they state this in the context of teacher education that addresses pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). “...Pedagogical content knowledge is of special interest because it identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction.”

Mishra and Koehler discuss reasons why teachers don’t embrace new technologies, including fear of change and lack of time and support to learn the tools, techniques and skills that go along with them. I question, without this training, how can a teacher even conceptualize a method of assessment and grading of such a new beast?

In my review of literature on this topic, I find myself favoring the idea that a teacher's knowledge of technology is more than an important aspect of overall teacher knowledge--it is an essential one, ranking equal to the domains of content and pedagogical knowledge. Without it, teachers could feel incapable of grading or assessing an activity of which they are not familiar, like having to grade a musical composition or a biological finding when one does not teach music or biology.

If a teacher doesn’t understand the technology--I don’t mean computers here, I mean social media software and networking functions, in this case--then doesn't this fall under a lack of pedagogical knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching (i.e. using social media) and learning and how it encompasses overall educational purposes, values, and aims? Thus, in absence of pedagogy on this topic, a teacher would not be able to conceptualize how to grade or assess writing projects such as those mentioned here, because there is a lack of context in the overall writing scheme of the class.

Mishra and Koehler comment, “A teacher with deep pedagogical knowledge understands how students construct knowledge, acquire skills, and develop habits of mind and positive dispositions toward learning. As such, pedagogical knowledge requires an understanding of cognitive, social, and developmental theories of learning and how they apply to students in their classroom.”

In the case of my group members (self included), it seems that we would benefit from stronger pedagogical content knowledge applicable to the teaching of specific content, specifically using various digital technologies (software) in the writing classroom, such as Facebooking and other social media. This knowledge should include knowing which approaches to teaching fit the content, and likewise, knowing how elements of the content can be arranged for better teaching.