Kairotic Design: Building Flexible Networks for Online Composition

• Intro
• Design Process
• Instructor Perspectives
• Student Perspectives
• Implications
• References

• Intro
  • Premises
  • English111
  • Methods
• Design Process
  • Starting Assumptions and Assets
  • Dissonances
  • Space Decisions
  • Kairotic Design
• Instructor Perspectives
  • Making Space Work (Lance)
  • Making Space for Collaboration (Renea)
  • Party Time at Burke's Place (Ryan)
• Student Perspectives
  • Initial Nervousness and Uncertainty
  • Interacting Online
  • Agency in the Timing of Learning Activities
  • Challenges
• Implications
  • Principles of Online Course Design
  • Rethinking Traditional Writing Instruction
• References

Implications

Online course design is a deeply rhetorical, kairotic process. As we collectively composed our online learning spaces, our design choices were not only influenced by the audiences we were addressing (e.g., students, parents, fellow teachers, university administrators), they were also enabled and constrained by the infrastructures (DeVoss, Cushman, and Grabill 2005) we had at our disposal as well the broader technological ecologies (DeVoss, McKee, and Selfe 2009) in which we were situated. Moreover, we adapted our design of online spaces throughout the course as we responded to specific acts of student writing and speaking at particular kairotic moments.

Because we recognize that online course design is a contextual, rhetorical activity, we will not conclude this article with a set of "best practices" for effective online instruction that can be applied in all contexts. Instead, we conclude this chapter with a series of pedagogical principles that we have developed to guide our ongoing kairotic redesign of learning spaces at Miami University for both fully online and traditional composition courses. Although we recognize that these principles may not be fully applicable to other times and places, we nevertheless hope that readers can employ these principles as inventive heuristics for their own rhetorical thinking about online writing pedagogy.