Consulting with Students on Computers

Authors: Alanna Bitzel, Brian Gatten, James Jesson

Date: 20 June 2008

White Paper Series Number: 080620-01

Keywords: computer, consulting, laptop, training, digital, technology

Abstract: This paper discusses the history of the Undergraduate Writing Center’s (UWC) policy of consulting with students on laptops and desktop computers. We explore the reason for implementing this policy, the anticipated benefits, and some challenges that our consultants have encountered. We also offer some techniques that can help consultants engage in successful computer consultations.

Context

IN the fall of 2007, we decided to begin offering consultations at the UWC on computers (either students’ laptops or our writing center computers). This initiative followed our recognition of the general and longstanding trend away from paper documents and towards greater use of technology in a variety of forms and for a variety of reasons. Since students are already accustomed to doing most or all of their writing on computers, we reasoned, they should be comfortable with writing consultations in that same format. Indeed, we had seen increasing numbers of students not wanting to print out their papers before coming to the Writing Center, and we decided we could meet that demand without jeopardizing our core principles of being non-directive and focusing on the total writing process rather than on individual documents.

Training

To make computer consultations productive and consistent with the Writing Center’s philosophy, we created a group of protocols and recommendations to guide consultants. Since the fall 2007 semester was the first time our consultants would be working with students on computers, we needed to train them to do these types of consultations. We held this training during our annual orientation for all consultants, new and veteran, at the beginning of the fall semester. We began as we always do by walking consultants through the syntax of a typical consultation involving a paper document: assessing the situation (by reviewing our intake form), greeting the student, asking questions about the assignment, choosing a reading strategy, setting priorities, consulting, and ending the consultation. We emphasized that regardless of the format of a student's document, we must make sure that the student retains ownership, responsibility, and control over the writing. We then described how to tailor a consultation to accomplish these goals when the student wants to work on a computer.

Consulting Procedures Unique to Computer Consultations

When a student comes in with an electronic document, the consultant should first ask if she will be consulting on the student's laptop or if the student will upload the file from a USB flash drive or an online source. If the document is on the student’s laptop, the consultant should then ask the student if she has enough battery power for the 45-minute consultation or if she needs to work near a power supply. If the laptop does not have enough battery power, the consultant should suggest sitting near a wall outlet or save the document to a UWC flash drive and open it on a UWC computer.

If the consultation will take place around one of the UWC’s computers, the consultant should ask at which computer the student prefers to sit. The student should take the lead, making the first decision of the session, which hopefully will put the student at ease and establish a precedent of student empowerment for the rest of the consultation.

The consultant can strengthen the collaborative nature of the relationship by sitting next to, rather than across from, the student. An additional strategy is to situate the computer between consultant and student so that both can read the document on the computer screen.

The consultant should then have the student open the document in Microsoft Word. Next, the consultant should ask the student to save the document under a different name so that any organizational changes or comments will not remain at the expense of the original. One recommendation we offer is to simply add “uwc” to the end of the document name. The consultant should position the computer between himself and the student and ensure that the student makes any notes or revisions. The consultant can insert comments in the margins of the essay electronically or take notes on a pad of paper. These actions will help encourage the writer to be fully engaged in the writing process.

If the consultant wants to insert comments electronically, she should first ask the student if she can type on the laptop. For points of discussion, the consultant can use the highlighter (located on the Formatting toolbar) to mark the passages that she and the student choose to discuss. The consultant can also turn on Track Changes under the Tools tab to make any changes to the document visible. The consultant should also make sure to check the Use Balloons option under Track Changes.

To add a balloon/comment, the consultant can simply go to Insert on the toolbar, click on Comment, and start typing in the balloon. If the consultant does not use the balloons, once the Track Changes button is on, any changes will show up in another color in the text itself. The advantage to using the balloons is that the student can easily incorporate or delete any changes simply by clicking the checkmark box at the top of the balloon. At all times, the consultant should make sure that she is only inserting comments and not changing or correcting the text as she types.

The consultant must allow herself enough time to finish the consultation within the allotted 45-minute time frame. The consultant should feel free to end the consultation a few minutes early to make sure the student saves the updated version to the laptop, flash drive, webspace, or email. If the student has saved a copy to a UWC computer desktop or flash drive, the consultant should make sure to delete the file once the consultation has ended.

Benefits

When we began offering computer consultations, we expected a number of specific benefits, including:

helping students revise their papers more quickly, which particularly benefits those facing short deadlines;

giving students a record of the revisions made during the consultation through the Track Changes function;

reducing the amount of paper consumed by Writing Center activities; and

providing a forum in which consultants can talk with students about the limitations of Microsoft Word tools like Spelling and Grammar check.

Challenges

As a staff, we anticipated several challenges with computer consultations, including that:

they would be more time consuming than paper consultations;

collusion issues might be more likely to arise, and consultants may become more directive when they can type directly on a student's document;

marking a digital document would be more difficult for consultants and students than using a pencil;

consultants would find it more difficult to follow along on computers (as it is easy to lose one’s place when the screen is scrolling up and down), making it harder to return quickly to an earlier page;

consultants would encounter new logistical challenges such as determining who should be handling the mouse and keyboard and where to sit in relationship to the computer (i.e., should the consultant sit on the side with or without the mouse when working on UWC desktop computers?);

liability issues might arise from consultants handling students' laptops (i.e., from damage to the computer or accidental file loss);

laptops might lose power suddenly, wasting time while the laptop reboots or losing the work of the consultation; and

the number of computer consultations could become overwhelming.

Computer Consultations and Collusion

Many of our consultants initially feared that consulting on computers would lead to problems with collusion and over-directiveness. Many consultants have found, however, that their computer consultations are actually less directive than those focused on a printed text. We believe this is primarily because consultants’ hyper-awareness of the potential pitfalls of computer consultations can encourage them to be especially clear in setting boundaries to avoid collusion (e.g., discouraging students from simply acting as “scribes” and copying down consultants’ suggestions word-for-word). Also, computer consultations naturally encourage students to read their papers aloud, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will take active roles in the consultations and making overly directive consultations less common.

Conclusion

Adding the option to consult with students on computers represented a significant departure from the UWC’s earlier policy of requiring a printed copy of student papers. While this new consultation format caused some anxiety among consultants and still requires fine-tuning, consultants have found that computer consultations have introduced few problems to their work in the Writing Center. With the success of this new type of consultation, the UWC continues to investigate new opportunities to use technology in consultations. One possibility in this area is to begin offering online consultations using text-based and/or audio-visual chat functions. As the Writing Center explores this and other initiatives, we hope that this paper can help our consultants think about the benefits of integrating new technologies into our existing philosophy and practices. We hope that it also helps consultants recognize the potential challenges of using new technologies and provides some possible solutions to those challenges.