Prof. Warnock or known more affectionately as Prof. W by his students thinks that asynchronous online classes are beneficial for teaching writing simply because when students learn writing taking an online class, they have to communicate in writing.
When students interact with each other on the forums, they have to write out long thoughtful posts with a premise backed up with credible evidence. Each time a student posts, it counts as a grade. Warner likens each initial post as the equivalent as a mini-graded speech in a face to face class.
When students write email to the professor, he/she has to write in a logical manner so the professor can understand what her questions is. Whereas in a regular face to face class, the student could just raise her hand and ask verbally or stop by the professor's office for extra help.
Students write a lot to each other to do primary posts, learn about the topic, to get acquainted with each other, or write secondary posts to back up what they say, or even to ask questions in the ungraded Cafeteria forum. All communication in an online writing class is written forcing the student to practice and/or polish his writing skills just to communicate to others.
Then, in addition to writing the traditional long papers, projects, the online writing student gets to write so many more words than if he were in a face to face class. For Warnock, all this writing practice results in improved writing skills for his writing students.
When I took my Freshman Composition writing class, we met face to face and while in class, we would ask the teacher questions if we didn't understand something and the only writing I remember doing were the three essays we wrote for the class.
Not only do the students do more writing in an online class, they also do more reading. Students have to read each other's posts, they have to read the teacher's announcements, syllabus, and lectures. Normally in a face to face class, students listen to the professor talk about his syllabus or listen to the professor give announcements in class or listen to the professor give lectures every class period, however, in an online class, all the communication has to be read (except for the occasional video to watch). It is true that the more students read, the better their writing becomes.
In Warnock's classes, there are once a week synchonous meetings for students to hear/see the professor or for students to bond with each other, but even in synchronous meetings, students interact in the Chat room and still need to read and write each other's post like in a DQ forum. The only difference is that the students gets their questions answered in real time rather than wait for the professor to answer questions the next day. And you get the extra bonus of hearing the professor's voice and interacting with the professor live.
Another advantage of an asynchronous classroom is if you have students in different time zones or students who work at odd times of the day or night, they have the convenience of going to their classroom whenever it is convenient for the student. For some students, 10PM at night is when they go to class, while others go at 3PM, and yet others at 6AM. And this is just in one time zone. In the US, you multiply that across 3 time zones and you get students posting to the classroom all the time.
I also think that as a teacher my writing skills have also improved since I started teaching writing online because I too have to do all my communication through the written word like the students.
Warnock Scott, Teaching Writing Online How and Why. NCTE 2010
Do you feel students learn better online or face to face when it comes to teaching/learning writing?
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