Hi Class: Here are Ashlyn's Case Studies

Ashlyn Kershner

RHET 5375

May 2020

Case Study: Two Similar Students

            For this case study, I’d actually like to discuss both of the students I have been working with each week. The reasons for this are that both students bring similar problems and strengths to the table, both are in the same program (albeit doing rather different research), both are working on projects of a similar scale and for similar purposes, and both have had very similar issues come up with regards to their processes. Both, also, are international students bringing some of the writing struggles we’ve talked about at length to the table: confusions about tense, number, pronouns, and occasionally general word choice. However, both are PhD students who have had many years of figuring out such translation issues, such that they often catch them even before I do.

Since both of these students are working on similar (in terms of scale and general purpose) projects, and since both have spent full semesters on one project that was started before the semester began, and since both are advanced students and competent writers already, there has not been a great deal of notable “improvement” in their actual writing. I do think, though, that both have become a bit more comfortable and confident with their writing and have begun, as was my goal, to worry a bit less about making the kinds of translation-based mistakes that they were both somewhat self-conscious about earlier in the semester. Because of this, I also have little to offer in the way of interesting observations or problems that have arisen, so bear with me on this to-be-determined journey through my work with these students.

            My first student, we’ll call her Sharon, is an international PhD student from China, in the Marketing department. I don’t believe that’s the actual name of the department, but that’s how I’ve come to think of it. She has been working all semester on the same project: a second-year paper (like a thesis) on the effects of social crowdedness on consumer buying practices. It is really interesting research that incorporates aspects of social psychology and mental health into her marketing literature.

            My second student, we’ll call him Victor, is an  international PhD student from Iran (or, I assume Iran, based on the fact that his first language is Persian—we haven’t actually talked about specifically where he is from), also in the Marketing department. Victor’s work this semester has been on a large research project (he is beyond second-year, so not a departmental research project) about prediction markets and the Oscars. This research is also interesting, though in a rather more formalistic, stats-based way that involves lots of numbers and equations that I only mostly understand.

            Sharon, in the course of her research, came across a problem in which the previous study she was attempting to replicate, wasn’t yielding the expected results. This meant that, as she was still writing the paper about the failed study, she was also having to conduct a new study based on new criteria and inputs. Then, as the results from the new study came in, she had to rewrite parts of her paper and write new parts to account for the new information. This was all happening back in February and March.

            Similarly, Victor has recently hit a snag in his process. He came upon a new set of literature, from a different field (Psychology) that actually used a method similar to that he was proposing in Marketing. He then decided he needed to read more of the Psychology literature in order to incorporate it into his paper. He has thus spent the past few weeks acquiring new information and rewriting parts of his paper and adding new parts to the paper to account for the new information.

            Of course, there was also one other major shared problem these two students faced this semester: the sudden spread of Coronavirus. Both students had conference presentations canceled or rendered virtual, in which they were to present their respective research projects. Both students are stuck in Iowa on their own, unable to travel elsewhere. Both are having the same difficulties we are all now facing of having a harder time communicating with advisors, study participants, friends and family, and of course their writing tutor.

            Much of the tutoring I’d done with each of these students prior to all this was very visual in nature, because I am a primarily visual learner and teacher. There was, in the Before Times, a lot of pointing, drawing, writing notes, gesturing, and other physical communication happening between us. Tutoring the time of Covid, however, has caused us to have to figure out ways to translate that kind of communication, which both students had said was helpful, into the world of video chat.

            For Sharon, this transition was particularly smooth. We would meet on the WC video space, copy-paste sections of the paper (or presentation) she needed to work on, and we would talk and type and highlight and generally just collaborate on thinking about how to make her writing as strong as we could make it. We also shared stories of quarantine, animal companions, allergy struggles, and other such personal talking points just because, as I’m sure we all feel right now, it was nice to have a bit of human interaction with people we weren’t living with. This generally, so far, has not proven to be problematic in any way. We chat about life, and then we chat about writing, and everything seems to run smoothly.

            With Victor, however, we hit a few tech-based snags. At first, the WC video space seemed to work alright, but in subsequent sessions, Victor realized he wanted to be able to show me charts or graphs and to be able to use One-Note in order to draw such visuals and also equations while he talked through his explanation of the new material he has been trying to add to the paper. These things were difficult-to-impossible on the WC space, so we decided to shift over to Zoom, where he could share his screen. There, he would draw and write as he needed, but I couldn’t really contribute visually since he was sharing his screen. However, it seems to have worked much better than the WC space for these purposes. As he talked through his explanations, in order to make sure he understood the new information himself, he would draw on One-Note in order to make sure I understood the concepts as well. Then, he would talk through it again, this time trying to write it in as coherent a way as he could say it. Once we started to get into a bit of a rhythm of this, things worked quite well.

But that does bring me to my question for you all: In using tools like the WC video space, or Zoom if any of you have also had to move over there, how do you work around the new difficulty that is our own inability to really be able to physically assist our students, by writing things down for them or drawing or gesturing, etc.? I have found it difficult, as I mention above, not being able to contribute in the same way when Victor is sharing his screen as I could when we both had the same screen in front of us (either through WC Online or an in-person screen). Have others run into similar issues, and have you come up with any creative solutions? Of course, I am also lucky to have two particularly similar and good students, with whom I have really run into very few issues, so this one feels perhaps simple in comparison to some of the things others of you have brought up. However, it’s really all I’ve got in the way of questions at the moment.