Some blogging about tech writing classes

Teeny posted some questions about tw classes, and so I'm going to offer my opinions.

Collaboration. I abhor it. In fact, I have very strong feelings about collaboration which other tw profs would probably disagree heartily with. In short, here's my prob with collaboration.

A group of students need, of necessity, choose what equates to a Project Manager. The theory is that you're imitating life in the workplace by requiring collaboration. IMO, this is nothing but bad. What happens in real-life collaboration? One of two things, usually: 1) there are penalties for those who don't participate, and the project manager has real authority and control over the rest of the group; or 2) the project manager is a wimp and doesn't control the group, resulting in one or two doing all the work, while everyone gets to put their names on the finished product, even the slackers.

Regarding #1: I find that it is unfair to give to the selected project manager of a student group penalization authority over the others. That person doesn't want that responsibility, and it's an added burden on that one student, over and above what the others have to contend with.

Regarding #2: I think it is unneccessary to foist this terrible real-world situation onto students.

Many profs will say that facing either of these two scenarios is actually a learning experience for the students and is therefore good! I disagree on these bases: If you intend to make Project Management your profession in industry, nowadays you almost have to get PMBOK certified. And even if you're a Project Manager in business, anyone who has had to manage a big project for a client knows how hard project management is. It's a really difficult time/resource/people management juggling act, and yes, worthy of learning and attempting to master.

In some other class.

In my class, I want my students to learn how to write. Write collaboratively? Well, that would be nice, but the closest we get to it in my classroom is extensive peer-editing workshops. I never want a student's grade to ride on the performance or backbone of some other student. I believe that the lessons you learn in weighted collaboration are lessons that have nothing to do with the act of writing.

I am slowly gathering articles, research, etc. disputing the value of collaboration in the classroom that supports my feelings. There's not much out there, though. I'm clearly in the minority when it comes to this issue, but there ya go.

Whew! I'll post more later.