Association in practice

Scenario D: What might the principle of Association look like in practice?

In Scenario D, Tara is developing an online training program for distance educators who will not be meeting each other in institutionally-sponsored settings. The nascent online writing program has advertised for one hundred online writing instructors, and they have received many times that number of applications -- some from English educators in distant countries. Nearly one third of the accepted applicants have some experience in OWI; as a result, Tara plans to train these instructors first with the hope of developing a team of lead or experienced trainers.

Previously, Tara's work with OWI has been at her institution's home setting, and she has had face-to-face contact with the online instructors. However, because only six successful applicants live within a fifty-mile radius of the home institution (and flying the others in for training is not viable), she has decided to engage the principle of Immersion when preparing her program's new online instructors.

One of Tara's goals is to provide her distance-based team with a sense of human interaction and connectivity. She is worried that otherwise the training program will suffer severe attrition and, in fact, she does not like to go online and work without contacting her instant messaging buddies, who give her a sense of connection with others. Among the strategies that Tara might employ are:

• Creating a "cyber-water cooler" by linking together "on duty" trainers and trainees (and later the instructors) through synchronous chat technology. To better facilitate their association, she can provide an introduction either through personal or group email, or even through a more personalized group chat, where she also introduces herself. With geographically decentralized teachers such as those in Tara's program, this strategy can provide a sense of being part of a larger faculty.
• Developing a "facilitator network" that includes one's program-level facilitators and/or trainers (Renwick 5). Like various special-interest group listservs such as the WPA list, the 7-C's list (Computers and Composition component of the Conference on College Composition and Communication), and the W-Center list (Writing Center), professionals can reach out to their colleagues either internally (within the institution) or externally (among institutions).
• Being available to the trainers and instructor-trainees through online media. Both planned meetings or spontaneous opportunities to talk with the program director enable the team members "to express their concerns and ideas in a more private venue and may, as well, be good forums for airing differences, which leads to both individual and programmatic growth" (Hewett and Ehmann 20).

The principle of Association enables an online writing program to support its team of professionals, as well as to facilitate peer-level working relationships. Such an association is both practical and appropriate to the interactive nature of contemporary writing instruction, whether online or off.