only empowered students to participate in critical discussions of literary texts , but also boosted their confidence by providing more time and space to process ideas before contributing them to live discussions on MS Teams following the collaborative annotation activities . Taken together , these instances demonstrate the tool ’ s potential to promote critical pedagogic practices by enabling educators to centre the individual needs and circumstances of diverse students when designing seminar activities , thus addressing some of the institutional and social barriers to online learning such as unequal access to technology .
2 . Inclusion
As a module , Playing Parts encourages students to consider who speaks in the literary texts and whose perspectives are silenced or absent . How these power dynamics play out in wider society was integral to seminar ( and lecture ) discussions . These issues are also important for me , as an educator who is guided by critical pedagogic principles , to think about in terms of considering who speaks during seminars and , crucially , who feels empowered to speak . As Nancy Fraser argues in relation to social justice more broadly , ‘[ o ] vercoming injustice means dismantling institutionalized obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with others , as full partners in social interaction ’ ( 2009 , 16 ). This point applies to higher education and is crucial for the creation of inclusive learning communities .
Talis Elevate is , by design , well-suited to overcoming some of the barriers that hinder student participation and interaction . One feature on Talis Elevate that has been invaluable in this regard , particularly for quiet and socially anxious students , is anonymous commenting . Students have the option to annotate sources publicly and anonymously in the ‘ class comments ’ section ; at the same time , students are also able to use the ‘ private notes ’ section to annotate the documents independently , which only they can view . The ability for students to choose how they annotated sources alleviated the pressure that some students experienced when communicating with others during seminars , creating a more inclusive learning environment that supported student participation in several ways . For example , in anonymous feedback at the end of the module , multiple students praised Talis Elevate for enabling them to feel part of the learning community without needing to attach their names to their annotations ; the tool was also commended for empowering students to share and gain feedback on their ideas without having to speak publicly during whole group discussions on MS Teams , in the process helping to validate and expand their knowledge through anonymously engaging in critical conversations with others in the wider group . Talis Elevate was instrumental in creating an inclusive community in which students were able to participate in seminars , as it enabled them to take ownership over the means through which they communicated their ideas and engaged in discussions .
The potential for students to comment anonymously , in turn , alleviated some of the anxieties I experienced at the start of the pandemic surrounding student participation ( i . e . not always being able to see students to monitor engagement ). I could view comments and use the analytics page to gage who interacted with the sources . If students were not actively engaging with sources on Talis Elevate , I could reach out to them privately and offer support to encourage participation . Talis Elevate taught me that students need not be ‘ visible ’ on camera to be actively engaging in learning . There are other activities that can be used to promote active participation , such as collaborative reading activities on Talis Elevate . Given ongoing debates surrounding visible participation and camera usage in online teaching and learning ( Finders and Muñoz 2021 ), I was surprised at how many students added comments publicly on Talis Elevate and chose to speak on microphone and / or camera during synchronous discussions on MS Teams . 7 Talis Elevate played an important role in creating an inclusive learning community in which students felt confident to speak on microphone and / or camera . It provided them with more time to process their ideas during small group close reading activities and space to develop their knowledge by reading other people ’ s annotations , building their confidence to discuss and debate their ideas more widely during the whole group discussions on MS Teams . In doing so , Talis Elevate empowered students to speak and to share their ideas with others , demonstrating the potential of the tool to promote critical pedagogic practices that produce more equitable , inclusive , and dialogic learning environments .
3 . Shifting the teacher-student power dynamic
Talis Elevate opened up spaces for democratic and dialogic critical pedagogic practices during seminars
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