With online education constituting an increasingly significant component of college-level teaching, explorations of the differences between the virtual and face-to-face classroom are becoming ever more common, and ever more necessary. Scholars of all stripes have in recent years weighed in on the debate over the merits of online education, discussing everything from student-

teacher relations to the quality of classroom discussions to the ability of students to retain information learned in this environment. When beginning my first foray into online teaching this past January, I was eager to explore how the online venue differed from the physical one in all of the abovementioned ways, but perhaps most of all, I was eager to learn how the online nature of the class would impact my ability to teach—and my students’ ability to learn—ethnography, a practice that I commonly introduce and teach in my undergraduate American Studies courses.

What does it mean to teach an oral communication technique—ethnographic interviewing—in an online classroom, which is by nature devoid of oral communication? How does teaching ethnographic interviewing virtually differ from teaching it in a face-to-face classroom? Are there advantages to teaching ethnography virtually? These are the questions I set out to explore this past winterterm as part of teaching in an online format the introductory-level American Studies 207: Contemporary American Cultures.

In setting up this course, many of my standard practices for teaching ethnography remained the same. The concept of ethnography was featured prominently in the course syllabus, it served as the subject of an early unit in the class in which students read ethnographic texts, ethnography exercises were assigned to give the students practice with ethnographic techniques, and the two major writing assignments for the course involved ethnographic interviewing and writing. Beyond this basic framework, however, a number of my teaching practices differed from the face-to-face

classroom.

Since undergraduate students are often unfamiliar with ethnography as a concept, I generally introduce it in the face-to-face classroom by having students brainstorm ideas about what ethnography is and what it entails.

They thus have the opportunity to play with the concept a bit and let it marinate before being introduced to texts on ethnography and to actual written ethnographies. This was not possible in the online classroom, partly because I did not teach my class in real time, but more importantly because in the online venue there is no choice but to introduce a concept textually rather than by means of a freewheeling face-to-face discussion. Thus, I sought to take advantage of the preeminence of text in the online classroom, and to make ethnography as visually present and visually active as possible on the ELMS course homepage. It was featured not only on the syllabus, but also on the assignments and course documents pages, and most importantly, in recurring form on the announcements and discussion board pages.

I also did not have the opportunity in the online classroom to verbally demonstrate ethnographic interviewing techniques, or to allow the students practice interview sessions with each other. My discovery, however, was that this loss was not necessarily a bad thing. First, lacking a “practice” or “modeling” session served as a reminder to students that every ethnographic encounter is different from every other, and that in spite of our practicing of useful techniques, there is no real way to “prepare” for the unique encounter we will have with a particular research participant. The best we as ethnographers can do is to adjust from moment to moment based on the dynamics both of the research participant’s personality and of the particular nature of the “connection” taking place between ourselves and the participant. And second, lacking a practice session seemed to encourage my students in the online course to look more closely at the assigned ethnographic texts for clues as to how the authors had conducted their interviews. Indeed, judging from the amount and quality of discussion that took place on our discussion board featuring the assigned ethnographic texts, the students delved into this literature and demonstrated good critical thinking as to how it might relate to their upcoming ethnography assignments.

The primary disadvantage of teaching ethnography online, in my experience,

was that students seemed less inclined to discuss their own experiences (on the discussion boards) with conducting ethnography. In my face-to-face classes, students have generally taken advantage of class time to discuss questions or difficulties they are encountering through the ethnographic process, sharing with and learning from each other. My online students did not shy away from emailing me with questions about the ethnographic process, but unfortunately they did not generally post these questions publicly on the online ELMS page. Part of the fault for this may lie in my design of the course, since participation in the Ethnography Discussion and Exercises discussion board (intended to elicit discussion on the ethnographic experience) was not mandatory. Undoubtedly, students are motivated by mandatory requirements and by the influence of classroom participation on their grade, so in the future I will very likely make participation in this venue a required course component.

Luckily, however, I found much that was advantageous in the online teaching of ethnography. The primary advantage relates to the preeminence of text in the online classroom, as mentioned above. As one example of this, the required posting of the students’ ethnography exercises provided the class as a whole with a much vaster storehouse of documented ethnographic encounters than what they would generally have access to in a face-to-face classroom. After completing the exercise themselves, students could then look to see what the experiences of their classmates had been with that exercise, and hopefully learn from the collective insight of the class. Likewise, in the case of the readings discussion board based on assigned ethnographic texts, students

had continual access to the kernels of wisdom present in these conversations, since unlike face-to-face conversations, they were saved in textual form rather than disappearing into vapor the instant they were uttered.       

In short, teaching ethnography online is not a perfect enterprise, but it does offer some surprising benefits. It seems that the key to successfully teaching ethnography, whether in the online or face-to-face venue, is to recognize and harness the particular advantages available in each situation.

Teaching and Learning News
Spencer Benson, Director
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Anna Bedford, Editor