- What have you learned about providing your students with quality writing experiences?
- How have you used/will you use what you have learned in the courses you teach?
- Have your students’ writing skills improved as a result?
- Has your students’ learning deepened as a result?
Suggestions for next year's QWE FPD are also encouraged and welcomed!
I am learning the importance of providing clear assignment guidelines to students and providing scaffolding opportunities for them so that the key elements of the assignment are more clear to the students. I am also learning a great deal about grading -- one of my favorite (and most helpful) discussions we had this year was the difference between the novice and expert grader. My goal is to become an expert grader... in time.
ReplyDeleteI have been using what I have learned in that I am changing the type of feedback I give students on their writing assignments. I am beginning to work on my Fall writing assignments as well in terms of trying to develop more clear guidelines and developing some scaffolding assignments so that I have more opportunities to provide formative feedback.
I don't know that I have seen an improvement in my students' writing skills yet... perhaps slightly in my upper division course for some students, I did see some improvement. These students wrote several essays each on a different topic, but with the same goal, to reflect on a personal experience and integrate with a topic from our course. For some students, I did see an improvement in their ability to integrate course material into their reflection and I think this was due, in part, to the practice provided by having multiple writing assignments and feedback to the students about ways to improve the next writing submission. My goal would be to see more consistent improvement among all of the students.
I cannot say for certain if their learning deepened as a result, but I would like to reflect on one student's paper.... in her final writing assignment, she reflected on her learning experiences in three different courses she was taking this semester, my course in psychology, a course in philosophy, and a course in nursing. I thought her reflection was a great example of what we hope our students are doing -- combining knowledge from multiple sources and reflecting on reflecting on what they have learned. It was really exciting to be part of this student's learning experience and to see it reflected in her writing!
I think the most enlightening thing for me was to learn how other faculty use and evaluate writing assignments. When I teach a writing course, especially my "Academic Discourse" course, I want to be sure that I'm offering realistic advice about assignments students will encounter during their time with us. the goal of that course is to help students succeed in other courses. Working with faculty definitely gives me material that will improve and deepen students' writing. I want to help them think like their instructors think and to know when to ask for further instructions or advice before turning in assignments. These insights also help me when I receive grade appeals from various LASS courses, when I must put the student's comments into perspective.
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