Meeting+Minutes+2011-2012


 * Winter 2012 - January 10 | February 7 | March 6 | April 3**
 * Fall 2011 - September 30 | October 28 | November 25 (notes not available)**


 * February 7**

The second Winter 2012 meeting of the Writing Circle began with Terry Sturtevent sharing his approach to a **staged lab report assignment** he implemented in Fall 2011. For this assignment, he asked students to prepare and submit a draft report for feedback before submitting the final version. The draft was reviewed by the lab's instructional assistant with a focus on providing feedback on content and some writing. Between submitting their draft and final lab report, students were invited to go to the Writing Centre for assistance. Based on their experience with the assignment and the Writing Centre, Terry asked his students two questions: (1) Would they would use the services of the Writing Centre again? and (2) What was their experience like with the Writing Centre with respect to their lab report assignment? Overwhelmingly, the response was positive with students acknowledging an awareness and appreciation of the Centre and the supports available.

Building on Terry's assignment, Debbie Chaves (Science Librarian) posed the question of "**how do you position writing as a key skill outcome for students, especially those in their first year?** The group acknowledged the challenge of this goal for first year students. Margaret Leask shared how she links the importance of writing to the kinds of writing students will have to do in the job world (e.g., grant proposals, conference proposals, business reports, etc.). Eun-ha Hong (SBE Librarian) reinforced this idea, connecting writing skills to applying for choice jobs and meeting expected salary goals - money talks in SBE! Emmy Misser (Writing Centre) shared examples of working with a Biology faculty member with respect to engaging students in reviewing and analyzing an "A" versus a "C" paper. The tangible aspect of seeing quality differences between the papers seemed to help students make the connection. Eun-ha further shared the difference she perceived between first year and senior level students' writing ability for those who received research (via Library) and writing skills (via Writing Centre) support in their classroom learning through a pilot initiative in a first year Fall 2011 economics course. At the conclusion of this conversation, there was acknowledgment by the group that instructors need to take writing seriously, set high expectations for student writing overall, assess for writing ability/skill, and develop student writing and researching skills as part of the course experience (e.g., learning tasks, assignments, in-class workshops and activities).

With respect to providing students feedback, Sally Heath from TSS and North American Studies shared how she uses the **rubric tool in MyLS** to: (1) grade student assignments, (2) ensure consistency of grading between herself and the TA, and (3) efficiently use her time to provide qualitative feedback. While the rubric took time upfront to develop, the payoff came with a fluid and efficient marking process. Sally also noted that she allocated five marks specifically for writing, signaling to students the importance writing in general.

In addition to sharing her rubric, Sally outlined a **critical analysis assignment** (in NO101) that she experimented with for the first time - an assignment intended to set the stage for the position paper and essay exam students completed as part of the course. The critical analysis assignment required the students to answer five critical reading questions (listed below under January 10th minutes) in a two-page write-up that demonstrated their understanding of the article. During tutorial, students practiced applying the five questions to an article. The assignment is available under the Participant Practices page. Interestingly, while Sally thought the assignment might be too easy, the students found it challenging. Helpful in preparing them for the position paper (assignment #2), students responded positively when surveyed about the assignment. An outline of the position paper assignment is available from the Participant Practices page also. On the final essay exam, students were allowed to bring in one cue card provided by Sally on which to write quotes and other supporting material to help craft their essays (students could choose from a list of questions - many of which were similar to the ones students brainstormed in their tutorials with their TA). The students were asked to hand in their cue cards with their exam booklet. Interestingly, Sally saw a link between those students who did reasonably well on the essay questions and the quality of material and effort put into preparing their exam cue card.

Dovetailing with Sally's experience, we talked more specifically about the challenge of moving students away from the cut-and-paste approach to essay writing that is characteristic of the current generation and facilitated through available technologies, and developing student ability to: (1) summarize an article in their own words, (2) distinguish between important and non-salient points, and (3) bring the voice of others into an evidence-based opinion piece or position paper. Sally felt that allowing students to use "I" in their position paper helped them begin to make the transition. Bob Samuels highlighted a book she turns to regularly to help students develop the capacity to summarize what others say in support of their opinions: [|They Say, I Say with Readings]. Emmy Misser pointed to a PPT presentation associated with step 8 of the assignment planner tool called [|"Academic Writing as a Conversation: How to Bring the Voice of Others into your Text"] that speaks to this issue. A complete list of resources associated with the [|assignment planner] tool can be found at [|here.]

Most of all what came out of our hour-long conversation was the tangible link between reading comprehension, research skills, and writing ability.


 * Tuesday January 10th**
 * T**he first meeting of the Winter 2012 term welcomed some new faculty and many returning members. After a round of introductions, the conversation touched on many issues and topics as outlined below.

Emmy Misser from the Writing Centre started things off sharing[| 27 writing-based questions] that are optional NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) questions that individual institutions can opt to include in the instrument. Emmy handed out a document listing the 27 questions, mentioning that Laurier chose not to include these questions in their institutional survey. Interest in the kind of data the questions could potentially provide was discussed. Tristan Long from Biology suggested the possibility of using the survey tool in MyLS to poll students with Colleen Loomis and Jeanette McDonald expressing interest in exploring what would be involved to conduct an institutional survey of students, including ethics. Arguments for surveying students on the 27 writing questions:
 * NSSE Instrument and Optional Writing Questions**
 * It would support the Assignment Planner
 * Signals that writing is important
 * It would support the first-year seminar program in Arts and other like initiatives
 * It would support the Academic Plan that emphasizes high impact courses
 * It would help define for the Laurier community what is meant by “high impact” or “writing intensive” courses

Terry Sturtevant from Physics and Computer Science shared data from his course/lab surveys indicating that students are supportive of improvement initiatives.

From NSSE we moved to discussing grading rubrics. Terry shared some highlights from the January 2012 issue of the //Teaching Professor// newsletter (available online from the Library catalogue – [|TRELLIS/PRIMO]) – titled “Rubrics – Worth Using?” He noted that aside from their various applications (e.g., literature reviews, reflective writings, bibliographies, oral presentations, critical thinking, portfolios, and projects) and use across a range of disciplines, that the number of faculty using rubrics remains small. Collectively we discussed how they can be used not only for marking assignments, but for communicating grading criteria to students and helping them understand different components of the assignments. Colleen Loomis from Psychology indicated that she had sample rubrics from her courses that she would be willing to shared. For a quick overview of the what and how to construct a rubric, [|click here.]
 * Rubrics**

On this topic, Colleen shared an activity she uses in a second year level course called “Chalk Talk” to facilitate students working in groups, to develop in students a deeper understanding of an issue or topic covered in the course, and to help other students in the class develop their understanding of the topic under study overall. Here are the steps involved in the activity. A complete description and marking rubric for the activity is available from the participant practices page.
 * Engaging Students – An Activity – Colleen to send summary**

Jeanette McDonald shared five critical reading questions designed by Shelagh Crooks from St. Mary’s University. They are listed below and are suggested as a starting point for developing students’ critical reading skills. Other discipline specific or source appropriate questions could additionally be added. Jeanette recommended modeling and practicing the application of these five questions in the classroom, and possibly building them into an assignment to prepare students to research and write a course paper due later in the semester. This has been done successfully in NO101 in Fall 2011 with Professor Sally Health.
 * Critical Reading Questions**
 * 1) What is the main TOPIC of discussion?
 * 2) What is the ISSUE under consideration
 * 3) What is the POSITION of the author?
 * 4) What EVIDENCE does he/she provide in support of his/her position?
 * 5) What is the QUALITY of the evidence provided?

Participants expressed interest in online marking tools. Jeanette commented on the grading tool in Turnitin.com and MyLS. Turnitin allows for online grading with the option for adding comments either your own or drawing from a selection of comments from the turnitin comment library. MyLS has rubric tool that instructors can design to meet their needs and links back to the gradebook and dropbox tool. For more information, contact myls@wlu.ca for more information and support. These tools are supported by the Office of Educational Technologies in Teaching Support Services.
 * Online Marking Tools**

In discussing supplemental instruction, Margaret Leask shared an approach she takes to develop and assess student writing in her first-year Religion and Culture courses building on the mandate of the department emphasizing the development of writing skills. To meet this objective, and to enable students to build marketable communication skills, writing skills are worth a minimum of 10% on each assignment. On exams she has experimented with incorporating anywhere from 10-25% of the grade for a written essay to the quality of student writing. The exam directions include a strong recommendation to write a short outline for each answer in the exam booklet. That way students can earn part marks for incomplete answers, in addition to the benefit of writing well-constructed responses. Exams for a recent online course where the grade value for the outline was set at 25% provided the best results in terms of the quality of student submissions. Many answers, she shared, were well thought out and carefully constructed with thesis statements, arguments organized systematically and based on course readings, clear conclusions, and references. Overall, Margaret felt that this approach aided students in consolidating their learning and understanding and made the grading of the written respones a more pleasurable experience.
 * Developing and Assessing Student Writing Skills **

The conversation closed with a brief discussion of the quality of student writing at the graduate level, with concerns expressed at the standards and expectations of students coming into programs and the challenges presented as a result to faculty at the course and thesis/disseration level when this happens. No concreted suggestions or directions were provided other than a recognition that perhaps at the admissions level, greater emphasis needs to be placed on assessing the writing ability of students.
 * Graduate Student Writing Ability**


 * October 28**

At our second meeting of the Writing Circle, two visiting Chinese professors joined the group. Their presence inevitably led to a conversation comparing university education in China and Canada, and in the course of the discussion, we touched on several teaching and writing related topics, particularly participation rates in higher education in China, pre-university entrance exams, plagiarism, and group work.

Wei and Chen explained that the participation rate in higher education in China is very high compared to Canada, and they related this to the job market in China and the more desirable jobs available to people with a university education.

Getting into university, however, is not easy. All students must pass national entry exams to get accepted, and they all have to pass tests in Math, Chinese philosophy, Chinese and English. There are other topics included in the pre-entry exam depending on whether students go in to the arts or sciences. Wei and Chen had questions about our requirements and we talked about provincial differences such as literacy tests in Ontario and Quebec’s system.

We were all interested in the required background for university studies in China and discussed the implications it has in general for the entire educational system as well as for writing. We were also interested in whether plagiarism is an issue in China as well as in Canada. Wei and Chen explained that students are told not to copy, not to plagiarize and that they get a very low mark if they get caught.

Students in physics and computing also do a lot of their work in groups which are organized in quite a different way compared to Canada. There was some confusion about how these work, but one characteristic is that students elect a group leader who is responsible for the success of the entire project; individual group members are led through the project by the group leader. Wei and Chen explained that this approach works well given that students in their program take classes together all the time and know each other well.


 * September 30th**

At our first meeting of the fall term we welcomed back several returning faces from the previous year. We began with catching up from where we left off last year, sharing the fall meeting dates and the CoP discussion guidelines. An example of a blog posting from [|Faculty Focus]that addressed student writing was also shared. A link to that posting - "[|Giving Feedback on Student Writing; An Innovative Approach]" is provided. Faculty Focus provides daily posts from educators on a variety of teaching and learning issues and topics. You can sign up for a feed to receive daily postings.

Tristan Long from Biology shared how his experimentation with writing journals in his first year Biology course. Positioned as a mechanism to consolidate student learning and thinking in written form (i.e., study notes), students were asked to prepare daily postings in their journal and submit them at the end of term for 4% of their grade. Feedback from the students suggested that some really took to the assignment, while others left it to the last minute to complete. This year, Tristan intends to make the assignment available for bonus marks with postings submitted at the mid point and at the end of term. Suggestions from the group about the assignment included: (1) providing sample postings of what a thoughtful, integrative posting should look like (Terry Sturtevant) and (2) gathering student postings more regularly throughout the term (Jim Weldon). Terry Sturtevant additionally shared how he used a check mark grading scheme to assess student work. See Participant Practices for a sample of the rubric.

Terry indicated that he used lab journals for student to write about what they learned from their individual labs. Students are asked to hand in their submissions within 24 hours of the lab. Over time he has evolved what students do by providing examples of what kinds of things to write about (e.g., what's important about the lab, how is it relevant, what is its general usefulness, etc.). In so doing, Terry noticed that the quality of student postings increased and attention to what the students acknowledged as having learned - improved.

Emmy Misser, in response to the discussion on learning journals, spoke to the importance of students being able to articulate their learning with a level of specificity, but that this is a learned practice and one that evolves over time.

Debbie Chaves brought up the issue of what do we mean by critical thinking and what are some good resources to help students develop these skills. Emmy mentioned a book called //They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing"//by Gerald Graff and Kathy Berkenstein. This book is available from the Library (PE1431 .G73 2009).

Lastly, we got onto a discussion of screencasts, which Terry most recently experimented with in his labs with the goal of providing students a chance to review the lab isntructions and what is involved in the lab - before, during and after the lab. A link to the videos on his YouTube channel can be found [|here]. What Terry found interesting is that the students watched the videos in a different order than he anticipated, but that in the end, they still got what they needed. Terry uses an open source product called [|screencastomatic.com]. He likes this software application: (1) because his annual annual fee is not "per machine" but can be access anywhere from any machine. In other words, he can record at home, or in his office, or in the lab without having to pay again. This is important for him since his home computer isn't configured the same way as the ones in his lab, so for screencasting lecture-type material, his own machine is fine, but for lab tasks he wants to be able to record on a lab machine so everything is EXACTLY set-up the way his students will see it, and (2) because there's nothing to install, As long as one's web browser is working and java is installed, (which it is pretty much everywhere), Terry's good to go. Other products mentioned were Camtasia and Adobe Captivate. Terry also mentioned that there are editing features of the program like the ability to add captions. These features are part of the "pro" version ($12 per year). You can also export files produced such that your data is not held "hostage" to future payments. Captivate is available in the Library's Digital Studio and offers closed captioning for accessibility purposes. If you are interested in learning how to use the Captivate product, contact Steffan Todoroff (stodoroff@wlu.ca) in Educational Technologies.

Other presentation software briefly mentioned was [|Prezi], a cloud-based presentation software.

This brought our session to a close. Our next gathering is October 28th.

 "They Say / I Say" shows that writing well means mastering some key rhetorical moves, the most important of which involves summarizing what others have said ("they say") to set up one's own argument ("I say").  In addition to explaining the basic moves, this book provides writing templates that show students explicitly how to make these moves in their own writing.