Using wikis to promote quality learning in teacher training

This paper discusses writing as a social practice and speculates on how wikis might be used to promote higher quality academic writing and support collaborative learning. This study of undergraduate teacher trainees’ online learning activities focuses on how shared spaces – wikis – might be used to communicate ideas and generate course‐specific content. The study also explored how students, through such activities, were able to improve their academic writing skills and engage more critically in learning. Data captured from student discussion boards and a post‐module email questionnaire (n = 35) were used to map student perceptions of the usefulness of wikis in support of their academic studies. The data indicate that most students raised their skill level in writing directly to the publicly viewable wiki space, in sharp contrast to the more informal content they posted on the discussion boards. The scope of collaborative writing was limited due to students’ reluctance to edit each others’ work, but students appreciated the shared environment as a means of discussing their work and the content of the course. Students reported that their academic writing skills had improved through their formal participation in the wiki.     

Using Online Studio Groups to Improve Writing Competency: A Pilot Study in a Quality Improvement Methods Course

Communication skills are a significant contributor to an individual's success in the workplace. Unfortunately, students often have trouble expressing their ideas in written form and the poor quality of students’ written work often impedes the learning process. This pilot study investigates the use of online writing studios within a quality improvement methods course and the impact of this intervention on students’ writing competency and perceptions about the writing process. The impact of this approach on student performance is evaluated within and across semesters using comparative statistical analyses. Results show that students who participated in online writing studios performed better (i.e., at least one rubric level higher) on their final written assignments for the course compared to students who did not, and that this approach is associated with improved students’ perceptions about the writing process. This research suggests that the use of online writing studios within a content‐specific course can incrementally improve students’ writing competency over the course of one semester, and can positively affect the learning of written communication skills and change students’ perceptions about various aspects of the writing process.     

Teaching and assessing writing skills at university level: a comparison of practices in French and Colombian universities

Background: The analysis of teachers’ conceptions about writing at university level allows the study of teaching practices associated with academic writing. At the same time, it is important to consider the context (disciplines, culture, institution, pedagogical organisation, etc.) where these practices take place.

Purpose: The present article explores the teachers’ conceptions about teaching and assessing writing skills at university level from two academic programmes of psychology: one in France and one in Colombia, through two questions: (a) the writing skills that teachers expect their students to acquire from attending their courses, and (b) the criteria used by the teachers to assess the written performance of their students. The main purpose is to analyse the teaching and evaluation practices that teachers describe in their discourse, taking into account the discipline and some similarities and differences between cultural contexts.

Sample: Ten university psychology teachers, five French and five Colombian, participated voluntarily in the study. The teachers were a heterogeneous group in terms of their ages and number of years of work experience. They taught a range of courses or subjects in the area of psychology.

Design and methods: The research was conducted using a qualitative method. The university teachers’ conceptions were collected during semi-structured interviews. A content analysis of the interviews, using an inductive approach, was undertaken.

Results: The analysis of the discourse indicates that the teachers focus their teaching practices on some specificities of the academic writing, and that they mainly assess different types of students’ knowledge. Additionally, a gap was observed between teaching and assessment practices, which concerns the cognitive dimensions of writing and the rules of academic discourse. This gap seems more evident in French teachers’ discourses. Colombian teachers described, in the main, teaching practices focused on the norms of academic writing.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that some similarities between the teachers’ conceptions are associated with the discipline. Specific differences could be explained by culturally distinct pedagogical practices related to the manner of teaching at university level.     

The Benefits of Improved Information Literacy Skills on Student Writing Skills: Developing a Collaborative Teaching Model with Research Librarians in Undergraduate Social Work Education

Improving the information literacy and writing skills of undergraduate social work students continues to be an issue for social work educators. In spite of the persistent concern, only a few studies examine the factors influencing these skills and interventions to strengthen them. This article details a faculty–librarian collaborative teaching model to develop students’ information literacy and writing skills through an iterative, peer-reviewed process that includes online and in-class library instruction. Pre- and posttest results from course evaluations, using the learning management system, indicate that students improve their information literacy skills, which in turn improves their writing skills. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for academic and professional development.     

“Teaching is learning”: creating a meaningful English L2 writing class with service-learning

Integrating service-learning into content courses is a growing pedagogical model expanding in higher education institutes in many countries. To examine the application of this approach in English L2 writing classes, this study embarked on a tutor–tutee mentoring project at a Taiwanese university. The participants in this study served as writing tutors to help non-English majors with their writing skills. They went through five phases to complete their individual services—selecting a tutee, exploring the tutee’s difficulty in writing, designing a workshop for the tutee, implementing the workshop, and reflecting upon their service experience. Probing the tutors’ responses to a project evaluation survey, this study showed that the tutors generally considered the project to be beneficial for enhancing their writing skills, writing confidence, knowledge about how to improve academic writing, and awareness of their own capabilities in helping others. However, this project was limited in several aspects, such as the amount of time demanded, the tutors’ levels of teaching knowledge and skills, and some tutors’ lack of confidence. Based on the results, this study concludes by proposing pedagogical recommendations to help English writing teachers fuse this project into their writing curricula more effectively.     

Using collaboration to foster academic integrity

Abstract

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence and confusion. This case study identifies opportunities through collaborative work to help students approach referencing with greater clarity and confidence. A project with first-year Arts students engaged in collaborative writing encouraged them to attend to their recording and writing-up of source references using individual ‘reading and referencing’ logs and then passing on completed references to their group’s designated bibliographer. Checks on later, solo, assignments by these students indicated that they were less likely to stray into inadvertent plagiarism, whilst feedback from the students themselves pointed towards improved confidence in their academic writing skills and development of study habits conducive to effective self-monitoring.     

The Impact of Students’ Approaches to Essay Writing on the Quality of their Essays

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the essay writing processes of three third year Bachelor of Education students. The case studies, which were drawn from a larger research project, indicate that students writing essays of differing levels of conceptual structure approach the essay writing task very differently at every stage of the process, and these differences appear to emerge from how students conceptualise the task—whether the intention is to reproduce an ordered sequence of information on the topic, or to construct an argument and develop a coherent thesis. The results suggest that attempts to improve students’ essay writing abilities need to shift from a focus on discrete skills to an emphasis on the relationship between students’ understanding of the content and their ability to write about it.     

教师反馈对提高学生大学英语写作能力的作用——以广东工业大学华立学院实证研究为例

教师反馈是英语写作教学过程中的重要一环,深刻影响着学生的认知发展。本文通过实证研究得出,教师反馈对学生大学英语写作水平的提高起着促进和激励作用。基于实证研究,笔者进一步分析教师反馈对提高学生大学英语写作能力的作用,并探讨如何充分发挥教师反馈的作用,努力提高学生的大学英语写作能力。     

Creating a Science E-book with Fifth Grade Students

This article explains how one teacher used iBooks Author, a free digital textbook creation tool that makes iBooks for iPads, in an upper elementary classroom to improve students’ expository writing skills and understanding of science content. The classroom teacher taught students pre-requisite writing and technology skills for two weeks, and then helped these students design, develop, and publish their own iBook. Students planned and developed content using Thinking Maps, storyboards, Google Docs, iMovie and other technology tools to create their iBook. A comparison of students’ work in the iBook to previous written work revealed an improvement in expository writing in multiple ways: better organization and connection of ideas; increased use of academic vocabulary; and an increased use of clarifying details and analogies. Students also gained a deeper understanding of science concepts as reported through their comments after the project was finished. Students became more proficient users of the technology, and also reported an increased sense of self-efficacy and confidence because they published a book in the iBookstore     

Developing team skills through a collaborative writing assignment

Employers want students who are able to work effectively as members of a team, and expect universities to develop this ability in their graduates. This paper proposes a framework for a collaborative writing assignment that specifically develops students’ ability to work in teams. The framework has been tested using two iterations of an action research project, with this paper focusing on the second iteration. The paper provides detailed information on how the framework was implemented, and then reports on the students’ perceptions of their learning about teamwork.     

Exploring historical ‘frameworks’ as a curriculum goal: a case study examining students’ notions of historical significance when using millennia-wide time scales

History teachers, teacher–researchers, government agencies and history education academics in England often report that students are frequently incapable of producing complex, polythetic or developmental narratives over long time scales. This lack of an overview tends to result in deficiencies in their application of the key concepts of the discipline. Consequently Shemilt has recommended the use of synoptic, millennia-wide ‘frameworks’ of knowledge in order to counteract these issues. With some notable exceptions, however, practising history teachers have appeared sceptical of the benefits of such an approach. I conducted an exploratory case study investigating in what ways a pre-taught framework, in which I had responded to some practitioners’ criticisms, appeared to be manifested in my students’ subsequent thinking regarding historical significance. My goal was to contribute to professional curricular theorising about what constitutes a framework and how it might be expressed as a curricular goal. Themes were derived from pupils’ writing, lesson evaluations, group interviews and observations. Possible curricular goals that were characterised in the students’ work included the pupils producing millennia-wide narratives based on colligatory generalisations and assessments of historical significance incorporating scale-shifting over long time scales.     

Student formation in higher education: teachers’ approaches matter

Teaching in higher education encompasses more than merely helping students develop knowledge and skills. It entails engaging students in their own formation as persons, professionals and citizens. From this perspective, this article investigates how approaches to teaching academic writing contribute to formation. By analysing a case from initial teacher education in Norway, we identify and examine one teacher educator’s beliefs about writing and his approaches to teaching writing. Theoretical framework rests on six discourses of writing developed by Roz Ivani? and on the formative possibilities and constraints embedded in these different literacy discourses. Thus, we provide students’ experien-ces with this teacher’s approaches and discuss what formation his approaches seem to have initiated. The findings point to the need for more critical reflection on the formative impact of teaching approaches in higher education more generally.     

A scaffolded approach to Discussion Board use for formative assessment of academic writing skills

Mastery of academic writing skills remains one of the greatest challenges for university students, especially in the first year. Amongst the reasons offered for the challenges are lack of clarity about the university’s expectations and low levels of teacher feedback on work submitted, a failure to engage, and low levels of contact with teaching staff and other students. Academic staff are challenged by increased class numbers and increased student diversity in classes and university policies to adopt a wide range of information technologies into teaching modes. In this paper, we offer one attempt at addressing these three important contemporary academic challenges: use of information technology to provide timely feedback through formative assessment to help students with a range of abilities to acquire the academic writing skills necessary to succeed in higher education. Early indications show that students find this form of formative assessment very useful. They value the timely and focused feedback from the lecturer and are developing collegiality as they learn from each others’ writing and feedback. We believe that this strategy is sustainable and can be adapted to facilitate academic and social integration for students across many disciplines.     

Integrating alternative learning and assessment in a course of English for law students

Alternative approaches to learning and assessment have become common practice in higher education today. While these approaches have several learning, instructional and assessment advantages for students and teachers, a need exists for a better understanding of their consequential evidence. The purpose of this study was to examine students’ perceptions of, and satisfaction with, the experience of learning English for Law in the environment of a comprehensive learning and assessment system integrating the project component and academic writing portfolio component into the framework of traditional learning. A sample of 58 law majors from Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania participated in the study. The main findings of the study indicate that the integrated approach to learning English for Law was very well accepted by the students due to the following benefits it presented: (i) this approach is effective and useful in promoting students’ productive and receptive language skills; (ii) it enhances students’ satisfaction with their results; (iii) it fosters one’s motivation to learn a foreign language; (iv) it promotes students’ development as independent learners. It is recommended that this study be extended to the investigation of the impact of such an approach on the students’ final results in ESP in comparable groups.     

基于博客的二语写作多元评价模式

以建构主义理论和过程写作理论为依据,参阅了国内外有关多元评价及写作理论的最新成果,对基于博客的二语写作多元评价模式进行了设计与教学实践探索,其中包括诊断性评价、自我评价、同伴互评、小组内协作评价、教师评价、写作档案袋评价等评价模式,并利用SPSS11.0社科统计软件包对实验组和对比组学生在写作教学实验前后的英语写作状况进行了对比分析。结果表明,此实验设计的大学英语写作多元评价模式体现了评价的主体性、多元性、公正性、客观性,有助于提高学生的二语写作水平。     

Can Turnitin be used to provide instant formative feedback?

New students face the challenge of making a smooth transition between school and university, and with regards to academic practice, there are often gaps between student expectations and university requirements. This study supports the use of the plagiarism detection service Turnitin to give students instant feedback on essays to help improve academic literacy. A student cohort (n = 76) submitted draft essays to Turnitin and received instruction on how to interpret the ‘originality report’ themselves for feedback. The impact of this self‐service approach was analysed by comparing the writing quality and incidence of plagiarism in draft and final essays, and comparing the results to a previous cohort (n = 80) who had not used Turnitin formatively. Student and staff perceptions were explored by interview and questionnaire. Using Turnitin formatively was viewed positively by staff and students, and although the incidence of plagiarism did not reduce because of a worsening of referencing and citation skills, the approach encouraged students to develop their writing. To conclude, students were positive of their experience of using Turnitin. Further work is required to understand how to use the self‐service approach more effectively to improve referencing and citation, and narrow the gap between student expectations and university standards.     

The road to self-assessment: exemplar marking before peer review develops first-year students’ capacity to judge the quality of a scientific report

Lack of clarity about assessment criteria and standards is a source of anxiety for many first-year university students. The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was designed as a staged approach to gradually familiarise students with expectations, and to provide opportunities for the development of the skills required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This paper investigated the students’ perceptions of the first two components of the DUAL programme, which assist first-year biology students to engage with stated assessment criteria and standards in order to develop their capacity to make judgements about scientific report exemplars, their peers’ scientific reports and ultimately their own. The study found strong evidence (96% of responses) that the marking and discussion of exemplar reports with peers and demonstrators clarified expectations of scientific report writing. A key feature of this element of DUAL was the opportunity for structured discussion about assessment criteria and standards between peers and markers (demonstrators). During these discussions, students can clarify explicit statements and develop a tacit knowledge base to enhance their ability to judge the quality of others’ work and their own. The peer review exercise (the second element of DUAL) was not rated as highly, with 65% of students finding the process helpful for improving their report. The negative reactions by a sizeable minority of students highlight the need to clearly communicate the expectations and benefits of peer review, with a focus on how the process of giving feedback to peers might benefit a student as much as receiving feedback on their own report.     

Metacognition gains in public health graduate students following in-class peer evaluation

Peer evaluation provides an opportunity to give and receive feedback on work in a structured setting. Instructors can utilise peer evaluation as an opportunity to teach and for students to practice metacognition along with other professional skills. Second year Master of Public Health students in a professional development capstone course participated in a peer evaluation for two writing assignments. Students were administered pre- and post-surveys about their perceptions of peer evaluation. First years were administered the survey as a comparison group. Mixed methods were used to: (1) examine second years’ perceptions of skills gained/practiced after engaging in peer evaluation, (2) compare perceptions of peer evaluation in second to first years, and (3) measure agreement across skills gained following peer evaluation compared to self-reported competencies in their final capstone ePortfolio assignment. Results demonstrate gains in metacognition of professional skills and strong agreement of the skills reported following peer evaluation and self-reported competencies.     

‘Becoming and being writers’: the experiences of doctoral students in writing groups

The use of writing groups to support students undertaking post-graduate research within universities has begun to receive attention from academic supervisors and doctoral researchers. Very little has been written by doctoral students themselves on the benefits of working within such writing groups. In this article, the experiences of working within a doctoral writing group at an Australian University are presented, primarily from the perspective of students. The authors identify two main benefits they have experienced through participating in a writing group using a ‘multi-voiced’ approach. First, they discuss the kind of learning that they achieved through working in a writing group. They do this with reference to key principles of peer learning and of peer review. Second, they focus on the ways the group worked as a community of discursive social practice. An overarching message for them in participating in the group and now writing this article is the shift in their thinking and experience of writing from seeing writing as an essentially private and implicit process to writing becoming a matter of public and shared work. These two notions are bound by the concept of identity building, drawing from the literature on communities of practice.