January 1998

At colleges and universities across the country, an increasing number of instructors are using E-mail discussion groups as a means of helping students learn course material. The disciplines involved cover most of the curriculum, including linguistics, engineering, literature, chemistry, and philosophy. At one school, in fact, jointly taught chemistry and philosophy classes correspond with each other.

To learn how other WSU Faculty are using E-mail in their classes, attend the WAC Workshop on Wednesday, January 21. See below for information about registering.

At Wright State, too, a number of faculty regularly create E-mail newsgroups for their students. Rather than trying to cover the whole range of practices, this WAC profile will concentrate on a single course, Money and Banking (Economics 301) as taught by Carole Endres. Most of the information that follows is drawn from her syllabus for Winter 1997, which not only provides a good illustration of ways to make this class project work but also answers some questions people often raise about using E-mail in classes. It’s always daunting to start something new, but she has left nothing to chance.

Professor Endres assigns students to one of five newsgroups she has set up for the course. Each week every student is required to make at least one contribution, preferably more, by midnight Wednesday. These postings constitute 20% of the course grade. The syllabus lists the benefits of these assignments: "Electronic journal assignments allow you to respond to course material outside of the classroom, pose questions, offer personal comments, integrate knowledge presented in class with lived experience and promote classroom dialogue and community."

The syllabus also makes the requirements for these assignments very clear: "I want you to concentrate on issues that affect money, banking, the credit markets, exchange rates, the FED, etc. Try to discuss issues that correlate with the class discussion for the week. Do not concentrate on issues that tend to be financial, like the stock market or takeovers and mergers. Don’t just report statistics. The primary source of information should be the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. I do not want articles or information from the Dayton Daily News or USA Today."

Other ground rules are firmly established as well. Due dates for the first and last entry are specified, and students who dial in from off campus are told explicitly that they must resolve any problems before the first assignment is due. They are also informed that "failure to log into the system" is not an excuse for missed assignments. Because students come to us with widely differing levels of experience using E-mail, a detailed set of instructions is attached to the syllabus, beginning with where to locate a computer.

Expectations for student postings are high: "Each posting will be assessed on how well you (1) develop ideas, (2) answer questions, (3) interact with the other group members, (4) integrate knowledge learned in class with other courses or your own experiences, (5) analyze a wide range of topics, (6) communicate your understanding of the topic and (7) stimulate discussion. Each contribution will be given up to a maximum of 10 points for a total of 100 points for this assignment."

To demonstrate what’s expected, Professor Endres includes three examples of good responses drawn from actual student postings in an earlier quarter and one inappropriate one. Because these illustrations help students make suitable postings more quickly, they may also reduce the amount of time needed to evaluate them. Professor Endres estimates that it takes about three hours a week to evaluate the postings from a class of 50 students, adding that the messages are posted throughout the week, not all at once.

Though the seven criteria may look overwhelming, she says, she can tell quickly whether a student is making the necessary effort--and making the desired connections. She responds to about half the postings, questioning statements that are unclear. The entire group, which will have already read the original comment, can read her question and evaluate whether they saw the inconsistency or problem she identified. Her belief that this practice helps sharpen students’ critical thinking skills is borne out by such remarks as "Now I see what you mean" and "I never thought of it that way."

Most of the feedback from students is positive, she reports, though a few complain about the amount of work required. The positive comments center on having the opportunity to ask questions in a non-threatening environment and to hear the ideas and opinions of others. Most students indicate that their E-mail exchanges help them recognize the important connections between what they talk about in class and the newspaper and television coverage they see.

Professor Endres identified the biggest benefit of these newsgroups to herself as the opportunity "to find out what they don’t know or what they have learned incorrectly or have a misunderstanding about." Among the misconceptions she has encountered are the beliefs that a thirty-year bond must be held for thirty years, that there is currency backing up all the checkable deposits in the banking system, and "that their narrow perspective must hold true for the population in general."

That kind of detailed knowledge about what our students know (and don’t know) is not easily gained in more traditional lecture and exam formats or in classroom discussions that typically involve a relatively small portion of the class. E-mail discussion groups, however, provide written evidence of the engagement and understanding of an entire class, making it possible to adapt classroom presentations according to the needs of a particular group of students. Although EC 301 is not an officially designated WI course, Professor Endres’s use of newsgroups demonstrates one of the ways in which writing can be a valuable tool for learning in any class--for students and teachers alike.

Several of the findings in the second report of the Harvard Assessment Seminars (1992) are of real interest to WAC programs. The portions of Richard J. Light’s report that deal with student writing bear out its value to learning in disciplines across the university. Worthy of particular attention are the comments he records from graduating seniors, whose suggestions for improving writing instruction sound very much like a blueprint for a WAC program. Here, in brief form, are some highlights of his report.

One common claim of advocates of writing to learn is that asking students to write involves them more deeply in their classes. The Harvard study surveyed 365 randomly chosen undergraduates about their writing experiences. Three of the questions were directed toward different measures of engagement: "In relation to your other courses, what is your level of total time commitment to this course? What level of intellectual challenge does this course pose to you? What is your level of personal engagement in this course?" Students were also asked how much writing was required for each course.

"The relationship between the amount of writing for a course and students' level of engagement . . . is stronger than any relationship we found between student engagement and any other course characteristic."

The results were striking: "The relationship between the amount of writing for a course and students’ level of engagement--whether engagement is measured by time spent on the course, or the intellectual challenge it presents, or students’ self-reported level of interest in it--is stronger than any relationship we found between student engagement and any other course characteristic" (emphasis in original). Those other characteristics include class size and the reason a student chose that class (e.g., whether the class was an elective or a requirement, whether it was in the student’s major field).

The survey also investigated whether this engagement is affected by how assignments are structured. For example, when faculty require twenty pages of writing, will there be noticeable differences in students’ engagement if they are assigned two ten-page papers rather than one twenty-pager? How about four five-pagers?

The students’ responses showed that, if the total amount of writing remains constant, courses requiring several shorter papers demand more time. On average, students reported spending about 40% more time (12 hours rather than 8 ½ hours) writing four five-page papers than writing one twenty-page paper.

However, the differences are much less pronounced for the other two measures of engagement. Courses with several shorter papers are rated as only slightly more challenging (a correlation of .86 for a course with one paper; .86 for two papers; .93 for three papers; .94 for a class with four or more papers). Likewise, the increase in overall personal engagement is slight, though perhaps more significant (.83, .88, .87, .96).

Of even greater interest are the responses that came from a series of in-depth interviews with 60 graduating seniors, especially their replies to two questions about writing instruction. They may be surprising.

(1) When should special emphasis be given to writing, especially to preparing longer papers? According to Light, the "overwhelming majority" of these students said that the junior and senior years were the best time to emphasize writing. They pointed out that freshmen are still adjusting to many new demands of coursework and college life; in addition, these seniors commented that they hadn’t fully appreciated writing instruction as freshmen, even when they now believe it was excellent. At the time, most viewed it as "just another course requirement." As juniors and seniors, these students said they wanted writing instruction and proactively sought help as they faced more challenging writing assignments in their major fields.

(2) How--in what context--is writing instruction most helpful? Seniors "are close to unanimous" in believing that "they learn most effectively when writing instruction is organized around a substantive discipline" (emphasis in original). Their "ideal," Light says, is to "combine writing instruction with actual writing assignments in a particular discipline."

At a number of schools, that "ideal" is realized in a WAC program, sometimes a program in which students enroll concurrently in an upper-level writing course and a designated course in their major. Some schools provide specially trained writing consultants to work with particular classes. At still other schools, faculty in various disciplines teach writing courses designed to introduce students to the professional discourse of that field. For example, the University of California, Irvine, offers courses with titles like "Communication in the Biological Sciences" and "Professional Communications in the Technical World," an Engineering course.

No matter what configuration a school’s curriculum takes, it would do well to take into account the findings of this Harvard Assessment Seminar. With or without a formalized WAC program, it is plain that students recognize the value of writing connected to a specific context and purpose; if writing it presented as an end in itself--as an isolated "skill"--students are less likely to benefit from writing instruction.

Light’s report records a number of other responses that will be of interest to anyone concerned about using writing in classes. A copy of the relevant chapters is available in the WAC office. You’re welcome to borrow it.