|
WAC
Newsletter INSIDE: Efficient Grading and Research Writing
in Engineering Courses: Instructors of courses in technical and scientific majors often seem
to feel that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to applying
principles of WAC and WID (Writing in the Disciplines). After all, what
could students possibly gain from writing about equations? Aaron Krawitz, who teaches Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at
the University of Missouri, Columbia, offers a response. (He was, in
fact, part of a panel at the Third National WAC conference, giving a
presentation titled, “Dealing with Resistance in the Natural and
Applied Sciences.”) Some of the writing-to-learn techniques he uses in
his MAE 344 course, Composite Materials, were featured in the April 1997
issue of The Writery, published by the University of Missouri’s
Campus Writing Program. He explains how writing to learn helps his
students to understand the material: “Engineering students tend to
think that if the calculation was done correctly, the process that led
to the calculation was also correct. This isn’t necessarily so. Just
because the calculation is correct doesn’t mean that the assumptions
or the values used in the equation are correct.” Krawitz indicates that writing in his course assists students in
addressing calculations in real-life contexts: “There are no answer
books in the real world; it is not necessarily clear what approach to
take to a problem, what assumptions and values to use, or how to
evaluate the result. I try to use writing to deal with this situation,
as well as to teach fundamental concepts and develop problem-solving
skills.” By using writing assignments to promote critical thinking in
students, Krawitz believes that he is helping to move engineering, in
its four-year degree form, away from being merely “vocational.” He
uses writing “to encourage a level of thought beyond learning
‘formulae.’ I am convinced that a well-posed, more open-ended,
question requiring a written answer is a more effective active learning
method than true-false, short-answer, fill-in-the-blank, or
multiple-choice questions, or even computational problems.” Krawitz also uses students’ written work to improve his teaching:
“I can tell more about where students are in their thinking from a
writing assignment and can therefore see what difficulties I need to
address as a teacher. I can also teach use of terminology, choice of
appropriate units, and proper presentation of data through this
process.” Asking students to solve problems and to explain their
reasoning provides insight to instructors that other methods of
assessment do not. Yet another advantage to Krawitz’s approach is one that students
can always appreciate—they are learning what they will need to know in
a work setting. Krawitz outlines his approach by explaining, “Writing
to learn course content is parallel to what we actually do in a research
or industrial setting.” Often, students will respond more positively
to pedagogies that are transferable to real-world contexts. Additionally, those are often the skills that employers want in
prospective employees. Krawitz explains, “Engineering employer surveys
consistently report a lack of communication and critical-thinking skills
among engineering graduates. I think, therefore, that employers would
strongly support the development of these skills in prospective
employees if they understood the possibilities.” Krawitz’s remark
emphasizes the potential for professional development through WI
courses. When asked about whether writing intensive courses are “a hard
sell” to faculty in Engineering, Krawitz affirms that they are. He
notes that many instructors assume that writing in the field is
technical writing and that it is not their job to teach writing. Krawitz
feels, “The notion of writing to learn or writing as a means of
delivering course content is simply not understood.... Because some
faculty don’t understand the potential uses of writing in teaching
content, they have the attitude that writing assignments are nothing
more than add-ons to the traditional lecture format. They are concerned
about fitting such assignments into an already crowded syllabus. The
notion of altering the way course content is delivered is a difficult
one to address; the traditional pattern is deeply ingrained.” Krawitz suggests using field-specific seminars, presentations,
workshops, even faculty study groups to help make implementing WI
courses a more tenable option for instructors. He also suggests
“provid[ing] examples of how conventional assignments can be
‘converted’ into WI assignments. I am talking now not just of good
examples of WI assignments—these exist in engineering and elsewhere on
campus—but of how even garden-variety problems might be made into
interesting WI assignments.” Krawitz indicates that seeing these
examples prompted him to change not only his assignments but also his
teaching style. While he admits that the transition can be tough, he
also understands the benefits that his students, and ultimately the
engineering field, will reap from such innovative change. The May 1998 issue of The Writery featured an example of the
sort of assignment conversion Krawitz has used in his courses. Below are
the featured assignments from “Alchemy: Converting an Engineering
Assignment into Gold.” Conventional
Assignment Consider a cylinder of tungsten (W) surrounded by aluminum (Al). Let
the total force on the cross-section F=2x104N. Use the
following: EW=400GPa,
EAl=70 GPa; total cross-sectional area A=1 cm2,
and AAl=5AW. Determine: The forces FW and FAl, the stresses sW
and sAl and the strain e
on the system. Writing
Intensive Version: The Nature of Reinforcement in Composites The nature of reinforcement in composites can be explored using the
following model. Consider a cylinder of tungsten (W) surrounded by
aluminum (Al). Let the total force on the cross-section F=2x104N.
Use the following: EW=400GPa, EAl=70 GPa; total
cross-sectional area A=1 cm2, and AAl=5AW.
Explore the mechanical situation by determining: • The forces FW and FAl Discuss the significance of your results. Consider the following: How
does the notion of reinforcement enter the situation, i.e., what is the
role and effect of the W with respect to the Al? Explore this further.
If there were no reinforcement so that the total cross-section was all
Al alloy, how would the stress and strain compare? What about pure W?
What are the implications for the interface between the Al and W? What
roles do the stress-strain curves of the individual materials play? What
would the stress-strain curves of Al and W look like? So what? Write no less than one nor more than two pages, double spaced,
12-point font. All aspects of your paper should be prepared on a word
processor, i.e., text, equations, figures, tables. Proofread what you
write for accuracy, organization, and clarity of expression. Excerpts from the April 1997 and May 1998 issues of The Writery
are used with permission. -Cynthia K. Marshall Efficient
Grading and Research Assignments This quarter’s WAC workshops have been designed in response to
suggestions made by WI faculty on the annual WAC survey. The following
summarizes the presentations and discussions from this quarter’s first
two workshops. WAC I: Responding to Student Writing The first WAC workshop of the spring quarter focused on how
instructors can improve student performance on writing assignments and
reduce their grading work load. Participants discussed not only their
own methods, but also some of the more theoretical approaches advocated
by their fields. The conversation yielded several lists of tips that instructors can
use to accomplish the linked goals of better student writing and
increased instructor productivity. Participants initially shared some tips to give students for
improving their writing: • Put the paper away for a day Then, participants mentioned some timesaving grading strategies that
they employ: • Mark mechanical errors on only the first
page or two of the assignment to illustrate patterns of error The conversation about timesaving strategies sparked discussion about
helping students improve their writing, since better writing tends to
require less grading time. Participants suggested some ways to improve
the content of students’ writing: • Explicitly address the goals of the
assignment The suggestions about improved content led to discussion about how
students’ efforts could help reduce grading time. Some of the
strategies mentioned were • Asking students to highlight sections of
a draft to be revised As the discussion wrapped up, Joe Law provided some resources to
faculty, including an article by Raymond Smith, Director of Indiana
University’s Campus Writing Program, “A Quick Guide to Lite
Marking.” The guide is available on-line at <http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/cwp/quickguide.html>.
Thanks to all present who provided these suggestions and shared their
experiences with students’ writing and the subsequent work load issues
that arise. WAC II: Libraries, Research, and the
Writing intensive Course: The second WAC workshop of the quarter focused on library-based
research and was conducted by Charlotte Droll, Humanities
Librarian for Dunbar Library; Mary Lou Baker Jones, Physical
Sciences Librarian for Dunbar Library; and Bette Sydelko, Health
Sciences Librarian for Fordham Library. Calling on their experiences
assisting students with research projects, they provided and solicited
from workshop attendants many suggestions to facilitate students’
efforts to complete research assignments. They began with some general guidelines for creating assignments that
require library use: • Provide and explain the objectives of
the assignment to students The speakers then suggested a variety of ways instructors can
strengthen research-based assignments. Workshop participants also added
their own suggestions to the list: • Provide students with clear research
questions After listing and discussing how assignments might be strengthened,
the speakers and participants also discussed traits that tend to weaken
research-based assignments: • Listing resources that are outdated or
unavailable Given Wright State’s population of students with disabilities,
instructors need to be aware of the research issues specific to many of
those students. Judy Roberts from the Office of Disability
Services shared some reminders about students with disabilities and
research: • Make research materials available via
the Internet or other on-line sources The suggestions and discussion generated by presenters and
participants during these sessions was made possible by attendees’
collective interest in student success and their diversity of experience
across the disciplines. Call
for Proposals Date: May 31 - June 2, 2001 Location: Bloomington, Indiana The conference theme, “Writing, Teaching,
and Learning in New Contexts,” is intended to focus attention upon the
changes in institutions and learning environments that WAC and WID
(Writing in the Disciplines) programs and teachers find themselves
shaping and accommodating. Proposals will be accepted for individual
talks (15 minutes), panels (50 minutes), poster sessions, and
preconference workshops. Printable proposal forms are available at
<http://www.indiana.edu/~wac2001/prop.html>.
On-line submission information via email or on-line form is available at
that site as well. Keynote speakers: • Gail A. Hawisher, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Submission deadline: Friday, October
13, 2000 Notification of acceptance: Monday,
January 15, 2001 For additional information about the
conference, visit the official website at <http://www.indiana.edu/~wac2001/>.
Wright
State’s WAC program will be able to pay conference expenses for a
limited number of people to make presentations at this conference.
Anyone interested in discussing this possibility should contact Joe Law
at x2155 before October 1. Fall
Faculty Workshop Wright State’s Writing Across the Curriculum program is pleased to
announce our fall workshop for faculty featuring nationally known WAC
scholar Martha Townsend, Director of the Campus Writing Program at the
University of Missouri, Columbia. On Friday, September 8, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Kettering Center
(with lunch at the Engineers’ Club), WSU faculty will have the
opportunity to attend a workshop with Professor Townsend. MU’s Campus
Writing Program offers 200 writing intensive (WI) courses in 60
departments in nine colleges, tutoring in writing to students enrolled
in WI courses, resources for WI instructors, and professional
development workshops for faculty and teaching assistants. The program
has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and other
national publications. In a 1993 evaluation of the program, Lynn Z. Bloom and Edward White
called the program “extraordinarily successful,” writing that “The
Campus Writing Program at the University of Missouri, Columbia has taken
the most promising elements of writing-across-the-curriculum and
implemented them in a uniquely successful model for a flagship state
university.... We are impressed by the breadth and depth of faculty
support, by the consistency of administrative support, and by the energy
and sensitivity of the program direction. We are convinced that the
university is on its way to becoming a national model of excellence.” This level of achievement has made Townsend a sought-after national
and international lecturer and consultant. She has authored nine
articles or book chapters, including “Dealing with Resistance to WAC
in the Natural and Applied Sciences” with Aaron
Krawitz and others. She has facilitated many workshops and seminars
and has worked as an external reviewer for various colleges and
universities. Registration details will be forthcoming. Please make plans now to
begin the academic year with this professional development opportunity
featuring one of the most sought-after experts in the field. Attention
1999-2000 Writing Intensive Faculty As part of our ongoing assessment of the WAC program, we have
distributed our annual survey of faculty who have taught WI courses
during the 1999-2000 academic year. You should receive a copy of the survey during the first week of May;
please take a few moments to complete it. Your responses will help guide
the continuing development of the WAC program. Return completed surveys to Neal Stark, Budget Planning and Resource
Analysis, 224 University Hall, by Friday, May 12, 2000. Thank you for
your assistance! |