Putting the S in the SLO

A recent thread on a faculty development listserv I belong to has been focusing on how to maximize the learning potential in those SLOs we all dutifully write, discuss the first day of class, and then often don’t think much about again until the end of the semester. Some discussion has centered on how to make SLOs more meaningful to students.  The following, quoted with permission, is from Mary Goldschmidt, Faculty Development Specialist at the University of Scranton:

“Inviting my students to set their own goals as a formal part of the course is something I’ve been doing for 5 years now – in composition courses as well as gen ed courses in literature (not something students are usually too keen to take). It’s a practice strongly supported by the scholarship on self-regulated learning and goal orientation.…To illustrate what these look like, here are a few of my students’ self-defined learning outcomes (paraphrased):

• an electrical engineering major said that he wants to become better at listening to the perspectives of his other small group members because he knows that professionally, he will always be working in teams.
• an occupational therapy major said that she wants to increase her ability to pay attention to detail when reading literature because she can see a parallel between this kind of reading and “reading” her clients, e.g., noticing what’s not always explicit.
• an economics major explained that his father loves poetry and he simply wants to be able to talk more with his Dad about poetry."

Goldsmith goes on to point out that it’s not enough just to do this once on the first day of class; student engagement has to be sustained.  “Twice later in the semester, I ask students to write reflections on the actions they’re taking to work toward their goals, the progress they’re making, and what new or different things they might do to better achieve their goals. I also ask them how I can best support them in their learning.  Students are significantly more engaged in the course when they have their own intrinsic motivation for doing well – beyond just wanting a good grade.”

Have you tried anything similar with your students?  How has it worked?

The Mission of the Writer's Studio: Your Help Requested

Guest blogger: William Donahue

My goal in this post is to involve the Lincoln University community in writing the mission statement for the Roscoe Lee Brown Writer’s Studio. Located in University Hall B-3 with hours this semester on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 until 6 p.m., the RLB Writer’s Studio is based on a writing center model—a collaborative place to create better writers. We offer non-evaluative, one-on-one consultations on any writing matters, for any student at any level, as well as specialty workshops for groups. We also house the English Department’s component of the Humanities Tutoring Program in the core.

Let me start with an anecdote from a class in that core:

In yet another English Composition II class, this first day of midterm week, I explained my “revision” midterm assignment. Students need to take their short story analysis essay, write a revision, then write a meta-cognitive reflection of how they attempted to revise each graded entity on the rubric (thesis, support, etc), and finally address grammar and punctuation issues by writing the rule for their particular pattern of error as well as demonstrating application of that rule to their own writing.

No Scantron here. We are quickly climbing Bloom’s taxonomy and addressing numerous SLOGs.

The students are writing, revising, engaging in critical thinking, and learning about their writing process. But a finer point escaped the students—the difference I was trying to elicit between “editing” and “proofreading.” Even after my powerpoint and class discussion, a student response to the midterm assignment was to “fix the errors” as if there was nothing more to revision than fixing a mistake. That a thesis, although “somewhat effective” on the grading rubric, could not be revised further.

As I discussed with my students today and as I talk about the RLB Writer’s Studio as a “writing center” at Lincoln, I am often reminded of Stephen North’s 1984 essay in College English titled “The Idea of a Writing Center,” which was the basis for a “new” model of writing center that differed from the “basement, fix-it” shop approach to writing (VISIT US IN THE BASEMENT OF UNIVERSITY HALL!) Instead, North argued, “it represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (438) as opposed to the “older” model where “instruction tends to take place after or apart from writing, and tends to focus on the correction of textual problems” (439).

Writing centers focus on creating better writers through collaborative, dialogue/question driven, non-directive measures. The goal is often a better writer, not necessarily a better written text. The analogy I often use is teaching people to fish so that they will never go hungry.

The more recent criticism of the process approach to writing, which developed in 60s through the 90s, comes from post process scholars such as Kent (2003) who assert that writing is social—a situated, public, and interpretative act. The product cannot be ignored.

So the Writing Center is stuck in the middle—which is right where we want to be.

WE DON'T FIX STUDENT WRITING (but we can help students fix their own writing).
WE DON'T DO REMEDIATION (but we can help remediate student writing).
WE WANT STUDENTS TO COME TO US (but any encouragement to help students find us will be accepted).
WE WORK WITH ANY WRITING ISSUE (believe it or not there is more to writing than grammar).
WE WANT TO PROMOTE WRITING (we want to promote writing).

After all as North stated, “if writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms, as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers” (446).

So I now enter into a dialogue with you. Help us create our Mission Statement. What do you see as the mission of the Roscoe Lee Browne Writer’s Studio?

References

Kent, T. (2003). “Introduction.” Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm. Ed. Thomas Kent. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

North, S. M. (1984). “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, 46(5), 433-446.

Teaching Service, Learning Fun

Michelle Petrovsky, Guest Blogger

Our recent discussions of assessment seemed to give short shrift to an important teaching tactic: service learning. Relating classroom activities to conditions, events, and trends in the larger world enhances students’ interest in those activities. That in turn reinforces competencies and skills gained.

In my Web Programming class (CSC 201) in Spring 2009, service learning was at first absent. Students were lectured on, led through lab work in, and mentored regarding topics including:

HTML (the “native language” of web pages, that uses components like the ‘tag’ BODY and the ‘attribute’ BGCOLOR)

MySQL (a full-function database management system quite comparable to high-end packages like Oracle; widely used on servers that offer Web-based functions that require dynamic data, such as purchases)

PHP (one of two programming languages – the other is Perl – almost universally used to provide interactivity between Web browsers and servers; such interactivity can’t be provided by HTML)

Despite their all being upperclass computer science majors, and therefore having significantly more than a nodding acquaintance with programming concepts and practices, my students slogged. Writing lines like

<BODY TEXT="#435D36" BGCOLOR="#F5F5F5">

to define the background and text colors of a web page, rather than pointing and clicking in a program like DreamWeaver, is both challenge and effort, even for the computer-very-literate.

Noting the slog and seeking some way to ameliorate it, I talked to the class about reworking their semester project, by including in it a service learning experience. At first skeptical, they quickly warmed to the idea. The group's first design decision? That the web site they would create, and the MySQL database and PHP programming that might be needed to support it, should address topics my folks felt would be of interest to the entire LU student body.

Direct, indirect, and even outright subjective assessment tools indicated that connecting classroom activities to a larger context improved student performance. Grades on subsequent quizzes and exams were higher than those on the midterm. Projects began to be completed with fewer requests for assistance. Group work proceeded more smoothly, with less and less instructor monitoring needed. And I saw clearly that my students’ enjoyment of and enthusiasm for CSC 201 had increased. They were not only learning, but having fun doing so. The website they created is still available, at

http://compsci.lincoln.edu/csci/csci.htm