Welcome to the CIRTL Network’s Virtual Coffee Hour

1. Teaching and Using Writing Skills in the STEM Classroom Welcome to the CIRTL Network’s Virtual Coffee Hour • Michelle Sulikowski • Brian Chabot • Kathryn Miller Session Begins at 1PM Central Time When you join the room please run the Audio Setup Wizard: Tools Menu->Audio->Audio Setup Wizard While we wait for the session to begin, we encourage you to test your mic and webcam If you are experiencing problems and/or have questions, please type into the chat window

2. Ways to Interact during the Coffee Hour Discussion • Turn on/off your microphone: • Raise your hand if you have a question or comment • Turn on/off your video: • Use the chat window to add comments, ask questions, or request help

3. Writing in the STEM Classroom One approach to fostering deeper student engagement and understanding Kathryn G. Miller, Professor and Chair of Biology CIRTL Coffee Hour, March 20, 2013

4. The course • Biology 3191: Molecular Mechanisms in Development • Read primary literature (no textbook) • Discussion, not lecture • Writing-Intensive • Analytical essays • Long Literature Research paper Foster understanding, organization, synthesis of ideas and information

5. Why Writing Intensive? • Bean ‘Engaging Ideas’ (2001), p. 29-31 • “What…..students need to understand is that for expert writers, the actual act of writing causes further discovery, development, and modification of ideas.” • Active rather than passive • Understanding instead of facts • Ask questions and engage in dialog, not acquire information

6. The writing process: ‘think, then write’ model • Choose a topic • Narrow it • Write a thesis • Make an outline • Write a draft • Revise • Edit Bean ‘Engaging Ideas’ (2001), p. 29-31

7. Expert writer’s process: unanswered questions and a dialog with the ‘material’ • Starting point: perception of a problem • Exploration • Incubation • First draft • Reformulation and revision • Editing Recursive Reformulate ideas

8. Bean, Engaging Ideas This description of the writing process emphasizes the fact that expert academic writers are driven by their engagement with questions or problems and by their need to see their writing as a contribution to an ongoing conversation. ………..[T]his problem-driven model of the writing process has a distinct advantage… It allows …[the]… link[ing of] the teaching of writing to … teaching the modes of inquiry and discovery in the…. discipline. ….[S]tudents [get] personally engaged with the kinds of questions that propel writers through the writing process. Thus, the writing process itself becomes a powerful means of active learning.

9. My goals for the course Why: Goal:

10. Essays • Question or thesis • Question designed to require synthesis of material from several sources • Support answer with empirical data and arguments • Organize around ideas

11. Example

12. Grading

13. Writing examples: 3 ways to write about the same thing

14. Analysis of writing examples

15. Development of student writing skills • Cornell students are required to take 2 writing courses • Most courses assume students have sufficient writing skills and don’t educate about writing • Writing skills students need for STEM disciplines (or other career/professional writing) usually are not evaluated

16. Courses taught with writing skills emphasis • Environmental Issues (BioEE 1100) • Principles of Ecology and Environment (BioEE 2610) • Current Topics in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (BioEE 7670)

17. Things to do • Educate yourself about how to help students improve their writing • Get books or other resources that deal with writing techniques • Design approaches to assist students to improve writing skills (grading rubrics, special assignments, course sections)

18. Grading Rubric-Content

19. Grading Rubric- Writing

20. Writing in the STEM Disciplines Michelle Sulikowski Vanderbilt University CITRL, March 2013

21. Make Writing an Authentic Activity • The activity must be authentic and related to course objectives • Let them know that this is how scientists communicate • The teacher shows writing is valuable by spending class time discussing writing • Short 5 minute talk with expectations, rubrics or examples is key • Allow students to do peer review prior to submission (peer review is an authentic exercise) • Allow resubmission for any work that is unacceptable (how peer review works)

22. Peer Review • Briefly discuss the peer review process • Remind them that good peer review can be painful • Give a grade to students for the actual peer review • Get at least two reviews per piece of work • Give guidelines for reviewing including deadlines • Require students to show changes in yellow highlight or discuss the changes at the end of the work • Good peer review lightens the instructors load and gives students ownership of their scholarship • Can do it all on OAK in groups that you control

23. Authentic Writing in Laboratory • Lower Level Labs • Replace a regular undergraduate lab report with a journal quality experimental • Give examples for students to follow • Higher Level Labs • Produce several forms of an abstract :differing lengths (50 – 200 words) and for different audiences (lay / scientific) • For sequential experiments, write a journal article instead of a lab report

24. Authentic Writing in Lectures • Organic Chemistry • Choose a project that matches curriculum requirements but has some meaning to the student • Choose a drug with an alkene and a carbonyl group • Each week they apply what we learn in lecture to that drug (has an explicit format in my class) • They conclude the project with a description of how the drugs works and why it is used based on Discover or Scientific American format • Audience: First part is me, second is their peers • Instruction in writing: 5 minutes of class time with a handout every few classes; give examples of acceptable products

25. You can teach writing in any class • In class assignment: Write a few sentences on something you understood from lecture or explain something that you did not understand using proper terminology whenever possible • Take-home assignments if you don’t have class time or want a more in-depth response: • Write 5 sentences on 1/3 assigned topics • Ask them to write about something from lecture • Ask them to write on a topic of choice that relates to actual or related course content • We learn to write by actually writing • Write in or out of class • Give guidance on the prompt sheet, no need to discuss if the assignment is short • Value the assignment by giving it a grade • Grade loosely to save your mind

26. Upcoming Coffee Hours Building an Academic Career Series Teaching and Learning in the STEM Classroom Series Teaching at a Primarily Minority Institution March 28th, 2013, 12-1pm CT Facilitated by: Tabitha Hardy, Post Doc, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) Fellow Keri Mans, Post Doc, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) Fellow ImaniGoffney, Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Houston Fostering Critical Thinking April 17th, 2013, 1-2pm CT Facilitated by: Nancy Ruggeri, Associate Director of Graduate Programs, Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University To sign up to hear about these and other CIRTL events, emailinfo@cirtl.net.