I provide students with direct feedback. I also provide them with clear examples, which they have to review and read. Continued practice with reading is beneficial. They may be offered an opportunity to rewrite with corrections, which helps them with further writing. Practice with both is likely to improve their level of communication because more exposure with both certainly is useful to communication patterns.
I provide my students with direct and substantive feedback on assignment submissions. Additionally, I faciliate APA workshops and tips with my students to help them gain a deeper understanding of academic writing. Likewise, I compile what I call "APA Writing Tips" which outlines some of the most commonly used mistakes with academic writing. Lastly, I provide students with exemplars of excellent, good, and bad writing samples - with some comments to help them understand what makes each exemplar either good, bad, or poor.
I always first refer my students to the school library and writing center. Then I also provide documents I have authored relevant to proper writing and often-misspelled words.
When I see mistakes made in papers even after having given them these guides, then I can see who is paying attention or not.
Do you think that all teachers should compose their own rules of writing for their students?
- Dr. Eileen Wibbeke
"How do you help students improve their reading, writing, and communication skills?"
I think that the best way to work on reading, writing, and communication skills is to read, write, and communicate. It sounds straightforward, but let me illustrate by way of a story:
In high school, I was on the swim team. Like most distracted, tired, and overworked 16-year-old students, I would do whatever it took to avoid actually getting into a pool 3-4 hours every school day. So we concocted a program called "dry land conditioning." This was an "accepted" way of preparing for competition without getting into the pool. Our head coach didn't really buy into it, but he relented. He understood that there is no substitute for practicing in the pool, but he did understand that "dry land" activities could supplement "in pool" ("wet land?") activities. And hi picked his battles.
As far as reading, writing, and communication, I have the same approach as my head coach: there are a number of things students can do to improve these skills. And not all of them involve reading, writing and communication.
For example, students can improve their composition by studying logic and by learning fallacies of composition and argumentation. Knowing what an "ad hominem" fallacy is, for example, can help students from committing it.
Another example: I'm a big proponent of diagramming sentences. This activity, introduced to me in the 8th grade, played a role whose importance was second to none in helping me improve my writing. It gave me a new appreciation for the music of a sentence.
But, at the end of the day, like my swimming coach, I think that there is no substitute for practicing writing by writing. Write, revise, and re-write. I challenge them to write what they know and not make their discussion board posts too "formal." I encourage them to research first and avoid paraphrasing. Instead, "report" on what you learned and then cite your sources.
Of course, there is truly no replacement for reading skills. One must read to acquire that skill. That said, I've been "listening" to books on tape and have encouraged students to try this for fun. Purists might not recognize it as true "reading," but the listening and attention skills required for comprehension listening to an Audio book are no less important than the skills at work when reading.
I don't know if all teachers should compose their own rules of writing, but I definitely think that providing students a document with guidelines is helpful. The question I struggle with is how much "helpful" is truly "helpful."
I provide an area in my classroom called “Pathway to an A.†This area has “How to†information, examples, and presentations (such as Writing for College, Why I should care about APA, Paraphrasing, etc.). Also, I provide templates for note taking, essay organization, and so forth. In addition, I point students to University and Internet sources they can review to learn referencing, writing, studying information.
Fortunately, the University I work with has a Learning Center in which there are various online labs for specific skills essential for college-level performance. One of these is writing. I’m simply not able to correct grammar and spelling errors in each student submission. My primary responsibility is to evaluate mastery of the course subject matter. This is not to say that writing skills are ignored and every rubric has an evaluation for this. For students struggling with communication skills, I refer them to the Learning center and then continue to monitor their improvement.
Plagiarism is a major issue in all universities. Study after study verifies this. In my experience, I think there are two primary reasons. First, students may not consider a course valuable for their personal educational goals. I face this frequently teaching art appreciation. “Why do I have to take this course? It has nothing to do with my major?†The second is linked to the first – students spend their time concentrating on practical courses related to their major and don’t reserve enough time for art appreciation so they cut and paste internet information into their essays because it’s the only way to make a deadline. I specify that no more than 20% of their submissions can be from other authors and that the quoted material must be only in support of their own critical thinking and from a vetted source. (Wikipedia and similar sources are not accepted academic resources because the information for the most part is not vetted by subject matter experts.)
Again I am fortunate in that my university uses a program called Turitin and all submissions go through the system automatically, providing me with a report that shows any copied material and exactly where it came from. The first instance is certainly a teaching opportunity and I use the example that in a traditional course no student would go the library, tear pages out of a book, write their name on top and turn it in as their assignment. Yet copying and pasting internet sources amounts to exactly the same thing. Second offenses are sent to our Academic Integrity department for investigation and consequences range from lost points on the assignment up to and including dismissal from the university.
Wayne ,
Wow you are indeed lucky! I have used Turnitin and LOVE it. Also, many may use Safe Assign which is a BB products.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Deborah,
Well, I am "borrowing" your area. This is genius. This is going in both my f2f and online courses.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Paul,
Good point! I think using APA can help "standardize" some of the rules and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are also good resources online that will help them with that type of writing guide. Also, I use grammar girl podcasts to help remediate some of my students.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Paul,
I love your post! I agree. Writing skills must be exercised! You must develop writing memory like muscle memory!
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Eileen,
I don't I think it is too much work to reinvent the wheel. I think you need to pick the battles you are willing to fight. I also invoke rules like "five and out" which if I find five common mistakes, I quit grading and give the paper a 0. They have 24 hours t resubmit and I regrade. If I find they did not proofread well enough a second time, the 0 is permanent.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Adib,
Smart! You must give feedback to teach writing! I agree, you should show them what constitutes an A
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Stacy,
Do you use peer review in your online courses?
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Julie,
I use the same resources! I love OWL. I also use Youtube clips to encourage good proofreading habits. I love your post!
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
kristen,
So, you have really evolved as an online educator! How do you know that they are "using" your feedback? I struggle with this myself.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
kristen,
So, you have really evolved as an online educator! How do you know that they are "using" your feedback? I struggle with this myself.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Carla,
Great answer. How many times to you communicate a message? I am curious. . . .
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Trina,
I agree! Particularly with international students.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
When it comes to students posting DB messages, some as we all know are better than other students due to differing skill sets and ability to communicate. I do several things to address deficiencies in spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization.
During the online chat, I demonstrate the Spell Check feature available to them in the DB pop-up window, and show how easy it is to find and correct errors.
I will also do a 'Show All' messages in the DB itself, and copy them to a Word document which automatically identifies issues with squiggly underlines beneath suspected problems. Letting the students see how easy it is to identify these typos, etc. heightens their awareness, and usually results in a sharp curtailment of bad writing.
I also let them know about my process for interviewing candidates for open positions, and how resumes with typo's and other grammar errors are set aside, destined for the waste basket. Included with this conversation are stories from life of people who terribly embarrassed their bosses by sending out emails with grammar type errors. I stress how competitive the job market is and that it doesn't take much for someone in another department to seize upon an opportunity to throw someone under the bus, if they are of that type of disposition. It seems to me that most companies I have worked at have at least one person like that. Also, I find pictures from the internet where signs are not spelled right, either on the road itself or on billboards. They usually get the point after all this is done and most endeavor to do better.
