Learning and Teaching Writing Online : Strategies for Success [1 ed.] 9789004290846, 9789004290358

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Learning and Teaching Writing Online

Studies in Writing Series Editor Gert Rijlaarsdam (Amsterdam, Antwerp)

Editorial Board L. Allal (Switzerland) – E. Espéret (France) – D. Galbraith (United Kingdom) J. Grabowski (Germany) – L. Mason (Italy) – M. Milian (Spain) A. Piolat (France) – S. Ransdell (usa) – L. Tolchinsky (Spain) M. Torrance (United Kingdom) – P. Tynjala (Finland) C. van Wijk (The Netherlands)

volume 29

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/siw

Learning and Teaching Writing Online Strategies for Success

Edited by

Mary Deane Teresa Guasch

leiden | boston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Learning and teaching writing online : strategies for success / Edited by Mary Deane, Teresa Guasch. pages cm. – (Studies in Writing; 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29035-8 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-29084-6 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. English language–Rhetoric–Computer-assisted instruction. 2. English language–Rhetoric–Study and teaching. 3. English language–Composition and exercises–Computer-assisted instruction. 4. Report writing–Computer-assisted instruction. 5. Electronic portfolios in education. 6. Multimedia systems. 7. Distance education–Computer-assisted instruction. I. Deane, Mary, 1975- editor. II. Guasch, Teresa, editor. PE1404.L36 2015 808'.0420785–dc23 2015000777

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1572-6304 isbn 978-90-04-29035-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-29084-6 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents Foreword vii Vince Connelly List of Contributors ix Introductory Chapter. Learning and Teaching Writing Online Mary Deane and Teresa Guasch

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part 1 Feedback in Online Environments 1 Collaborative Writing Online: Unravelling the Feedback Process 13 Teresa Guasch and Anna Espasa 2 Automated Feedback in a Blended Learning Environment: Student Experience and Development 31 Damian Finnegan, Asko Kauppinen and Anna Wärnsby 3 Singular Asynchronous Writing Tutorials: A Pedagogy of Text-Bound Dialogue 46 Dimitar Angelov and Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams

part 2 Supporting Collaborative Writing 4 Learning to Think and Write Together: Collaborative Synthesis Writing, Supported by a Script and a Video-based Model 67 Carola Strobl 5 Online Collaborative Writing as a Learning Tool in Higher Education 94 Teresa Mauri and Javier Onrubia

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part 3 Online Course Design 6 Freewriting Reprogrammed: Adapting Freewriting to Online Writing Courses 113 Patty Wilde and Erin Wecker 7 The Experience of an Online University Course for Learning Written Communication Skills in ict Studies 128 Maria-Jesús Marco-Galindo, Joan-Antoni Pastor-Collado and Rafael Macau-Nadal

part 4 Interrogating Online Writing Instruction (owi) 8 Engaging Students in Online Learning Environments for Success in Academic Writing in the Disciplines 151 Helen Drury and Pam Mort 9 Interrogating Online Writing Instruction Scott Warnock

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Afterword. Writing Pedagogy in Online Settings—a Widening of Dialogic Space? 186 Olga Dysthe Index of Authors 195 Index of Subjects 197

Foreword Vince Connelly

It is a delight to write a foreword to this exciting and innovative book. The place of writing within higher education cannot be underestimated and is reinforced by the growth of the importance of writing as a form of communication out with higher education. This greater role for writing in society has also been a key driver in the expansion of higher education across the world. However, this has led to a pressure on higher education resources and a drive to move away from the traditional pedagogic model of “face to face” writing tuition to more technologically based solutions. In fact, the university sector have provided much of the lead in the use of technology and innovation in education (oecd, 2014) and so this book is a welcome addition that continues the tradition of improving writing by responding to the challenges of a technologically driven, and increasingly online, pedagogic environment. Technology is rapidly impacting on our writing experiences and our writing environments across higher education and we all must grapple with the consequences of this reality. Many useful examples and case-studies are provided in this book demonstrating that technology does indeed expand the scope for writing development and I do hope they are used as the basis for change and innovation in our institutions across the globe. However, the book also goes further than this and provides the opportunity for the reader to engage with the more meaty theoretical issues around technology and writing. Reading the chapters in the book makes it clear to me that the many issues raised in this book will come to impact on the majority of us involved with pedagogy in higher education in a relatively short space of time. The authors are to be congratulated on the timeliness of their shared work in this instance. The global authorship involved in this book also demonstrates the growth and development of the wider writing community in higher education. While organisations like the European Association for Learning and Instruction Special Interest Group on Writing (earli sig Writing) or the eu sponsored cost Research Network on Literacy (eu cost lrn is1401) can provide the fora for our own face to face discussions in Europe it is through writing and publishing that we can ourselves best construct our own knowledge about writing development for a more global audience. Thus, I commend this book to you so that you, in turn, may also contribute your own writing to this important area of consideration for higher education.

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Reference oecd (2014). Measuring innovation in Education: A new perspective. Educational Research and Innovation, oecd publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/978926421596 -en

List of Contributors Vince Connelly Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom

Maria-Jesús Marco-Galindo Open University of Catalonia, Spain

Mary Deane Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom

Teresa Mauri University of Barcelona, Spain

Helen Drury The University of Sydney, Australia

Pamela Ellen Mort The University of New South Wales, Australia

Olga Dysthe University of Bergen, Norway

Javier Onrubia University of Barcelona, Spain

Anna Espasa Open University of Catalonia, Spain

Carola Strobl Ghent University, Belgium

Damian Finnegan Malmö University, Sweden

Scott Warnock Drexel University, usa

Teresa Guasch Open University of Catalonia, Spain

Erin Wecker The University of New Hampshire, usa

Asko Kauppinen Malmö University, Sweden

Patricia Wilde The University of New Hampshire, usa

Rafael Macau Open University of Catalonia, Spain

Anna Wärnsby Malmö University, Sweden

Introductory Chapter. Learning and Teaching Writing Online Mary Deane and Teresa Guasch

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Writing in Online Environments

This book is about technology-enhanced writing development in higher education. It has been produced by international scholars working in a range of countries and collaborating digitally, despite the distances between them and the differences between their institutions. Students are preparing to enter an increasingly blended world of work, yet the pedagogic models at play in higher education are rarely up to speed (Garrison and Anderson, 2003). By bringing together leading researchers of online writing development, this book provides a ready reference for educators who wish to skill up in promoting digital dialogue, or find new techniques to try in their virtual learning environments. ‘Writing’ in this volume is defined as a learning tool that promotes language development and knowledge construction (Castelló and Donahue, 2012; Klein, Boscolo, Kirkpatrick, and Gelati, 2014). Writing is also seen as a tool that facilitates thinking and enables thoughts to be communicated. Collaborative writing online connects individual and shared thinking, and is viewed as having the potential to facilitate and stimulate learning for all those involved. The book demonstrates strategies for success in teaching and learning writing processes in higher education, both in technology-enhanced environments, and for courses online. This volume turns the spotlight on our need to continue researching students’ experiences, whilst exploring the dialogic nature of teaching and learning writing. Furthermore, there is a special need for researchers to focus on the dialogic potential when writers come together online, as we are reminded in the book’s Afterword.

Deane, M., & Guasch, T. (2015). Introductory Chapter. Learning and Teaching Writing Online. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 1–9). Leiden: Brill.

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Rationale

The starting point for this volume is a desire to embrace the complexity of technology-enhanced writing development. The authors share a conceptualisation of online learning and teaching as a valuable pedagogic approach, but one that requires specialist preparation, training, and evaluation (Deane, 2010). Three assumptions are made by the volume’s contributors about these issues. First, the authors treat online learning and teaching as both structurally and essentially different to face-to-face interaction, which means that there can be no simple ‘translation’ of syllabi and exercises from the real, to the virtual classroom (Harasim, 1993; Guasch, Álvarez, and Espasa, 2010). Chapters reflecting this view include chapter 1 and chapter 5, which are about collaborative writing in online environments, and chapter 7, which reports on the design of a disciplinary course on written communication skills. Hence, the authors outline how to prepare to teach online in both general and specific cases; they discuss programme planning, assessment, and ways of supporting the dynamics between learners online (Nelson and Schunn, 2008). Secondly, there is a consensus throughout the book that teacher training is a core part of successful technology-enhanced curricula. Ongoing professional development for educators in higher education can take place through a variety of vehicles, such as co-working with technology specialists, learning by doing, engaging with research, and attending events. Chapters especially useful for teacher development include chapter 2, which discusses automated feedback, chapter 3, which evaluates asynchronous online writing tutorials, and chapter 4, which explores methods to support synthesis writing online. As a whole, the volume contributes to debates about training to teach online, and each chapter surveys key literature and provide recommendations for practice. Thirdly, the authors consider evaluation as fundamental to the enterprise of enhancing the learning and teaching of writing online. Both the theoretical frameworks and the results the authors share elucidate the strengths and weaknesses of particular pedagogies. Chapters echoing the value of evaluation include chapter 6, which is about using freewriting in online courses, and chapter 8, which argues in favour of embedding online writing development in the disciplines. Overall, the book asserts online writing development as both a pragmatic necessary, and a evidence-based approach to improving learning and teaching in higher education. This volume sets out to identify, analyse and highlight the support needed and the advantages of bringing technology to work harder for writing development. To meet this objective, the book is divided into four sections, moving

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forward from a micro level, taking into account learning support in writing processes in online environments in parts one and two, to a macro level that considers online course design in part three, and global issues in Part 4.

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Part 1: Feedback in Online Environments

The reason for beginning with the topic of feedback is that this is a valuable starting point for technology-enhanced writing development (Dysthe et al. 2010; Alvarez, Espasa, and Guasch, 2011). By prioritising the issue of feedback, this volume puts learners’ experiences at the heart of Online Writing Instruction (owi), and argues for more attention to how students in various online environments are using the feedback they receive (i.e. Carless et al. 2011). 3.1 What Do Students Do with Feedback? In chapter 1, Guasch and Espasa focus on the critical issue of how students implement the feedback they receive online. This chapter presents the context of an online learning university based in Spain, and it contributes to international debate about feedback practices by researching virtual peer-led feedback. The chapter makes a special contribution to research into students’ interactions with the comments they are offered by their peers to the collaborative written assignments. The value of this work is that it gives students a voice, and disrupts the traditional hierarchy that sets learners at the bottom of a power dynamic within higher education. Guasch and Espasa open a discussion that is continued by the authors who follow, about how to enhance learners’ experiences whilst embedding Online Writing Instruction (owi) into advanced-level disciplinary studies. 3.2 How Should We Use Automated Feedback? In chapter 2, Finnegan, Kauppinen, and Wärnsby bring their combined expertise to bear on the question of how students experience automated feedback (i.e. Kellogg, Whiteford, and Quinlan 2010). These authors report on research conducted in Sweden into what students do with their feedback, focusing on automated comments and learners’ perspectives. The importance of their work is to provide insights into how other educators around the world could harness the efficiency of automated feedback, without sacrificing the quality of student’s experiences. Focusing on instruction for second language speakers of English, they reveal contexts in which automated feedback is likely to help, and situations when it may hinder students’ implementation of comments about their writing.

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3.3 How Might We Offer Individualised Online Feedback to Students? In chapter 3, Angelov and Ganobcsik-Williams share their expertise on giving feedback to writers individually. Based in a British University Writing Centre, they report on their research into students’ experiences of online and face-toface writing tutorials (Borg and Deane 2011; Deane and Ganobcsik-Williams, 2012). Their departure is to draw upon philosophical theories to conceptualise the dynamics of online writing tuition. The importance of this chapter lies in their fresh take on the choices made by professionals involved in learning and teaching writing, which can be readily employed to inform different institutional contexts, both to build the capacity of writing instructors, and to enhance virtual support for individual writers.

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Part 2: Collaborative Writing Online

The second part of this book moves from individual students’ experiences of receiving feedback on their writing, to the topic of collaborative writing in virtual spaces. The innovative aspect of this section lies in the authors’ studies of how educators can foster and facilitate dialogue spaces through online fora (Erkens et al., 2005; Fischer et al., 2007). The reason for concentrating on how to establish and maintain group dynamics online is that collaborative writing is fast becoming a vital skill for both academic and professional practice. Part 2 includes the creation of cohort identity in a virtual realm, interpersonal relations when learners are physically disconnected, and fostering peer learning in a relatively anonymous setting. This part of the volume will appeal to those with experience of online teaching who have piloted opportunities for students to collaborate online, with varying success. These experienced readers will be able to anticipate the focal points of the authors’ debates and use these as a spring-board into further research of their own, to build multi-way interaction into courses which demand co-working and the cocreation of knowledge in a way that reflects the complex reality of many professional working practices post university study. 4.1 How Can Online Collaboration Contribute to Synthesis Writing? In chapter 4, Strobl investigates how students learn together online, and she showcases an audio-visual approach to collaborative textual production she has developed for the Belgian higher education context. Strobl’s chapter is a superb example of how learning and teaching collaborative writing can be adapted for online fora, and she spells out the considerations that are key when making this move so other educators can adopt and adapt her innovations.

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4.2 How Can We Foster Collaborative Learning at a Distance? In chapter 5, Mauri and Onrubia continue the debate about how online collaboration can become a multi-faceted learning tool in higher education (i.e. Cunningham, 1995; Falkner, 2011). Writing as educators in a distance learning context, they share their experience and expertise on course design, implementation, and review in a way that will be invaluable to anyone who is relatively new to embedding online collaborative writing into university teaching.

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Part 3: Online Course Design

This section contains case studies of online course design to inspire those who are relatively new to learning and teaching writing in virtual or technologyenhanced environments. Part 3 invites readers to spend time considering examples of good practice more closely, before concluding with discussion of the choices to be made by future writing developers online. Having sought to inform readers about a range of research and practice internationally, the book concludes with a reminder that whilst writing may be undertaken remotely, it cannot be divorced from disciplinary contexts, and an analysis of Online Writing Instruction (owi) as an evolving specialism of its own. Part 3 is designed to be dipped into as a source of case studies offering practical example alongside the preceding discussion of feedback and collaboration as core issues in online learning. This part will be useful for subject specialists who are keen to read examples of how online writing development can be integrated into disciplinary teaching. These chapters reflect the traditions of ‘Writing to Learn’ (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987); and ‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ (Bazerman, 2008) which treat writing as a knowledge generation tool and promote explicit instruction on writing to support students’ learning. 5.1 How Can I Engage Students in Writing Online? In chapter 6 Wilde and Wecker demonstrate in a powerful manner how freewriting can be harnessed to foster learning in a range of contexts. This method of generating ideas has long been used to kick start the writing process (Belanoff, Elbow, and Fontaine, 1991), but their contribution is to show how students can benefit from freewriting exercises integrated into online writing courses. The authors expose the advantages as well as the challenges of teaching writing online, and their discussion will help disciplinary specialists see how to integrate simple exercises into remote learning in their own fields.

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5.2 What Might an Online Course Look Like? In chapter 7 Marco-Galindo, Pastor-Collado, and Macau-Nadal go further in demonstrating how to move into online teaching with a focus on teaching communication skills. Their insightful review of a subject-based course, followed by a longitudinal evidence-based learning system, offers a model for embedding explicit writing development into subject curricula whilst drawing upon the benefits of teaching online. This chapter provides practical help for those on the brink of going virtual by illuminating the process and the pitfalls in an accessible way.

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Part 4: Interrogating Online Writing Instruction (owi)

The book concludes with an interrogation of Online Writing Instruction (owi) as a whole by problematising the concept of teaching in virtual or technologyenhanced environments and pointing out the challenges of moving instruction online, at the same time as vindicating those who feel motivated to employ online instruction to enhance the learning experience. This part will also appeal to experienced teachers of blended and distance learning looking for a wider context to situate their own work. The final section points forward to new research agendas, but also offers a stark reminder of the wider purpose of online writing instruction, which is to enhance students’ experiences of studying for their disciplinary degrees (Sorcinelli and Elbow, 1997). 6.1 What about My Subject Specialism? In chapter 8 Drury and Mort argue for the disciplinarity of writing development online to guard against learning that is disconnected from subject expertise. Their work draws upon their context in Australian higher education, and they return to the book’s opening foci on students’ use of feedback, especially ways to enhance remote collaboration by revealing a meta-challenge of online writing development (Deane and O’Neill, 2011). This is the issue of dialogic space; which touches upon the range of decisions to be made when constructing and inhabiting online spaces that appear to connect us in order to maximise the feeling of communication between educator and students, or peer to peer. 6.2

Can I Raise the Profile of Online Writing Development in My Own Context? Chapter 9 brings together the key questions about how to foster fruitful dialogic space posed throughout the preceding sections as Warnock expertly cate-

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gorises the nature of the choices facing online writing. He situates these within the context of an international code of conduct designed to map out virtual learning space, promote disciplinary focus, and support teacher training. The code of practice Warnock presents is not necessarily appropriate everywhere, but is a great place to end the book, and begin our individual efforts to develop strategies for success in making learners and teachers feel each others’ presence online. The issue of how to teachers can migrate from facilitating learners’ physical collaboration, into use of a virtual realm underpins this whole collection of essays. The authors both ask and answer questions, offering tips and literature to support a wide range of initiatives in fresh contexts and educational cultures. 6.3 What’s Next? The book closes with an analysis by Professor Emerita Olga Dysthe highlighting ‘how technology provides opportunities for joint building of meaning and thus expands the scope for students’ writing development.’ Following Wegerif’s proposal (2007), she defends an ontological definition of ‘dialogic’ that emphasises the shift in orientation towards teaching and learning with dialogue. This vision includes all aspects of teaching and learning, and would necessarily integrate the teaching of content and the teaching of writing in each course. This means than ‘an overarching goal of teaching is to foster students’ dialogic approach to all academic work, not just teach them specific ways of improving a particular text’ and Dysthe reveals how the use of technology can contribute to expanding and deepening this dialogic space.

References Alvarez, I.M., Espasa, A., & Guasch, T. (2011). The value of feedback in improving collaborative writing assignments in an online learning environment. Studies in Higher Education, 37(4), 387–400. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2010.510182 Bazerman, C. (Ed.) (2008). Handbook of research on writing. Mahwah, nj: Erlbaum. Belanoff, P., Elbow, P., & Fontaine, S.I. (1991). Introduction. In P. Belanoff, P. Elbow, & S.I. Fontaine (Eds.), Nothing begins with n: New investigations of freewriting. (pp. xi– xviii). Carbondale, il: Southern Illinois University Press. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, nj: Erlbaum. Borg, E., & Deane, M. (2011). Measuring the outcomes of individualised writing instruction: a multilayered approach to capturing changes in students’ texts. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(3), 319–331. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2010.546525

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Carless, D., Salter, D. Yang, M., & Lam, J. (2011). Developing sustainable feedback practices. Studies in Higher Education, 36(4), 395–407. doi: 10.1080/03075071003642449 Castelló, C., & Donahue, C. (Eds.). (2012). Studies in Writing: Vol. 24, University Writing: Selves and Texts in Academic Society. London: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Cunningham, S.J. (1995). Learning to Write and Writing to Learn: Integrating Communication Skills into the Computing Curriculum. ieee ’95, 306–312. Deane, M. (2010). Academic Research, Writing, and Referencing. Harlow: Pearson Education. Deane, M., & O’Neill, P. (Eds.). (2011). Writing in the Disciplines. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan Deane, M., & Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2012). Providing a hub for writing development: a profile of the Centre for Academic Writing (caw), Coventry University, England. In C. Thaiss, G. Bräuer, P. Carlino, L. Ganobcsik-Williams, & A. Sinha (Eds.), Writing programs worldwide: profiles of academic writing in many places (pp. 189–201). Fort Collins: The wac Clearinghouse. Anderson: Parlor. Dysthe, O., Lillejord, S., Vines, A., & Wasson, B. (2010). Productive E-feedback in higher education—Some critical issues. In. S. Ludvigsen, A. Lund, I. Rasmussen, & R. Säljö (Eds.), Learning across sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices (pp. 243–259). Oxford, uk: Pergamon Press Erkens, G., Jaspers, J.G.M., Prangsma, M., & Kanselaar, G. (2005). Coordination processes in computer supported collaborative writing. Computers in Human Behavior, 21(3), 463–486. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2004.10.038 Falkner, K. (2011). Integrating communications skills with discipline content. Ergo, 2 (1), 5–14. Fischer, F., Kollar, I., Mandl, H., & Haake, J.M. (Eds.). (2007). Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning. Cognitive, computational and educational perspectives. New York, ny: Springer us. Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer. Guasch, T., Álvarez, I.M., & Espasa, A. (2010). University teacher competences in a virtual teaching/learning environment: Analysis of a teacher training experience. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 199–206. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2009.02.018 Harasim, L. (1993). Collaborating in cyberspace: Using computer conferences as a group learning environment. Interactive Learning Environments, 3(2), 119–130. Kellogg, R.T., Whiteford, A., & Quinlan, T. (2010). Does automated feedback help students learn to write? Journal of Educational Computing Research, 42(2), 173–196. doi:10.2190/EC.42.2.c Klein, P., Boscolo, P., Kirkpatrick, C. & Gelati, C. (2014). New Directions in Writing as a Learning Activity. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & P.D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L.C. Kirk-

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patrick, C. Gelati (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 28, Writing as a learning activity (pp. 1–14). Leiden: Brill. Kuteeva, M. (2011). Wikis and academic writing: changing the writer-reader relationship. English for Specific Purposes, 30, 44–57. doi: 10.1016/j.esp. 2010.04.007 Lonka, K. (2003). Helping Doctoral Students To Finish Their Theses. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & L. Björk, G. Bräuer, L. Rienecker, G. Ruhmann, & P. Stray Jørgensen (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 12, Teaching Academic Writing in European Higher Education. (pp. 113–131). Dordrecht, nl: University Press. Nelson, M., & Schunn, C. (2008). The nature of feedback: how different types of peer feedback affect writing performance. Instructional Science, 37, 375–401. doi: 10.1007/ s11251-008-9053-x Rust, C. (2002). The Impact of Assessment on Student Learning: How Can the Research Literature Practically Help to Inform the Development of Departmental Assessment Strategies and Learner-Centred Assessment Practices? Active Learning in Higher Education, 3(2), 145–158. doi: 10.1177/1469787402003002004 Sorcinelli, M.D., & Elbow, P. (Eds.) (1997). Writing to Learn: Strategies for Assigning and Responding across the Disciplines. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 69. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Wegerif, R. (2007). Dialogic, Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning. New York: Springer.

part 1 Feedback in Online Environments

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chapter 1

Collaborative Writing Online: Unravelling the Feedback Process Teresa Guasch and Anna Espasa

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Introduction

There are many studies which highlight the importance of feedback in students’ learning (Hattie and Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). Many scholars argue in favour of focusing on the quality of feedback to promote effective learning and teaching (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Yet, what is the best type of feedback to give in an online learning environment in order for the students to benefit from it and improve their essays? What do students actually do with the feedback they receive? How can we ensure that students implement the feedback given and are then able to extrapolate it to other written tasks? These questions have been studied in various educational contexts (Gikandi, Morrow, and Davis, 2011), but there are still some specific issues requiring further examination in asynchronous online learning environments (Yang and Carless, 2012); that is, in those contexts where teachers and students do not coincide in time or space. This is the topic of our research, which examines how technology-enhanced environments can overcome the challenges that may arise in collaborative writing tasks. This chapter presents our findings in answer to these questions, based on a dialogic conception of feedback that integrates the process of giving/receiving-processing-implementing it in an enhanced text. The key finding is that feedback should be designed in such a way as to promote discussion amongst students and enable them to amend their texts accordingly. In this regard, feedback should be epistemic and suggestive; i.e., based on questions and proposals on how writers can improve their assignments, in order to contribute to higher quality student learning.

Guasch, T., & Espasa, A. (2015). Collaborative Writing Online: Unravelling the Feedback Process. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 13–30). Leiden: Brill.

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Collaborative Writing in Online Learning Environments

Writing is a key competence in higher education, and it becomes indispensable in online learning environments based on written communication. Yet despite being a routine activity, writing is not always taught explicitly, nor are students given guidance to help them with their academic writing (Lonka, 2003). On the contrary, all too often students are expected to know how to write in various contexts. According to Dysthe, ‘learning to become a better writer happens in the same way that learning to become a better thinker does. Writing is thinkingmade-tangible’ (2001: 2). Consequently, it is essential for students to receive support, including feedback, both from their teachers and their peers, so that they are better able to handle the processes and products of academic communication. This is one of the main challenges universities are currently facing; providing students with the appropriate knowledge and skill set to enable them to communicate in academic and scientific contexts (Castelló et al., 2007). It is with this challenge in mind, that this chapter offers evidence to support moves towards positive change. ‘Writing’ is defined in this study as a learning tool that promotes language development and knowledge construction (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987; Castelló, Iñesta, and Monereo, 2009; Galbraith, 1999; Lindblom-Ylänne and Pihlajamäki, 2003; Tynjälä, Mason, and Lonka, 2001). That is to say, it is a process that contributes to learners becoming independent critical thinkers (Dysthe, Lillejord, Vines, and Wasson, 2010). From this approach, writing is an iterative process involving different techniques such as planning, drafting, peer or tutor review, and revision (Coffin, Curry, Goodman, Hewing, Lillis, and Swann, 2003). Writing is not necessarily posited as an individual activity in this chapter. In many instances in their academic life, students will have to write collaboratively, and this ability is a transversal competency that educators should aim to develop in their university students. One of the challenges in collaborative writing tasks is precisely this: working with others to produce a text, given that writing tasks are usually self-planned, involves personal initiative and personal effort. Amongst the objectives of collaborative writing, educators seek to promote the exchange of thoughts between writers. From a socio-constructivist approach, we believe that the knowledge resulting from group discussions during cooperative tasks is essentially dialogic, and is linked to the social influences in the development of reasoning (Reznitskaya, Kuo, Glina, and Anderson, 2008). That is, it requires interaction between participants and negotiation of ideas (Cerrato, 2003; Onrubia and Engel, 2009, Strobl, in this volume). Therefore, interactions that occur between teachers and

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students and among students themselves can become one of the key components of good teaching (Vrasidas and McIssac, 1999). Interaction—understood as the communicative exchange between teacher and students, and between students themselves—is needed in online learning environments to evidence and ascertain the learning process (i.e. Harasim, 1993; Haythornthwaite, 2002; Veldhuis-Diermanse, 2002). This communicative exchange may have different attributes, such as place-independence, time-independence, and text-basedindependence. In the specific case of this research, interaction is characterized by asynchronicity and written communication. Following Vrasidas and McIssac (1999), one of the factors that directly influence interaction in distance education is feedback. In this context, writing becomes one of the most important evidence of student learning. Feedback thus acts as a learning support. How to design and deliver feedback in order to enhance learning is one of the main challenges in these asynchronous online settings.

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Formative Feedback as a Dialogic Process: Giving-Processing-Implementing Feedback

The influence of feedback in any teaching and learning setting has been well documented by empirical research over the past few decades (for example: Kulhaby and Stock, 1989; Black and William, 1998, Hattie and Timperley, 2007 in face-to-face (f2f) settings; Azevedo and Bernand, 1995 and Mason and Bruning, 2001 in computer-based instruction; Espasa and Meneses, 2010; Gikandi, 2011 in online learning environments). In this regard, feedback has become a powerful tool which has a definite impact in the learning process. Focusing on the influence of feedback in online teaching and learning environments, Gikandi claims that ‘the adequacy and interactivity of feedback can be enhanced by the uniqueness of online settings (as compared to f2f settings) in relation to offering opportunities for revising previous contributions by self and/or others within the online discourse’ (2011: 2347). Within the literature on the feedback process in online environments, Dysthe et al. differentiate between two analytical feedback models: an authoritative model which views the teacher as an expert who transmits knowledge to the students, and a dialogic model where ‘new understandings are created through joint or participatory activities’ (2010: 244). The latter approach is precisely the framework for the research presented in this chapter (2010: 347). According to this model based on feedback as a dialogue, Carless, Salter, Yang and Lam define the characteristics of sustainable feedback as practices

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that promote ‘dialogic interaction usually incorporating both peer and lecturer critique’ and enhance ‘technology-assisted dialogue with the aim of promoting student autonomy and reflective interaction’ (2011: 404). Sustainable feedback is understood as the information students receive on their current task which promotes and develops the ability to self-regulate their performance on future tasks, that is, ongoing and autonomous. It is a holistic and socially-embedded conceptualisation of feedback through student engagement (Price, Handley, and Millar, 2011), where it serves as a promoter of dialogue between peers and between peers and teacher, to facilitate the regulation of learning. This dialogue is fostered by formative feedback, which is defined in this chapter as ‘the information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behaviour for the purpose of improving learning’ (Shute, 2008: 154). Within the research on feedback and academic writing processes, the dialogue is produced between the writer and the reader (Dysthe et al., 2010). This dialogic process can be understood as a loop, which includes giving feedback and receiving it (by teachers and/or peers), processing it (discussing it with the teacher and/or peers) and implementing it in an improved product (see figure 1.1.). The first phase, giving-receiving feedback, relates to the characteristics of feedback as it is delivered. The second refers to how feedback is processed, i.e. what actions students do with the feedback received (they can perform cognitive activities, metacognitive activities, etc.). The third phase of the loop relates to feedback implementation, which is performed by the students by making changes to their texts according to the feedback received. Research on the feedback process has predominantly focused on the first phase—giving feedback—rather than on how students process and implement it (Hattie and Gan, 2011). In view of this situation, our research group has attempted to unravel the feedback process, not only from the perspective of giving feedback, but also from the perspective of processing and implementing it, specifically in online learning environments.

4

Contributions of Our Research on Feedback in Collaborative Writing in Online Environments

Formative feedback has been previously defined as a dialogue between the writer and the reader (Dysthe et al., 2010). This dialogic process is based on a loop, which includes three phases: giving/receiving feedback, processing it and implementing it in an improved product. This section summarises the contributions made by three studies carried out through a research project to provide evidence on the different phases of this

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process

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figure 1.1 Feedback loop in a writing situation

loop. The studies respond to different aims and consequently have different designs. In this sense, it is important to highlight that the first study, which was exploratory, laid the foundation for the design of the next two. The research questions were the following: – What characteristics does teacher feedback have in a collaborative writing assignment in an online learning environment? – What effect does feedback have on the revision of a text in a collaborative writing task? – How do different types of feedback affect students’ processing of feedback in collaborative writing? – Which type of feedback and peer feedback best contributes to improving students’ writing performance in an online learning environment? – To what extent do different types of feedback affect feedback implementation?

5

Context of the Studies

The research project was carried out within the virtual campus of the Open University of Catalonia (uoc). uoc’s pedagogical model is geared towards par-

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ticipation and joint knowledge construction from an inter-subject approach. It involves problem-solving, project development, joint product creation, discussion and enquiry. Evaluation is embedded in the learning environment. Students have access to virtual learning spaces wherein they are provided not only with content, activities and communicative tools but also with feedback by teachers or peer learners via email or other online means such as wikis or blogs.

6

Design

The project was based on a multi-method that integrates exploratory and quasi-experimental studies. Participants of each study were students of a 6 European Credits module in the Psychology Bachelor’s degree programme at the uoc. Students generally enrol in this course in their final bachelor semester, which means that they already have experience working together in the virtual campus. Although each study has its specific design (see table 1.1), all students participated in a module structured into three didactic sequences (dss), which is the prototypical organisation of a degree module at uoc. Each ds included a continuous assessment assignment, following the university’s own evaluation model. The first ds was structured as an individual assignment, which served as a pre-test, as it could be used to determine the student’s initial writing ability. The second ds was the intervention and was performed in groups. The intervention was part of the module’s curriculum and did not involve any significant change in terms of how modules are generally designed in the virtual campus, so as not to affect the learning activity taking place. The final ds was again individual and served as a post-test, which could be compared to the pre-test to determine if a qualitative ability change occurred. For each ds, students wrote an essay.

7

Findings on Giving Feedback in an Online Learning Environment

In general terms, when referring to the process of giving feedback, two aspects are involved: a) the type or nature of the feedback—that is, which type of feedback best contributes to improving students’ writing performance, and b) the feedback-giver—who delivers the feedback to the learner, and this could be the teacher, the peers or a combination of both. However, as it has been shown, there is a noticeable lack of research focusing on these issues in online

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process 19 table 1.1

Overview of the three studies: research questions, design and units of analysis

Studies & Research Question

Design

Conditions

Units of analysis

1) Characteristics and effect of teacher feedback in a collaborative writing assignment (writing product) Alvarez, Espasa, & Guasch, 2011

Exploratory study The results were the foundation to design study 2 and 3

Natural context

First draft of the assignment Final document

2) Type of feedback best improves collaborative writing products and effect of teacher feedback (fb) and peer feedback has on learning. Guasch, Espasa, Alvarez, & Kirschner, 2013

Quasi-experimental study Pre-test and post-test measures

Students were randomly assigned to different experimental groups: a) Type of feedback: corrective, epistemic, suggestive and epistemic + suggestive b) Feedback-giver

First draft of the assignment Final document

3) Students’ processing and implementing the feedback into the assignment (writing process). Espasa, Guasch, & Alvarez, 2013

Quasi-experimental study

Students were randomly assigned to different experimental groups: a) Type of feedback: corrective, epistemic, suggestive and epistemic + suggestive b) Feedback-giver

Students’ interaction about the feedback received (nature of students learning). First draft Final document

learning environments. Therefore, two studies were developed to shed light on the process of giving feedback that best contributes to learning. The first study examined the characteristics and effect of teacher feedback in a collaborative writing assignment in online learning environments (Alvarez,

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Espasa, and Guasch, 2011; Guasch, Espasa, and Alvarez, 2010). This exploratory study took place during the second assignment of a course, specifically during the evaluation of the results of the assignment, which consisted of writing a critical essay on the in-depth study of a case over a period of two weeks. Students were distributed in virtual groups and had their own space within a debate area in the virtual class to carry out their discussions. They were asked to co-evaluate the assignment of another group. Students received the support of an online application used for the collaborative processing of texts (for more details of the application and the process see Alvarez, et al., 2011). It is important to mention that this type of evaluation allows learners to present a second version of the work being evaluated, which has been presumably improved as a result of the feedback. This study also analysed the changes made by the students to the second version of the work under review, with the objective of assessing the changes and/or improvement to the text. The results show that when the teacher made corrections to the text, the majority of the student responses were geared towards confirming and/or commenting on the post. In this situation, the number of interventions of students discussing the feedback received was significantly scarce. However, when the feedback acted as a suggestion, there was a rise in the number of constructive responses by the students; they discussed the proposals received and elaborated on possible changes. The most relevant responses were produced when the teacher’s message combined and associated her suggestions to a question, or even to a correction. These results laid the foundation for the design of a second study to investigate what type of feedback best improves the quality of collaborative writing products and what effects teacher and peer feedback have on student learning (Guasch, Espasa, Alvarez, and Kirschner, 2013). In this intervention, students were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental groups, which varied with regards to the type of feedback and the feedback giver. The types of feedback were identified in the previous study: Corrective: comments about the assignment requirements and the adequacy of the content (e.g. This is not what is requested; The correct answer is …). Epistemic: requests for explanations and/or clarifications in a critical way (e.g. Do you think that this idea reflects what the author really highlights in his/her study? Why do you think that a is an example of what the author posits?). Suggestive: advice on how to proceed or progress and invitation to explore or expand, or improve an idea (e.g. The idea that you point out would be much clearer if you provide an example at the end of this paragraph).

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process

21

Epistemic and suggestive (i.e. Do you think that this sentence is convincing enough? You should reread the article and identify the essential points between the theories presented and the text. It will help you to carry out the task in a more adequate way). Concerning the feedback-giver, all students received teacher feedback and half also gave and received feedback from peers. Peer feedback was given or received by the group under the same condition (type of feedback). Results show that the quality of collaborative writing performance was most improved by providing the students with epistemic or epistemic + suggestive feedback. As Guasch et al. (2013) concluded: Reflecting on what they had written as induced by epistemic questions in the epistemic or epistemic and suggestive feedback affected the quality of the writing product more than either being instructed on what could be done better (i.e., corrective feedback) or, more importantly, only receiving suggestions as to how to proceed (i.e., suggestive feedback). Properly dealing with epistemic questions required the groups to be more active in reviewing and rewriting their work (i.e., self evaluating what they had done and what they needed to do), which apparently contributed to better collaborative written products. p. 300

This is consistent with our first study (Alvarez, Espasa, and Guasch, 2011), which found a significant correlation between text improvement and students’ discussions about the comments received from the teacher. Epistemic feedback or epistemic and suggestive feedback seems to best contribute to higher quality interaction between students. Since they are questioned about their decisions, they need to reach agreement together to decide how to proceed. Despite some limitations in the research detailed in both studies (i.e. the effect of peer-feedback on students’ writing per se was not tested in isolation due to ethical issues), the results presented form the basis for a definition of how feedback should be designed and given in order to improve student writing in online learning environments.

8

Findings on Processing and Implementing Feedback

As previously mentioned, research on feedback has focused more on giving feedback, on feedback design, than on how students receive feedback and con-

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sequently on how they process and implement it (Hattie and Gan, 2011). While numerous studies have focused on the effect of feedback on revisions (i.e. Allal, Chanquoy, and Largy, 2004) there are also several studies that suggest that students do not know what to do with the feedback received and consequently they do not implement it (Havnes, Smith, Dysthe, and Ludvingsen, 2012). To measure how students process feedback in the specific context of academic writing assignments, Nelson and Schunn use the feedback implementation concept. These authors point out that ‘while writing quality is very important, there is likely to be an intermediate step that leads to writing quality changes: feedback implementation’ (2008: 377). This is precisely the aim of the third study we will present next: to focus on receiving feedback, and on how students process the feedback received, and on implementing feedback, what changes students make to their texts. These two phases correspond to phases 2 and 3 of the feedback loop shown in figure 1.1. However, this type of research requires a holistic approach to analyse multiple processes, such as interaction between students while they write, feedback implementation, and the writing process. To achieve this aim, a review of different models was carried out to define a methodological approach which could be adjusted to the analysis of students’ interaction in a written and asynchronous environment when receiving the feedback on a text and the changes incorporated into the final text (see Espasa, Guasch, and Alvarez, 2013). The model includes the following dimensions (see Figure 1.2): 1) student participation (quantity of student participation and heterogeneous/homogeneous student participation) (Henri, 1992; Weinbenger and Fischer, 2006), 2) nature of student learning (cognitive, affective and metacognitive activities) (Veldhuis-Diermanse, 2002; Veldhuis-Diermanse et al., 2006), and 3) student learning, explained by the quality of students’ argumentation performance on written tasks (Rezniskaya, et al., 2008). The reliability of this categorization model was analysed by inter-judges agreement (for further information on the methodological model, please check Espasa, Guasch, and Alvarez, 2013). The analysis of the nature of students’ learning enabled us to explain how students use or process the feedback received. This analysis included students’ interactions, such as messages they exchanged, from the moment they received the feedback until they submitted their final documents. Students’ interactions were categorised into three different learning activities, cognitive, affective and metacognitive. 1. Cognitive refers to the content of the task students carry out, such as debating (e.g. The educational approach of a study case doesn’t correspond to a

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process 23

figure 1.2 Methodological model for the analysis of asynchronous and written interaction in collaborative writing activity (espasa, guasch, & alvarez, 2013).

socio-constructive approach of learning because …); using external information and experiences (e.g. See for example the article by Nicol and MacfarlandDick, 2006, where they set up seven principles of how to deliver formative feedback to enhance self-regulation of learning); and linking or repeating internal information (e.g. As we mentioned, results obtained are coherent with …). 2. Affective activities refer to students’ feelings about their tasks, such their task of giving feedback to peers, quick consensus, responses or opinions from fellow students, etc. (e.g. Sorry for not being online until now; I agree with Tom opinion, what do you think Terry?). 3. Metacognitive activities refer to the process of organizing and monitoring tasks, such as planning, ensuring clarity, and monitoring the writing process (e.g. In order to answer this assignment I can write down a first draft and from this, each of you, can complete the section you want. What do you think?). The analysis of the quality of the assignments written by the students enabled us to explain their feedback implementation. Texts were analysed based on the categories proposed by Reznitskaya, et al. (2008) and validated in previous studies. Their model was created to assess the quality of jointly constructed arguments and it differentiates four modalities; namely, textual (ideas extracted more or less literally from readings); hypothetical (statements referring to probable actions); abstract (generalisations about cause and/or effect of given performances), and contextualised (statements which reconstruct the situation,

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paying attention to context, audience,). From these categories, a rubric was designed taking into account six values (a+, a, b+, b, c and d) and scored from 1 to 6. After defining the methodological model, a quasi-experimental study was carried out to analyse students’ processing of feedback and its implementation. Students were asked to create a first document (draft) in collaborative groups (4–5 students). Then each group received feedback on this draft and they had five days to use the feedback and deliver a final document. The whole process was registered taking the messages and all the documents delivered and exchanged by the group. All the texts were analysed with a multi-method integrated strategy (based on qualitative and quantitative analysis), with the aim of achieving richer data corpus and its interpretation. The analysis of the results from this study is still preliminary (see Guasch, Espasa, Alvarez and Kirschner, 2013). Concerning how feedback is processed, results show that when students received corrective feedback, there are fewer cognitive activities than affective and metacognitive activities. Epistemic and suggestive feedback produces generally the opposite results; it significantly increases the percentage of students engaging in cognitive activities. When taking into account all students receiving suggestive feedback, that is, groups that received suggestive and epistemic and suggestive feedback, there was a significant increase in the percentage of students that react in a metacognitive way, especially using planning and monitoring activities. The results show the importance of providing a combination of epistemic and suggestive feedback in a collaborative writing task. This type of feedback that combines questioning, requests for information and suggestions includes both the verification and the elaboration of feedback components (Kulhavy and Stock, 1989; Narciss, 2008; Mason and Brunning, 2001). The verification is provided implicitly by the epistemic feedback, because through a question the student is told that there is something to be corrected in the text (e.g., Are you sure that the idea of this author is clear enough?) The elaboration component is provided by the suggestive feedback, since it advises and encourages the student to work on the comments received. This type of feedback includes advice on how to proceed or progress and invites exploration, expansion or improvement of an idea. (e.g., ‘I recommend that you read the next article and clarify the main concept’). This would be the formative quality of the feedback. Concerning the findings about feedback implementation, although there is no significant relationship between the type of feedback and the quality of students’ argumentation in a general way, when we look at a specific condition, results show that students receiving epistemic and suggestive feedback

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process 25

obtained significantly higher final marks. Moreover, the results show that there is no correlation between the quantity (percentage) of learning activities that students perform when they interact into the groups and the type of feedback they receive (corrective, epistemic, suggestive or combined) but there is specifically a correlation between the nature of the learning activities and the type of feedback received. That is, students that receive epistemic or epistemic and suggestive feedback have discussions with a higher number of cognitive activities than the students that receive corrective feedback, as the results show the relevance of the combination of both types. The findings also prove that epistemic feedback alone, as well as suggestive feedback alone, is not effective in academic assignment writing. Even suggestive feedback alone can be counterproductive, in the sense that students do not receive comments about the correctness of the task. Although this is still work in progress, we can highlight the need to plan activities which will allow teachers to gather evidence that students implement feedback into their texts, and design epistemic and suggestive feedback that contribute to students’ discussion.

9

Conclusions and Further Research

The results presented here provide a better representation of the dialogic process of feedback, highlighting its formative function during the writing process in online environments. We understand that this dialogic feedback fosters productive student learning (Yang and Carless, 2012). Consequently, this chapter provides evidence on the whole process of giving-processing-implementing feedback in a collaborative context, based on asynchronous and written communication, in order to contribute to better writing and thus better learning. Feedback provided by the teacher should be designed to promote discussion among students because they will then be more able to introduce changes in their texts. In this regard, feedback should be epistemic and suggestive; based on questions and proposals on how they can improve learning, in order to generate cognitive activity and to contribute to producing high quality of student learning. Therefore, feedback based only on correction should be avoided in this kind of assignments. The following excerpt is an excellent example of what students request: With this type of feedback, we start a dialogue with the teacher and/or peers about your own work, which is not often found in other courses.

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This dialogue helps to reduce the number of emails exchanged with your tutor or peers, as you get the information you need to go on and progress. Undergraduate student, Bachelor in Educational Psychology

Whilst we now have more evidence of how feedback should be delivered, designing and giving epistemic and suggestive feedback increases teachers’ workload. As Nicol (2010) points out: Although research suggests that significant learning gains are possible when students receive regular teacher comments on their writing, most teachers feel overwhelmed by the workload associated with providing such feedback when student numbers are large. p. 511

How to reduce teachers’ workload is a longstanding concern and it is the next issue to tackle by harnessing the potential of technology. Following Yang and Carless (2012), we agree the need to answer the following fundamental questions: Under what circumstances does technology-enhanced assessment serve as a facilitator for effective feedback and when is the technology as much a distraction as an asset? What are workload-efficient means of technology-enhanced feedback? p. 294

Consequently, the challenge is to provide tools and resources which enable teachers and peers to deliver sustainable, effective and personalised feedback that helps learners to become self regulators in the writing process and therefore better thinkers.

Acknowledgements The project reported in this chapter, ‘E-feedback in Collaborative Writing processes: development of teaching and learning competences in online environments’ was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (2011– 2013) edu2010–1940. More information in: EdOnline Research Group (http:// edon.wordpress.com/)

collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process 27

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collaborative writing online: unravelling the feedback process 29 Mason, J., & Brunning, R. (2001). Providing feedback in computer-based instruction: what the research tell us. Centre of Instructional Innovation, University of NebraskaLincoln. Retrieved April 05, 2012 from http://dwb.unl.edu/Edit/MB/MasonBruning .html Narciss, S. (2008). Feedback strategies for interactive learning tasks. In J.M. Spector, M.D. Merrill, J. Van Merriënboer, & M.P. Driscoll (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 125–144). Mawah, nj: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nelson, M. & Schunn, C. (2008). The nature of feedback: how different types of peer feedback affect writing performance. Instructional Science, 37, 375–401. doi 10.1007/ s11251-008-9053-x Nicol, D. (2010). From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(5), 501–517. doi: 10.1080/02602931003786559 Nicol, D., & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2) 199–218. doi: 10.1080/03075070600572090 Onrubia, J., & Engel, A. (2009). Strategies for collaborative writing and phases of knowledge construction in cscl environments. Computers & Education, 53(4), 1256–1265. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.06.008 Price, M., Handley, K., & Millar, J. (2011). Feedback—focussing attention on engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 36(8), 879–896. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2010.483513 Reznitskaya, A., Kuo, L.-J., Glina, M., & Anderson, R. (2008). Measuring argumentative reasoning: What’s behind the numbers? Learning and Individual Differences, 19(2), 219–224. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2008.11.001 Shute, V.J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153–189. doi: 10.3102/0034654307313795 Tynjälä, P., Mason, L., & Lonka, K. (Eds) (2001). Studies in Writing: Vol. 7. Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating theory and practice. Dordrecth, nl: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Veldhuis-Diermanse, A.E. (2002). CSCLearning? Participation, learning activities and knowledge construction in computer-supported collaborative learning in higher education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Veldhuis-Diermanse, A.E., Biemans, H.J.A., Mulder, M., & Mahdizadeha, H. (2006). Analysing Learning Processes and Quality of Knowledge Construction in Networked Learning. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 12(1), 41–57. doi: 10 .1080/13892240600740894 Vrasidas, Ch., & McIsaac, M.C. (1999). Factors influencing interaction in an online course. The American Journal of Distance Education, 13(3), 22–36. doi: 10.1080/ 08923649909527033

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Weinberger, A. & Fischer, F. (2006). A framework to analyze argumentative knowledge construction in computer-supported collaborative learning. Computers & Education, 46, 71–95. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.003 Yang, M., & Carless, D. (2012). The feedback triangle and the enhancement of dialogic feedback processes. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(3), 285–297. doi: 10.1080/ 13562517.2012.719154

chapter 2

Automated Feedback in a Blended Learning Environment: Student Experience and Development Damian Finnegan, Asko Kauppinen and Anna Wärnsby

1

Introduction

Courses in academic writing in English at Malmö University, Sweden, cater for approximately 400 students per year from different disciplinary programmes; English Studies, Teacher Education, European Studies, International Migration and Ethnic Relations, Criminology, to name a few. Apart from coming from different disciplines, the students are also recruited through the policy of widening participation. Many students come from immigrant or non-academic environments. The student population is also international and with varied language backgrounds; English in some cases is a third or fourth language. Thus, the majority of our students are English as a Foreign Language (efl) learners. As many efl learners of writing struggle with idiomatic and surface-level features of writing, traditionally, their instructors spend a lot of time addressing these particular types of issues (Zamel, 1985). Researchers have argued that this corrective practice shapes learner expectations of the type of feedback that is most effective or useful to them; that is, efl students expect feedback on language issues (Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1996). In this respect, efl learners of writing are in danger of being trained to become shallow learners, paying attention to surface-level, communicative aspects of their writing rather than becoming deep learners who can use writing to learn about the topic at hand and develop strategies for argumentation and critical appraisal of their sources (Calvo and Ellis, 2010). In the context of teaching academic writing, commenting on surface-level features also takes away resources from focussing

Finnegan, D., Kauppinen, A. & Wärnsby, A. (2015). Automated Feedback in a Blended Learning Environment: Student Experience and Development. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 31–45). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004290846_004

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on deep-level features, as many studies centred on mother tongue (l1) teaching of writing tell us (see, for example, Hartwell, 1985). Consequently, teaching writing as a process of academic reasoning and complex thinking may suffer. However, as Kolln (1996) argues, if surface-level features are taught ‘in the service of rhetoric … as a tool that enables the writer to make effective choices,’ this can actually contribute to learning writing (p. 29). Arguably, addressing surface-level issues to improve writing fluency in students is even more important in an efl context. As Ferris (2003) points out, several second language (l2) studies on teaching writing report that efl students are well equipped to deal simultaneously with feedback on both surface-level and deep-level features. Ferris (2011), further emphasises the importance of engaging with student surface-level errors, and develops several strategies and practices to do this. This chapter briefly describes a course design with which we addressed these issues by utilising available resources in a blended learning environment. It then discusses the basic premises of the three courses in academic writing offered in Malmö and concentrate on one particular aspect of the course design: providing students with automated formative and summative feedback on the surface-level features of writing. The chapter describes and discusses the students’ evaluations of automated feedback on skill-building exercises and the various features of this feedback. Further, it focuses on one particular surfacelevel feature, punctuation, to isolate an element only taught in academic writing courses to gauge the students’ possible development of punctuation skills across these three courses.

2

Course Design

All three courses in academic writing are offered as part-time courses for the duration of ten weeks each. This means that when the students are taking an academic writing course, they also take another equal-size course in their discipline. In a 20-week term, the full study load is four courses. The activities offered to students are modelled on Nunan’s (2004) seven principles for task-based teaching: scaffolding, task dependency, recycling, active learning, integration, reproduction to creation, and reflection (pp. 35–38). On the courses, the students engage in various activities from skill-building assignments to minor writing tasks to full papers. The activities are broken down into manageable chunks; they build on each other; skills practiced in skill-building assignments and minor writing tasks are integrated in full paper assignments; both formative and summative feedback is followed by reflection and revision.

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The courses in academic writing are based on the idea of teaching writing as a process (Flower and Hayes, 1981). Like Hyland (2003), we understand the writing process as a knowledge production activity, which is social, communicative, non-linear, goal-driven, metalanguage-supported, and responsive to other texts (pp. 27–28). The course design includes a fair amount of embedded, ‘hard scaffolding’ (Saye and Brush, 2002, p. 81) to facilitate student learning. A significant part of this scaffolding is the so-called ‘technical scaffolding’ (Yelland and Masters, 2007, p. 367), where an e-learning platform is used to give feedback, and provide links to additional readings, tutorials and exercises. Unsurprisingly, previous studies have shown that feedback to students decreases with the increase in class size (see, for example, Higgins, Hartley, and Skelton, 2002). At the same time, feedback is one of the crucial motivators for student learning and helps students to focus on the relevant learning objectives (Freeman and Lewis, 1998; Blayney and Freeman, 2004). For example, Kellogg, Whiteford and Quinlan (2010) found that activities in the writing process are not considered important by students unless they receive feedback on these activities. Barker (2011) further stresses the need for feedback to be ‘constructive, appropriate, useful, accurate, individual, delivered in context, detailed;’ it should ‘facilitate the feed-forward’ (p. 1). Some studies have also reported a perceived demand for different types of feedback to accommodate different learner needs (Matsumura and Hann, 2004; Lai, 2010). Many studies (for example, Brandl, 1995; Calvo and Ellis, 2010; Chapelle, 2007) suggest that the use of technology can have positive effects on language learning; however, few have so far utilised the possibilities offered by technology in forming their ‘curriculum and content for language learners’ (Zhao, 2003, p. 22). We felt that the same applied to writing learners. Traditional on-campus teaching methods—lectures, seminars and workshops, coupled with limited resources—proved to be insufficient; we were not able to provide enough student-instructor interaction and feedback to students in this form. Extended student-instructor interaction is considered particularly beneficial in the context of l2 learning (Gass and Mackey, 2007; Ellis, 1999; Chapelle, 2007). To address this and distribute instructor resources more effectively, we adopted a form of blended learning in the courses. As a consequence, in addition to scheduled physical meetings (lectures, seminars, peer-review workshops), much of the students’ actual work (reading the course materials, watching instructional video tutorials, listening to thematic podcasts, completing skillbuilding assignments, and submitting written tasks) was performed within the course learning management system (lms): the e-platform MyCompLab. Most of individual student-instructor interaction also took place within the e-platform, when the students received and addressed feedback on their dif-

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figure 2.1 The four tiers of feedback

ferent assignments. In fact, automated feedback became a form of individual student-instructor interaction. The resources and functions of MyCompLab allowed us to restructure feedback procedures on the courses. For example, we were able to build a hierarchy of feedback: automated feedback, peer feedback, teacher assistant (ta: senior students) feedback, and instructor feedback. Figure 2.1 shows a shortened list of the portfolio assignments students were required to complete on the beginner level course. First, the students received automated, or system-generated, feedback on skill-building assignments pertaining to the surface-level features of writing. Secondly, they received feedback from tas on minor writing assignments pertaining to different rhetorical elements, for example, on the structure of a paragraph or the establishment of ethos in an attempted argument. The third tier of feedback was from peers, who, scaffolded by customised feedback templates, addressed holistically all aspects of longer pieces of writing from the assignment’s focus to its structure and various surface-level features. The last tier of feedback, instructor feedback, was given on the final draft of papers. Here, all aspects of writing, as taught in the course and contained in the course

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figure 2.2 An example of automated formative feedback in a skill-building exercise

literature, were addressed. To facilitate the revision of papers, instructor feedback contained links that reached out to additional readings, videos, podcasts and skill-building exercises within the e-platform, depending on individual student problem areas. These tiers of feedback were repeated and recycled throughout the course.

3

Automated Feedback and Student Experience

Let us return to the automated feedback on skill-building assignments offered within the e-platform.1 These often took the form of multiple-choice questions displayed consecutively and tested the students’ command of surface-level features of writing (figure 2.2). Many of these exercises were on the use of punctuation or tested certain grammatical constructions, such as the use of pronouns or subject-verb agreement; some tested also students’ understanding of the reference systems used on the course, apa and mla. Students could take as much time for the completion of an assignment as they felt appropriate and also navigate back and forth within the assignment to adjust their answers upon reflection. Once the exercise was completed, the student immediately received a summative assessment in the form of a score, based on the number

1 What we here call skill-building assignments was called ‘quizzes’ in MyCompLab. We prefer the term ‘skill-building assignment’ because it better describes the function of these exercises within the writing process.

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of correct and incorrect answers. The correct answers were colour-coded green, while the incorrect ones were red. The student was also given concise formative feedback on each answer in the form of a short explanation and was given links to additional readings and exercises. In a pilot study on student experience of the writing process involving 150 students on a beginner level course, we noticed that the level of student satisfaction with this type of automated feedback was high, and it was valued almost as highly as the extensive instructor feedback on papers submitted for examination. In total, 81% of the students valued automated feedback to a very high or high degree, 87% of the students valued ta feedback to a very high or high degree, and 90% of the students valued instructor feedback to a very high or high degree. This result is consistent with Calvo and Ellis (2010), who found that students perceived automated and instructor feedback in similar ways, depending on their particular type of learning (deep learning vs. shallow learning). Deep learners use feedback (whether human or automated) to learn about the topic, whereas shallow learners use feedback to improve the surface-level aspects of their writing. As automated feedback in different forms is at times particularly recommended in l2 context to complement instructor feedback and increase feedback opportunities (Shermis and Burstein, 2003; Ware, 2005; Warschauer and Ware, 2006), the students’ surprisingly positive experience of automated feedback warranted further investigation. In our case, the automated feedback was offered only on surface-level features. MyCompLab allowed automated feedback only on skill-building assignments pertaining to grammar, punctuation and citation models; thus the automated feedback we address in this study is the feedback generated within these assignments. We do not address automated essay scoring, or computer-generated feedback on written assignments. The remainder of this chapter explores the impact automated feedback had on student experience of learning and possible development of skills as described above from beginner to advanced courses in academic writing.

4

Method

We collected three sets of data. One set of data comes from course evaluations of the three courses, and it presents student experience of tiers of feedback in the courses. The second set of data comes from a small-scale pilot study based on three cohorts of 8 students each from the beginner, intermediate and advanced courses. The selection of these three cohorts makes possible a ‘simultaneous cross-sectional study’ (Dörnyei, 2007, pp. 84–85). The students

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in the advanced course had gone through the same course input on beginner and intermediate courses in terms of the course material, teaching and feedback types since the course designs and curricula remained the same. The simultaneous cross-sectional study thus yields data about changes in student perception of automated feedback across the different cohorts. Since the data collection for this study took place after the courses had finished, these were the only students we could get as participants. The students were given the same questionnaire targeting different aspects of their experience of automated feedback. The questionnaire included both multiple-choice questions and open questions. The third set of data comes from a group of students from the European Studies programme. We explored whether the automated feedback helps develop surface-level skills pertaining to writing. These students attended courses given in English within their programme, but they received no language training otherwise. At the early stage of their programme, these students were obliged to take the beginner course in academic writing. Apart from this compulsory writing course, these students could choose the intermediate course as their elective course. To the best of our knowledge, this comprises the extent of their contact with language-oriented courses within their programme. We targeted development of punctuation skills because punctuation is one of those surface-level skills that is part of writing fluency rather than language fluency. Had these students taken any English language courses in addition to the writing courses—for example, courses in English grammar—they would not have received training in punctuation, as it is traditionally not part of English language teaching in Sweden. Therefore, the only input on English sentence punctuation they had received would have occurred on the writing courses, where we consider teaching punctuation an integral part of increasing student writing readability. Again, in a simultaneous cross-sectional study, we selected two cohorts of 13 European Studies students: those who had finished the beginner course only and those who had also finished the intermediate course. At the time, 13 had selected the intermediate course as their elective, which determined the size of the cohorts. We looked at what development, if any, the second cohort had made in their punctuation skills as measured by their summative scores on punctuation assignments. These scores were saved and available in MyCompLab. Our assumption was that possible increase in summative scores on these assignments would demonstrate an increased command of punctuation and, therefore, increased writing fluency. We do not use quantitative data to make verifiable generalisations, but to represent ‘qualitative differences’ (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 271) in the students with

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regard to their experience of automated feedback and the possible impact of this feedback on their command of punctuation. Neither do we attempt to evaluate the quality of the automated feedback offered in MyCompLab.

5

Results

This section presents the students’ experiences of the automated feedback offered in MyCompLab and estimates the impact of automated feedback on the development of skills pertaining to punctuation. 5.1

Student Experience of Automated Feedback on Beginner and Intermediate Courses The student population in the beginner course was the largest (about 150 students per term) and most diversified, since, as mentioned above, the course was obligatory for students in a number of programmes. Extensive scaffolding on this level was crucial. Many of the skill-building assignments dealt with basic grammatical concepts, such as subject-verb and pronoun agreement, sentence structure and punctuation relevant for readability. The intermediate course catered mostly for two groups of students; those majoring in English (for whom the course was obligatory) and those from elsewhere within the University who had chosen this course as an elective. There were approximately 60 students participating in the course per term. This particular body of students exhibited stronger language skills and interest in writing. Extensive scaffolding was still offered to students on this course, although the course also demanded more independent efforts. When we looked at course evaluations, we found no difference between the two groups in their attitudes to automated feedback. The students largely recognised the value of the automated feedback for their learning: 87 % of the students (74% + 13%) appreciated this type of feedback to a very high or high degree. No student attributed low value to automated feedback. When the sample group (the cohort of 8 students from the beginner course and the cohort 8 students from the intermediate course) evaluated automated feedback for their learning, the students were asked to reflect on the following features: immediacy of feedback, extent of metalinguistic comment (explanation), terminology used, summative score, and links to additional readings and exercises (figure 2.3). Even here, there was no difference in the appreciation of the features of automated feedback across the cohorts. In total, 14 (8+6) out of 16 students appreciated the system offering immediate feedback upon the completion of an exercise to a very high or high degree, 13

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figure 2.3 Beginner and intermediate cohorts’ appreciation of automated feedback features

(7 +6) out of 16 students valued the corrective explanations offered within the e-platform for the errors they made while completing the assignments to a very high or high degree, and 12 (4+8) students also appreciated the score provided by the system to measure their achievement on each assignment. 11 (5 + 6) out of 16 students appreciated the opportunity to reach out to additional readings and exercises on the particularly troublesome areas to a very high or high degree. The students were least satisfied with the use of grammatical terminology in the explanations: 10 (6+4) out of 16 students valued it very highly or highly. 5.2 Student Experience of Automated Feedback on the Advanced Course The advanced course catered for approximately 30 students, most of whom were recruited from the English Studies programme. Occasionally, however, a number of students from outside the English programme selected this course. Regardless of their disciplinary backgrounds, the students on this level excelled in English, mastered efficient study techniques and displayed a passion for writing. The focus of the course was on developing copy-editing skills. On this level, the automated feedback was perceived as less valuable: 62% of the students (37% + 25%) appreciated it to a very high or high degree as opposed to 87% on the previous levels. The students also exhibited more diversified experiences of automated feedback than they did on the previous courses. The perceived value across the different features had decreased for the cohort of 8 students on this level overall (figure 2.4). Their appreciation of terminology, however, had increased slightly: on the previous levels (figure 2.3),

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figure 2.4 Advanced cohort’s appreciation of automated feedback features

4 out of 16 students valued the use of grammatical terminology in formative feedback to a very high degree; on the advanced level, however, 3 out of 8 students felt the same, which is a slightly higher proportion. That the students did not perceive automated feedback valuable to the same degree as on the previous courses was also reflected in their open comments. The only positive aspect of automated feedback they promoted was that the system suggested additional readings and exercises for particularly problematic areas. The majority of the students, however, pointed out that the level of the exercises and the feedback was not suited to the level of the course. According to the students, the explanations offered were too simplistic and, in some cases, even misleading. They pointed out that the feedback was too one-dimensional: only one answer was possible, although in reality several solutions would have been equally valid. They also pointed out that matters taken up in the course were too complex for automated feedback. 5.3 Development of Students’ Surface-Level Skills So far, we have shown that automated feedback was quite valued by students on the beginner and intermediate courses in particular. But was it effective? We explored this question by comparing summative scores on the punctuation assignments of the two cohorts of the European Studies students. These students exhibited improvement in their grades on punctuation from beginner to intermediate courses. The students on the beginner course achieved the average grade c on punctuation assignments; in other words,

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on average, these students provided correct answers in 70% of the cases. The students on the intermediate course improved their scores; on average, they achieved almost a b, having provided correct answers in 79.5% of the cases. We assume this increase in summative scores on punctuation assignments to demonstrate a somewhat increased command of punctuation and, therefore, increased writing fluency in these students.

6

Summary and Discussion

Overall, the students found automated feedback on skill-building assignments valuable to a high degree. This is in line with previous research that argues that students today not only appreciate the use of technology in receiving feedback and grades; they also expect it (Bloxham and Boyd, 2007). Further, they appreciate the flexibility, privacy and convenience of electronic feedback (Hepplestone and Mather, 2007). The students in our study appreciated automated feedback particularly on the beginner and the intermediate courses. On these levels, they singled out immediacy and summative score as valuable features of the feedback. Explanations, additional readings and exercises were also appreciated. However, as many students lacked background in language studies, they often found the terminology and metalanguage used in the explanations to be obscure. That efl students find feedback heavy on grammatical metalanguage has been noticed in several studies (Ware, 2011; Vojak, Kline, Cope, McCarthey, and Kalantzis, 2011). In their responses to open questions, the students in our study mentioned, in particular, that they appreciated repetition that automated feedback facilitated by illuminating key points taken up elsewhere in the course; they also felt that both the level of the exercises and the feedback offered was well suited to the level of the courses in general. On the advanced course, however, the students were much less convinced of the value of the automated feedback for the development of their surfacelevel skills. They were still positive about the immediacy of feedback and scores. This was also true of the e-platform’s offerings of additional readings and exercises. Moreover, the students’ appreciation of terminology and metalanguage in explanations increased. As most students on this level were English majors, they had had grammar and language training prior to selecting this advanced course and could benefit from the use of grammatical terminology. However, several students pointed out that the explanations offered by the system were too simplistic. In solving real-life textual problems, more than one solution is possible; yet, the multiple-choice questions used in the exercises did not reflect

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this. Since this course focused more on the editing part of the writing process, the exercises provided by the system were not as complex as the real-life problems the students trained to solve. On this level, the students perhaps also did not require as extensive scaffolding as they did on the lower level courses. Consequently, though perceived useful on lower levels by students, automatic feedback is neither sufficient enough nor required to the same degree on the advanced level. We also looked at the potential impact of automated feedback on the development of surface-level skills. We focused on punctuation to represent these skills in general. A selected group of students showed an increase in their summative scores on punctuation assignments from beginner to intermediate level. Although this is certainly suggestive of development, the data sample is too small to draw strong conclusions. The improvement in performance may reflect the development of punctuation skills, but it may also reflect that the students on the elective intermediate course generally performed better in English and were more interested in writing than the average student on the compulsory beginner course. Previous studies on classroom multiple-choice tests suggest that immediate automated feedback improves knowledge retention (Epstein, Epstein, and Brosvic, 2001). Although assessment through multiple-choice questions cannot reveal students’ higher order skills (Blayney and Freeman, 2004), they, nevertheless, seem to be an efficient means of focusing students’ attention on the surface-level features of writing. Kellogg, Whiteford, and Quinlan (2010) have also demonstrated that continuous, automated, formative feedback helps improve students’ editing skills pertaining to mechanics, usage and grammar. It is plausible to assume that the students’ exposure to such assignments, administered in an e-environment and including immediate formative and summative feedback, helps them to develop surface-level skills.

7

Conclusion

We suggest that surface-level features can be successfully taught as part of academic writing courses, but that the focus should be on improving writing fluency rather than language proficiency. Skill-building assignments are well suited to focus students’ attention on surface-level features of writing, particularly so in l2 and efl contexts and in a blended learning environment, and can be delegated to systems of automated feedback. Attention should be paid, however, to the metalanguage used in feedback: the use of grammar terminology (or, for that matter, composition terminology) may not be accessible to all

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student populations. Furthermore, the complexity of assignments and feedback should increase with the increase in student writing skills. We argue also that automated feedback works well as a complement to instructor feedback, increases possibilities for individual student-instructor interaction and allows instructors to focus more on feedback on deep-level features. We explored student experience of automated feedback on skill-building assignments in a blended learning environment and possible development of surface-level skills as a consequence of these assignments and feedback. Clearly, our study is small-scale, conducted in a particular educational setting, and on a student population of mostly efl writers. However, we demonstrate that our students’ experience of the automated feedback is positive, link it to possible development of surface-level skills, but also indicate some possible limitations of automated feedback. Further studies on larger and different student populations, in different contexts are needed to corroborate the effects we describe. A more thorough investigation is also required to ascertain the impact of automated feedback on the development of surface-level skills. Such a study should be longitudinal and include a pre- and post-test of student command and retention of these skills.

List of Abbreviations efl lms ta l1 l2

English as a foreign language Learning management system Teaching assistant Mother tongue Second language

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chapter 3

Singular Asynchronous Writing Tutorials: A Pedagogy of Text-Bound Dialogue Dimitar Angelov and Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams

1

Introduction

Much online writing tutoring scholarship maintains that face-to-face tutorials are—and should be—the preferred method for tutoring academic writing, and that other modes of tutoring are pedagogically valid only insofar as they mirror face-to-face interaction. Following this logic, the asynchronous writing tutorial comes last in the hierarchy of preferred tutorial formats. This chapter offers a different perspective on asynchronous online writing tutoring based on the teaching practices in place at the Centre for Academic Writing (caw), Coventry University, England. It develops a new theoretical framework for existing tutorial practices and suggests juxtaposition through parenthetical comments as a pedagogically-sound strategy for teaching critical thinking in asynchronous online student-tutor communication and potentially in other teaching contexts. Our analysis relies on Bakhtin’s understanding of language as intrinsically dialogic and applies this concept to the academic discourse of asynchronous writing tutorials. Specifically, our study focuses on the singular asynchronous online writing tutorial (saowt), an intervention which entails a one-off exchange of information between student and writing tutor, and which is consistent with tutoring practices at caw. By embracing and endorsing this practice, our argument diverges from the prevalent view amongst academic writing researchers and practitioners who support asynchronous tutorials only insofar as a continuous exchange between student-writer and writing tutor is involved. Our analysis draws upon interviews conducted with students and academic writing tutors at caw as well as on textual examples from student assignments reviewed in asynchronous writing tutorials.

Angelov, D. & Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2015). Singular Asynchronous Writing Tutorials: A Pedagogy of Text-Bound Dialogue. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 46–64). Leiden: Brill.

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Most of the critical literature discussing online writing tutoring starts from the premise that face-to-face tutorials, where student and tutor share the same spatial and temporal continuum, set a gold standard for teaching academic writing. Not surprisingly, then, most scholars and practitioners find online tutorials lacking; this is especially true of the asynchronous variety, in which the physical distance between the participants is further compounded by a time gap in their exchange. The discourse about asynchronous tutoring abounds in negative terms and associations, which arise from this deficit model. Asynchronous tutorials are seen as an awkward and stressful mode of delivery for tutors forced to communicate with students “through a faceless, expressionless computer screen” (Carlson and Apperson-Williams, 2000, p. 129) or as a last resort when the preferred, supposedly more pedagogically sound, formats of tutoring cannot be applied (Castner, 2000). The main problem which researchers and practitioners identify in the asynchronous format is the lack of what Castner (2000, p. 119) refers to as “sustained dialogue” between student and tutor. Even the more accepting and appreciative voices in the asynchronous writing tutorial debate embrace sustained dialogue as a sine qua non of an effective online session. Coogan (1995) and Breuch and Racine (2000), amongst others, recommend repeated message exchanges between student and tutor aimed to transform the writing tutorial into “a discussion in writing”: “[t]he student sends a paper, receives comments, writes a response, receives more comments, and so on” (Coogan, 1995, p. 175). That such prolonged correspondence would extend the length of the tutorial from a faceto-face duration of 30 or 50 minutes to several days or, in the case of Coogan’s personal practice, even months is considered an acceptable adjustment to be made, in order to ensure a purported pedagogical soundness. The ease with which such obviously impractical suggestions for writing centre tutoring are embraced demonstrates the inability of current critical opinion to extricate itself from the dominant discourse of face-to-face Academic Writing pedagogy. Although both Coogan’s and Breuch and Racine’s studies claim explicitly that the asynchronous writing tutorial should be conceived as a teaching intervention in its own right, and that a new methodology should be developed to accommodate its specificity, they still employ the principles of face-to-face instruction to argue its value. Ultimately, the online message exchange they promote is nothing but an adaptation of face-to-face dialogue between student and tutor. Contrary to this logic, this chapter offers a new pedagogical perspective on asynchronous writing tutorials which situates this type of intervention within the context of written—rather than face-to-face—academic discourse.

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By investigating the semantic and methodological implications of studenttutor interaction online, we attempt to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of written dialogue, which transcends its widely-accepted interpretation as electronic message exchange. The chapter begins by interrogating the synonymous relationship assumed between notions such as “student-centred”, on the one hand, and “non-directive” / “dialogic” writing support, on the other, in order to demonstrate that a dialogic relationship between writer and reader can be achieved in a single act of communication online. The chapter then refocuses our understanding of dialogue from an interpersonal to an intertextual phenomenon crucial for academic socialisation of novice writers and the very process of knowledge-making in academia. Our analysis is based on the writing tutoring practices utilised by the Centre for Academic Writing (caw) at Coventry University, England. A substantial part of caw’s teaching provision is the Coventry Online Writing Laboratory (cowl),1 through which students can request synchronous and asynchronous tutorials. These two types of computer-assisted interventions are offered in addition to the Centre’s face-to-face tutorials and suite of undergraduate and postgraduate workshops on different elements of academic writing (Deane and Ganobcsik-Williams, 2012). Typically, the 50-minute asynchronous tutorials conducted at caw are contained within a single communication exchange between tutor and student: tutors download the student’s assignment draft (normally an ms Word document), along with the student’s questions, from the cowl platform in Moodle, make comments and suggestions to the draft, and upload this updated version back on to the cowl Moodle page. Although students do have the option to repeat the process and receive further feedback on the same or later draft in another asynchronous tutorial, or follow up on any problem areas or questions they may have face-to-face, the vast majority of tutorials end after this first exchange. Since the majority of caw’s asynchronous interventions follow this pattern, we propose to investigate further the potential benefits of what we designate a singular asynchronous online writing tutorial (saowt), in other words a tutorial where there is a one-off exchange of information between student and writing tutor. All subsequent references to asynchronous tutorials at caw in this chapter will be to saowts. To substantiate our argument, we draw upon Bakhtinian theory of language and linguistic dialogism, upon interviews conducted with academic writing tutors at caw, interviews with students who have experienced caw’s asyn-

1 caw’s online writing provision was initiated and developed through the ‘Creating an Online Writing Lab’ (cowl) project, generously funded by jisc (2008–2010).

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chronous writing tutorials, and textual examples from student papers reviewed in asynchronous writing tutorials. Interviews were conducted in Summer 2013, more than ten months after caw began to offer online writing tutorials. Seven professional academic writing tutors (out of a team of nine) took part in 50minute individualised interviews, and six students participated in individual 30-minute interviews. Both students and tutors were issued with participant information sheets explaining the research and all agreed to take part on a voluntary basis. Interviews aimed to explore students’ and academic writing tutors’ perceptions of saowts, and were analysed thematically.

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Student-Centred versus Assignment-Centred Tutorials and Their Implications for Student-Tutor Dialogue Part of the mistrust towards asynchronous tutorials, which seems to pervade the academic writing establishment, is rooted in the pedagogy of studentcentred, non-directive tutoring, developed in us Writing Centres during the 1970s and 1980s and still considered “best practice” (Buck, 2008, p. 398) and a “core assumption” of writing centre tutoring (Corbett, 2008). The principles of non-directive tutoring require that students remain in control of the tutorial at all times: they decide what the tutor should focus on during the session and make amendments to their drafts as they see appropriate. Among the main proponents of this approach is Jeff Brooks, whose seminal 1991 article, “Minimalist tutoring: Making the student do all the work”, has been republished and recommended as a tutor training resource by influential guides on academic writing pedagogy.2 In this article Brooks outlines a fundamental distinction between student-centred and assignment-centred tutorials, and expresses a strong preference for the former. He suggests that any attempt on the part of the tutor to intervene in the student assignment is pedagogically flawed, and will result in the tutor being a mere editor: “When you ‘improve’ a student’s paper, you haven’t been a tutor at all; you’ve been an editor. You may have been an exceptionally good editor, but you’ve been of little service to your student” (Brooks, 1991/2008, p. 169).

2 Examples of such guides are The St. Martin’s sourcebook for writing tutors by Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood, which has retained this article through all its four editions, and The Bedford Guide for writing tutors by Leigh Ryan and Lisa Zimmerelli, where Brooks’s article has been recommended as further reading.

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Viewed in terms of student-tutor interaction, this type of alleged writereditor relationship leaves little room for a genuine dialogue between the parties involved. For Brooks, assignment-centred sessions transform the student into a passive recipient of the tutor’s knowledge and are therefore hierarchical and monologic. When measured against Brooks’s principles, saowts cannot but be found lacking. Since there is no student present in this type of tutorial, the tutor has no other option but to focus on the text of the assignment, and, hence, following Brooks’s logic, to become a directive participant in a monologic transaction. Despite their dominant presence in the field of academic writing, Brooks’s ideas have not remained unchallenged. Some of the central premises of the student-centred, non-directive approach he advocates have been interrogated by Shamoon and Burns (1995/2008) who espouse a much more hands-on approach to face-to-face tutoring. Their examples of effective writing pedagogy include consultations between student and subject lecturer in which the latter revised—even re-wrote—the assignment under consideration. Rather than disempower or alienate students from their work, or the learning process at large, these “intrusive, directive and product oriented” strategies helped to lay bare writing practices which “had remained unspoken and opaque” (Shamoon and Burns, 1995/2008, p. 178). Although we do not support such radical interventions into the student’s text, we agree with Shamoon and Burns’s conclusions that a combination of directive and non-directive tutoring strategies, which does not exclude tutor alterations to the assignment draft, has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of academic writing tutorials. It is this combination of strategies that guides caw’s tutoring practices and mission statement to “enable students at Coventry University to become independent writers” (caw, 2014). The analysis we undertake in this chapter is very much in keeping with Shamoon and Burns’s belief in the benefits of working directly with the student’s text, but we apply their insight to a different learning environment, an environment where their recommended balance between directive and non-directive tutoring techniques becomes more difficult to maintain, simply because the student is not physically present. We seek to challenge the prevalent view that assignment-centred saowts would inevitably preclude studenttutor dialogue, and to do so more effectively we focus on precisely those aspects of asynchronous tutorials which, following Brooks, we expect to be most conducive to a directive, and hence, monologic tutorial intervention: the choice of tutorial focus and the tutor’s feedback.

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2.2 Tutorial Focus: A Subject of Debate Our interviews with academic writing tutors at caw found that, regardless of their willingness to address, as much as possible, the areas for improvement identified by the student prior to the tutorial, virtually all caw tutors tend to adopt what appears to be a more hands-on approach in an asynchronous session than would be the case face-to-face. The extent to which such directive pedagogy is adopted online depends on a combination of factors: objective ones (mostly to do with the nature of the student’s input) and subjective ones (determined by the personal style and preference of individual tutors). When booking an asynchronous tutorial at caw, students are required to formulate their writing questions, concerns and goals, which are submitted to the tutor alongside the student’s assignment. According to caw tutors, this student-stated focus often lacks clarity and is overambitious in scope, which leaves tutors no other option but to choose what exactly to prioritise in their analysis. Typical student concerns reported in the interviews we conducted with both students and writing tutors include: “grammar”, “flow” of the assignment draft, and whether or not it “make[s] sense” or “[meets] the assignment brief”. In some cases, there might not be any student-stated focus at all. Such sparingly formulated, sometimes even absent, issues require a degree of intervention on the part of the academic writing tutor and a more or less proactive approach, irrespective of how natural or desirable individual staff find this type of approach to be. Indeed, even members of caw’s tutoring team who described themselves as less-directive, such as Lynne,3 said they would intervene in establishing the focus of the online tutorial, thereby adopting a more proactive role. When interviewed, Lynne emphasised she would normally put the student’s concerns first, but when asked about the type of issues students bring to an asynchronous tutorial she gave the following example: Well [a] phrase that keeps coming up is “Flow of the writing”. “Can you look at my flow in the writing?” And I think what they mean by that is linking between paragraphs and the development of their argument. But that phrase has come up a few times. Lynne’s example is indicative of what, as a rule, happens in asynchronous tutorials. Tutors are presented with a vague or an ambiguous problem and are left to make a choice as to how exactly to interpret it, thus steering the tutorial

3 All names of caw’s academic writing tutors and of students interviewed for this chapter have been changed.

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towards a goal, at least partially, chosen by them rather than the student. In the case above, Lynne chooses to interpret “flow of the writing” as the way ideas (paragraphs) link together to form a logically consistent argument, and not, for example, as sentence structure, sentence variation and rhythm. Such decisions need to be taken on a regular basis by all tutors, because students lack the professional expertise to diagnose the problems involved in their writing, and/or the meta-language to formulate clearly their concerns. As another caw tutor, Becca, sums it up: “quite often it feels like [students] don’t know what they want, they just want someone to read [their assignment] basically”. Apart from the thematic clarity of the student-stated focus, the scope of this focus will often invite a more directive response on the part of the tutor. Very often, students will present a number of requests which cannot be successfully addressed in a 50-minute asynchronous tutorial, forcing tutors to prioritise certain aspects of the work at the expense of others. Unrealistic student expectations have been reported by virtually all tutors at caw, as part of informal conversations and staff meetings. In the interviews on saowts conducted for this chapter, four out of seven tutors commented on the scope of the studentstated focus. As Alice notes: “Some students seem to think that we’re able to do everything and they’ll ask for structure, flow, grammar, punctuation, they’ll have a whole list of things”. When faced with such demands Alice switches to a more directive style of tutoring: Well, I read the note [with the student-stated focus] and then look at the [assignment] brief and I look at what the student’s [sic] written in the draft and then I have to make a judgement as to what I feel is most important to focus on, according to what the student ask[s] me to do. Unless there is something that is really outstanding that I think overrides everything else, I mean so it’s an issue of plagiarism for example or referencing. But generally, I would look at what they’ve written and then decide and prioritise according to the improvements I think need to be made. I do try in my response in the notes, which goes back to the student along with the feedback on the draft, I try to explain what I focused on and why, and also try and give some, even if it’s only a bit of feedback on the other things that they’ve asked me to look at. Our discussion of the tutorial focus so far may have suggested that asynchronous online sessions tend to be more directive than their face-to-face counterparts; however, the full data from our interviews with caw tutors revealed that the distinction is in degree rather than in kind. When asked to compare their face-to-face and asynchronous tutoring practices, caw staff commented on the

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number of similarities as well as differences between the two modes of delivery. There is agreement, for instance, that the types of problems students bring to face-to-face sessions are equally vague in nature and broad in scope as the ones stated in asynchronous writing tutorials. The main difference in establishing the focus of the session, then, is in the presence or absence of a real-time, student-tutor interaction, i.e. “dialogue” in its literal sense as “conversation”. If in the asynchronous environment tutors can only respond to a pre-given student request, in face-to-face consultations the student-stated focus is subject to discussion and negotiation. The presence or absence of face-to-face conversation would, understandably, change the tutor’s experience of a tutorial; yet close scrutiny reveals this change to be more in the tutor’s perception rather than in the actual dynamics of the session. In a typical face-to-face tutorial at caw, the academic writing tutor will steer the conversation to what he or she identifies as the actual issue or set of issues in the draft, thus playing an active, if not leading, role in determining the focus of the tutorial. In this way, the contents of the face-to-face consultation can be influenced, even determined, in much the same way as those of the asynchronous one, albeit in a much less conspicuous manner. Faceto-face, the tutor has the opportunity to convince the student that his or her perspective on the draft is valid through incremental, step-by-step explanation and justification, a process which is impossible to achieve in an asynchronous online environment. With this in mind, it can be concluded that the difference between determining the tutorial focus face-to-face and online is purely quantitative rather than qualitative. Yet this does not seem to be acknowledged in the tutor interviews, in which staff tended to perceive the difference as radical and systemic rather than as simply a matter of degree. One possible explanation for this paradox could be the psychological impact of real-time, student-tutor interaction. Although tutors might act directively to mould the tutorial focus in a face-toface session, the students’ compliance will reassure them that their choice of direction has been right; such approval and validation cannot be received in an asynchronous online environment. This suggestion leads us to the more far-reaching conclusion that the presence of dialogue in its conventional sense of “conversation” can, and often does, obscure the true nature of tutorial interventions. Verbal exchanges will always create at least a semblance of a dialogic, non-directive, student-tutor interaction, which may come a long way to explain why face-to-face tutorials are deemed best practice in academic writing instruction, while asynchronous tutorials, especially the ones that do not result in further electronic message exchanges between the students and writing tutors involved, have been perceived as a pedagogical pis-aller.

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2.3 Asynchronous Feedback: Between Monologue and Dialogue Following Brooks’s (1991/2008) minimalist tutoring argument, asynchronous tutorials, which are by default assignment-centred, should inevitably cast the student in a passive role: be that the role of a voiceless recipient of the tutor’s knowledge or a disengaged witness to the tutor’s writing skills, as the latter proceeds “to amend” the student’s assignment. On the other hand, they should transform tutors into faceless editors who would issue prescriptive advice and correct the draft as they see fit. However, the interviews conducted with caw tutors as well as the samples of student drafts reviewed for this study suggest saowts are governed by much more complex student-tutor dynamics, very different from the monologic writer-editor relationship anticipated by some. Instead of a prescriptive, one-sided tutor monologue, our study revealed a varied and flexible feedback which seeks to engage students into a dialogic relationship, albeit in absentia. In approaching the student draft, tutors are much less likely to “correct” and “edit”, than use strategies to interrogate and unpack the semantic potential of the text; the following quotation from Alice’s interview captures precisely this attitude, which the interviews show is shared by the majority of caw tutors: I try to be as positive and encouraging as I can and also try, rather than say necessarily what I would do, try and get, maybe ask them a question and ask them how they could [change the text themselves]. [I] try and indicate what maybe needs changing but ask them how they think they can improve on it so it’s them rethinking what they want to say in their own voice rather than me imposing what I think would be a better way of saying it. At the same time Alice is conscious that students would, in fact, need “some guidance” in approaching a problem area in the text, so she tries to “give them a link to something they could look at and read and see an example of what [she] mean[s]”. A similar demonstrative approach in giving feedback is adopted by Sue: I think sometimes what happens in … an email [asynchronous online] tutorial is that [I] have a tendency … just to actually show the student what they need to do to improve [their assignment] …, so the tendency can be to say, “Well, look. Here’s a model of what you need to do.” By providing an example for the student to follow, these academic writing tutors strike a fine balance between directive and non-directive tutoring prac-

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tices: they identify the issue the student needs to address but do not resolve it for them. Instead, they call on the student to engage actively with their writing, reconstruct the analogy between their text and the model provided, and implement the suggested changes themselves. In doing so, the writing tutors employ the strategy of “modelling”, which Harris (1983) has advocated as a successful pedagogical practice in one-to-one writing tutorials. As defined by Harris in her seminal article “Modeling: A process method of teaching”, modelling is “a procedure in which a model demonstrates a particular behavior [sic] for observers to aid them in acquiring similar behaviors [sic] and attitudes” (1983, p. 77). Although Harris shows the validity of this strategy in face-to-face tutorials, the benefits of this technique go beyond the format of what she calls “live modelling”, to include the use of film, videotape and audiotape (Harris, 1983, p. 81). The success of modelling in audio- and video-assisted teaching underscores the enormous potential of this strategy in asynchronous online writing tutorials, which is another educational format where there is no live student-tutor interaction. This conclusion is further corroborated by the work of Cooper, Bui, and Riker (2000/2008), who recommend what is essentially modelling as a pedagogically sound approach for the teaching of grammar and textual mechanics in asynchronous writing tutorials. In their article on the do’s and don’t’s of online writing pedagogy, Cooper et al. emphasise the importance of identifying patterns of error in the student draft and using single examples of how the issues under consideration can be resolved. In this way, tutors assume the role of educators who provide models for the revising and editing of the text, instead of acting as editors correcting every single irregularity they detect. By withholding a more direct intervention into the text, tutors refocus the online session onto the knowledge and skills students need to acquire in order to improve their work on their own; in other words, the knowledge and skills that will make them better writers. Since modelling relies only in a limited way on the input of the tutor, we regard it as a pivotal strategy to ensure the dialogic nature of asynchronous online writing tutorials. The prompts and examples provided can serve as only a cue inviting a response in action, in what becomes an enabling tutor-student exchange mediated through the assignment draft. In addition to modelling, caw tutors employ a range of rhetorical devices in their asynchronous online feedback aimed to engage the attention of their students and elicit a response. Direct questions,4 expressions of concession,

4 See Cooper et al. (2000/2008) for a discussion on the use of rhetorical questions as a way of promoting dialogue in email tutorials.

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and hedging are universally and frequently used to qualify tutors’ comments, and balance out examples of more directive advice. Becca’s description of her approach to giving feedback sums up these strategies effectively: [W]hen I’m doing the comments on the [student draft] I tend to be quite tentative and use a lot of like “I think what you mean is this” or erm “maybe you should do this” and quite suggestive … erm because I don’t want it to sound like 1) that I’m taking control of their piece of work, or 2) be too off-putting to them. Erm, I get more formal on the piece of feedback on Moodle … because there I can be a bit more erm … “this is problematic and I’m slightly concerned about this” erm … but I don’t … like to be too erm … too directive. The cumulative effect of such rhetorical strategies is to bracket off the tutor/ reader’s interpretation of the assignment as only one amongst many semantic possibilities of the text. The “tentative” tone of the tutor suggests, rather than imposes, a particular reading, which has further implications for any recommendations or seemingly directive advice they may give. Since they arise out of what is now only a provisional interpretation of the draft, the further actions suggested by the tutor are likewise bracketed off as a potentiality. In other words, the tutor’s recommendations are relativised in a way which does not correspond to what is normally considered directive tutoring. True, the tutor plays an active role in identifying the issue under consideration, yet he or she does not prescribe an authoritative solution for it, which would create a hierarchical, monologic relationship. It is ultimately the student who is vested with the agency to follow the tutor’s advice, to the extent they feel comfortable, or ignore it altogether. Furthermore, by presenting an explicitly provisional interpretation of the text, this type of feedback reveals the instability of textual meaning, which, in turn, encourages students to interrogate not only their own understanding of the text but the way they embody ideas into language. 2.4 Bakhtinian Dialogue and Textual Juxtaposition Through a close examination of tutorial practices at caw, we have so far tried to establish the extent to which singular asynchronous writing tutorials can be seen as dialogic. Our analysis, however, has been informed by one particular understanding of “dialogue”, namely, “dialogue” in the conventional sense of verbal exchange, a sequence between statement and response that complement each other. It was in this sense that we found “dialogue” and “dialogic” used in the scholarly literature on asynchronous writing tutorials and this was also the meaning elicited from the interviews we conducted. Yet in the con-

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text of linguistic theory, dialogue exists not only between but also within individual utterances, as language is intrinsically polysemantic and polyvocal. We believe that this larger meaning of “dialogue” has important ramifications for the student-tutor dynamics in saowts. To guide our exploration of dialogue in this deeper sense, we examine some key aspects of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of language, such as the addressivity of the utterance. The tutor’s self-consciously provisional interpretation of the student assignment, reflected in the asynchronous feedback, explicates and exemplifies the dialogic dimension of language which is the centre of Bakhtinian thought and theory. According to Voloshinov/Bakhtin,5 the “word is a two-sided act”, “a territory shared by both addresser and addressee” and, as such, “it is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant” (1930/1973, p. 86). Bakhtin refers to this property of the living word, or “utterance” (conceived essentially as belonging to Sausurrean parole), as “addressivity”,6 and attributes to it a pivotal role in language production and meaning making. For Bakhtin (1979/1986), the commonplace view of the communicative act as a transaction, whereby there is a one-direction exchange between an active addresser and a passive addressee, is a gross misrepresentation of the complex dynamics between speaker/writer and listener/reader. When composing a message the addresser does not simply expect to replicate its meaning into the mind of a passive addressee; rather he/she expects a response which may undermine, challenge, accept, develop or act on the content of his/her message. It is thus through the impact of the anticipated response that the addressee plays an active role in shaping the meaning of the addresser’s utterance; in other words, addresser and addressee engage in dialogue even before the actual exchange of utterances has taken place. The implications of addressivity for face-to-face dialogue in writing tutorials have been explored by Gillam, who believes that tutors’ responses help students gain a better understanding of their work by presenting them with

5 See Todorov’s discussion on the problem of Bakhtin and authorship (1981/1984, pp. 4–11). 6 In fact, the English translations of different Bakhtinian texts have rendered this language characteristic as either “orientation” or “addressivity”. In Marxism and the philosophy of language we find it as “orientation” (Voloshinov/Bakhtin, 1930/1973, p. 86), whereas in “The problem of speech genres” it is translated as “addressivity” (Bakhtin, 1979/1986, p. 99). That, in fact, this inconsistency is an issue of translation transpires from a critical work by Clark and Holquist who identify the Russian for “addressivity” as obraščënnost’ (1984, p. 217). The word обращенность, literally “turning towards” can be rendered in English as either “orientation” or “addressivity”. For the purposes of consistency in our study, we refer to this concept as “addressivity” alone.

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an alternative point of view (1991). Although we agree with the general conclusions of Gillam’s argument, we believe that the addressivity of the word is much more successfully explicated and put to pedagogical use in asynchronous online writing tutorials, because of the nature of asynchronous feedback. Academic writing tutors at caw have adopted two strategies for providing written feedback to student drafts: through the use of Microsoft Word’s Comment and Track Changes functions, and by providing summary notes in a specially designed box on the Moodle page of cowl.7 The parenthetical comments exemplified by comment “bubbles” on the actual assignment drafts have been praised highly by the students participating in our study for being specific and targeted. However, there is an additional aspect of this type of insertedcomments feedback which, we believe, recommends it as a particularly successful device for teaching the conventions of academic writing. By inserting a comment “bubble” into the text, the tutor is essentially adding a new semantic dimension to the utterance that is the student draft. The tutor’s interpretation is quite literally attached to the exact excerpt of the text to which it pertains, so when the student-writer reads the comment on the reviewed draft they will apprehend their original, intended meaning side-by-side with the perceived meaning provided by the tutor. This juxtaposition actualises two semantic potentialities of the same piece of text, bringing them into a more-orless antagonistic relationship, but without cancelling one or the other out.8 The textual juxtaposition of the tutor’s perceived meaning and the student’s intended meaning brings to light the implicit dialogic nature of the utterance, which, as Bakhtin suggests, is constructed collaboratively between addresser and addressee. The meaning of the living word, such as any word or combination of words within an assignment draft, is moulded by the gravity of 7 These choices of ict tools for asynchronous writing tutorials were made by caw’s academic writing tutors and researchers during the cowl research project (2008–2010) http://www.jisc .ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/curriculumdelivery/cowl.aspx and inevitably will evolve with technology. A variety of online tutoring packages were explored and decisions made were based on ease of use and accessibility. Moodle was utilised to create the cowl online writing tutoring gateway as it is the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (vle). 8 The role of textual juxtaposition, including through the use of the Microsoft Word’s Comment and Track Changes functions, to disrupt the centripetal, homogenising forces of traditional academic discourse has been explored in detail by Lillis (2011). Lillis believes that by breaking up the textual, and therefore semantic, unity of academic discourse, writers will be able to accommodate a diversity of alternative meaning-making practices. Although we agree with Lillis’s discussion of textual juxtaposition and its semantic effects, our interest in the use of parenthetical comments lies in the relationship between the student-tutor dialogue, on the one hand, and the dialogic dimensions intrinsic to the academic utterance, on the other.

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two semantic poles—the consciences of the writer and the consciousness of the reader. These two forces come together in the shared ground of the utterance and leave their imprint on it. The use of parenthetical comments seems an effective strategy to reveal this semantic duality of the word; in fact, we believe it to be much more efficient than face-to-face dialogue. Unlike faceto-face dialogue around textual meaning, which normally results in a semantic closure, i.e. an agreement between the parties involved as to what exactly the word/passage under consideration “says”, textual juxtaposition keeps the semantic gap between signifying intention and perceived interpretation open. It decouples in a very explicit way the voice of the student from that of the tutor, leaving them clear-cut and separate. It thus becomes an invaluable modelling technique for how meaning making is constructed between addresser and addressee, writer and reader. Our interviews revealed that some students prefer this clear separation between intended and perceived meaning, as it brings into sharper focus any potential semantic weaknesses of their texts. Students are sometimes wary that interpretative differences can easily be negotiated away in face-to-face discussion, which plays down the need for certain problems to be addressed. Such points were raised by two out of the six students interviewed for this project, and both students couched their opinions in very similar terms (not suggested by the interview questions). For Kate, the communication gap between writer and reader is a strong selling point for asynchronous tutorials: And also, erm, it’s nice to actually let the tutor look at your work without you actually sitting there, and let them just analyse it. Erm, as a … like a lecturer, who might not … you might not be sitting next to them, so you can’t really explain, erm, what you meant by a certain sentence or anything. So in that sense, it’s good to have a writing tutorial because they get to see your work at face value, without you being there. So the comments they make might help you, erm, correct the way you’ve written things and it’ll give you an insight. So in that sense, it’s one of the reasons why I opted to actually, erm, go for an email tutorial as opposed to, erm, a face-to-face. Similarly, Laura would prefer her work reviewed impartially, at “face value”, which to her mind implies from a distance: [S]o I think that’s got to be beneficial in a way, because although the student’s not sitting with [the tutor] discussing it, they’re seeing something, erm, [at] face value, and they’re just looking, they’re just reading it, erm,

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without having a discussion. So I think that it might be more beneficial for the student in that way because the … the tutor’s just taking something that … that the marker would … […] Erm, whereas I think the face-to-face, you know, it might be slightly biased if the student’s sitting there and trying to … trying to kind of, what’s the word … erm, justify different points or qualify answers; when the tutor might think, “Okay, that’s why you’ve put it, okay. Well, that’s fine. I’ve not got a query with it.” Whereas if the tutor’s sitting there looking at it on their own, then they need that justified and it needs to be clear on paper. So, erm … It’s something I’ve not really thought about before, but I think actually, that is … that would be a strong benefit to the email [tutorial] system, because you’ve not got a bias with the student sitting there. In an ironic reversal of all prescriptive tutoring advice, advocating extensive student-tutor communication about the assignment under review, these two students see value in the situational lack of meta-textual talk that characterises asynchronous tutorials. Their view that assignments should be examined “at face value”, without any additional explanation on the part of the writer, is perfectly logical and justifiable, as this is precisely how academic texts are accessed and assessed. It has, however, a curious and rather heretical implication—that a breakdown in communication between student and tutor, writer and reader, may have positive implications too. If the text fails to transmit its meaning to the addressee, the way it is intended, then it is not fit for purpose and needs to be reworked. Such failures are particularly visible in asynchronous tutorials where the word (utterance) of the student is placed side-by-side with the interpretation of the tutor, suggested in the comment “bubble”. Conversely, in a face-to-face session any such discrepancy will momentarily be glossed over in the flow of conversation. Laying open the relationship between the intended meaning of the writer and the interpretation of the reader, achieved through the practice of textual juxtaposition in asynchronous tutorials, has further, significant implications for academic writing pedagogy. Academic texts are inconceivable in isolation from the disciplinary discourse that informs them; their very fabric is woven from ideas and arguments borrowed from their intellectual antecedents. Viewed from this perspective, any academic text, including a student assignment, is an utterance which incorporates a plethora of other utterances, other academic texts which constitute its disciplinary background. This act of incorporation goes far beyond the purely mechanical inclusion of meaning, on which it is predicated, to effect a sematic transformation of both utterances coming into contact with one another. For Bakhtin, when one utterance is

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embedded within another, they enter into a complex relationship analogous to that between the intended meaning of the addresser and the perceived meaning of the addressee (Voloshinov/Bakhtin, 1930/1973). The meaning of the incorporated utterance, or reported speech, becomes actively transformed by the incorporating utterance, or reporting context, the way in which the intended meaning of the addresser is transformed by the perceived meaning of the addressee. It is not difficult to see that what Bakhtin describes as an intrinsic characteristic of “reported speech” is in fact a fundamental quality of academic writing known as critical thinking. In view of the above discussion, we believe that the use of textual juxtaposition can be extended beyond the modelling of the addresser-addressee, student-tutor communication to encompass the very basis of argumentation that is critical thought. Our review of student assignments examined in asynchronous tutorials identified many instances where parenthetical comments had been used to interrogate the intended meaning of individual utterances. Yet, in none of these cases, was the clash between students’ and tutors’ signifying intentions highlighted as an illustration, let alone a modelling strategy, of the semantic transformation which takes place in the act of critiquing. The great theoretical potential of textual juxtaposition to explicate and rehearse the intrinsic dialogism of a single utterance within academic discourse has thus remained unnoticed and unexplored by writing tutors who took part in our study. We suggest that further development of this strategy could enhance the repertoire of saowt tutoring practice and feedback on academic writing more generally.

3

Conclusion: A Pedagogy of Text-Bound Dialogue

This chapter began with an overview of the scholarly debate on the supposed advantages of face-to-face over asynchronous tutorials, which highlighted a hierarchical dichotomy between these types of intervention. It revealed a value judgement resting on the premise that face-to-face tutorials are pedagogically sound for being student-centred and therefore non-directive/dialogic, whereas their asynchronous counterparts follow a compromised, assignment-centred paradigm, which is necessarily directive/monologic and, hence, flawed. Even those researchers and practitioners who seek to promote asynchronous tutorials as not entirely without merits seem to agree that their delivery format impedes student-tutor interaction and diminishes the possibility for genuine dialogue, which is essential for student learning. It is widely believed that this lack of dialogue is most conspicuous in the type of asynchronous tutorial where there is a single online exchange between tutor and student.

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Our analysis has sought to destabilise the dominant belief that saowts are necessarily directive and monologic by interrogating the core assumptions on which this belief rests as well as by examining current practices in online tutoring in one academic writing centre. Firstly, we have drawn a distinction between the notion of directive, monologic tutoring from that of an assignment-centred tutorial. While the theoretical orthodoxy in academic writing, as exemplified by Brooks (1991/2008), will have us believe that a consultation focusing on a student draft will inevitably result in a hierarchical one-way communication, from tutor to student, which will have little, if any, impact on the latter’s development as a writer, our analysis has demonstrated that communication in assignment-centred saowts is complex, multidimensional and aimed at engaging students’ critical thought and participation. Through employing a diverse set of approaches and strategies, such as questioning, suggesting, prompting and modelling, the writing tutors we interviewed are transforming a potentially one-sided pedagogical intervention into a polysemantic, dialogic experience that seeks to elicit an informed and measured response. Rather than impose an interpretation or a rule—which will be in keeping with a potentially monologic, writer-editor relationship—these tutors cultivate a dialogue, albeit in absentia, which is mediated through the assignment draft. Our findings regarding the dialogic aspects of asynchronous tutorials have important ramifications for training and staff development of academic writing tutors but also for the work of managers and stakeholders who set policies and shape the teaching and tutoring provision of academic writing. Tutors need to be alerted to the variety of feedback strategies capable of enhancing the efficiency of asynchronous exchanges and the learning experience of the students involved. They need to be reassured that students value the feedback received in asynchronous sessions and some even prefer it over feedback given face-toface, as it captures the success or failure of their assignments as self-sufficient communicative acts. This realisation should alleviate any anxiety individual tutors may feel about correctly interpreting the intended meaning of the student text because ultimately, a misperception on their part is far more symptomatic of the text’s viability as an autonomous message rather than of the readers’ interpretative skills. Furthermore, we have explored the implications of the spatial dimensions of written feedback generated in saowts and how these dimensions can impact on the feedback’s use and efficiency. We have argued that a simple formatting strategy, such as the use of parenthetical comments (for example Microsoft Word’s Comment “bubbles”) can be used to lay bare the complex process of meaning-making in written communication. By separating and juxtaposing the intended meaning of the student/writer and the perceived meaning of the

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tutor/reader, parenthetical comments demonstrate that utterances are constructed collaboratively between addresser and addressee. Finally, our exploration of saowts has demonstrated the importance of parenthetical comments as a feedback strategy for the teaching of critical thinking or, more precisely, critical writing in an academic context. Although our data furnished few examples of this pedagogical use, we would like to recommend it as a simple yet efficient way of modelling the meaning-making mechanism of academic texts. This use will recommend parenthetical comments as a feedback strategy in discipline-based modules in addition to different formats of academic writing instruction.

Reference List Bakhtin, M.M. (1979/1986). The problem of speech genres. In C. Emerson, & M. Holquist (Eds.), V.W. McGee (Trans.), Speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102). Austin, tx: University of Texas Press. Breuch, L.M.K., & Racine, S.J. (2000). Developing sound tutor training for online writing centers: Creating productive peer reviewers. Computers and Composition, 17, 245– 263. Brooks, J. (1991/2008). Minimalist tutoring: Making the student do all the work. In C. Murphy, & S. Sherwood (Eds.), The St. Martin’s sourcebook for writing tutors (3rd ed.) (pp. 168–173). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Buck, A.M. (2008). The invisible interface: ms Word in the writing center. Computers and Composition, 25, 396–415. Carlson, D.A., & Apperson-Williams, E. (2000). The anxieties of distance: Online tutors reflect. In J.A. Inman, & D.N. Sewell (Eds.), Taking flight with owls: Examining electronic writing center work (pp. 129–139). Mahwah, nj: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Castner, J. (2000). The asynchronous, online writing session: A two-way stab in the dark? In J.A. Inman, & D.N. Sewell (Eds.), Taking flight with owls: Examining electronic writing center work (pp. 119–128). Mahwah, nj: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. caw (2014). Centre for Academic Writing Mission Statement. Retrieved from: http://www .coventry.ac.uk/study-at-coventry/student-support/academic-support/centre-for -academic-writing/. Clark, K., & Holquist, M. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge, ma: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Coogan, D. (1995). E-mail tutoring, a new way to do new work. Computers and Composition, 12, 171–181. Cooper, G., Bui, K., & Riker, L. (2000/2008). Protocols and process in online tutoring. In

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C. Murphy, & S. Sherwood (Eds.), The St. Martin’s sourcebook for writing tutors (3rd ed.) (pp. 309–319). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Corbett, S. (2008). Tutoring styles, tutoring ethics: The continuing relevance of the directive/nondirective instructional debate. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 5(2). Retrieved from http://praxis.uwc.utexas.edu/praxisarchive/?q=node/200 Coventry University (n.d.). cu Centre for Academic Writing. Retrieved from http://www .coventry.ac.uk/study-at-coventry/student-support/academic-support/ centre-for-academic-writing/ Deane, M., & Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2012). Providing a hub for writing development: A profile of the Centre for Academic Writing (caw), Coventry University, England. In C. Thaiss, G. Bräuer, P. Carlino, L. Ganobcsik-Williams, & A. Sinha (Eds.), Writing programs worldwide: Profiles of academic writing in many places (pp. 189–201). Fort Collins, co: The wac Clearinghouse. Anderson: Parlor. Gillam, A.M. (1991). Writing Centre Ecology: A Bakhtinian perspective. Writing Center Journal, 11, 3–11. Harris, M. (1983). Modeling: A process method of teaching. College English, 45(1), 74–84. Lillis, T. (2011). Legitimizing dialogue as textual and ideological goal in academic writing for assessment and publication. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 10(4), 401–432. Ryan, L., & Zimmerelli, L. (2006). The Bedford guide for writing tutors (4th ed.). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Shamoon, L.K., & Burns, D.H. (1995/2008). A critique of pure tutoring. In C. Murphy, & S. Sherwood (Eds.), The St. Martin’s sourcebook for writing tutors (3rd ed.) (pp. 173–188). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Todorov, T. (1981/1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The dialogical principle. W. Godzich (Trans.), Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Voloshinov, V.N. (1930/1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. L. Matejka, & I.R. Titunik (Trans.) New York, ny: Seminar press.

part 2 Supporting Collaborative Writing

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chapter 4

Learning to Think and Write Together: Collaborative Synthesis Writing, Supported by a Script and a Video-based Model Carola Strobl

1

Introduction

Learning to write a synthesis from multiple source texts is important preparation for academic writing. At the same time, it is a challenging task that imposes a high cognitive load on student writers. It is hybrid, as it involves both reading and writing skills, and it is complex, both on content and language level. Regarding content, writers are required to elaborate and integrate information from multiple sources. The degree of elaboration is the key to understanding the sources (Solé, Miras, Castells, Espino, and Minguela, 2013), which, in turn, is a sine qua non for producing an effective synthesis. Untrained student writers, though, tend to display reproductive, rather than elaborative, patterns when writing from sources: They copy-paste source fragments in the given order, occasionally reformulating chunks, but rarely summarizing and combining ideas in their own words (Solé et al., 2013; Raedts, Rijlaarsdam, van Waes, and Daems, 2007). Regarding language use, the challenge for untrained student writers lies in the required focus on text level (coherence and cohesion), whereas they naturally tend to confine their attention to word or sentence level when writing and revising (Paulus, 1999; Baurmann, 2002). This tendency is even more prominent when students produce syntheses in a foreign language (l2) (Van Steendam, Rijlaarsdam, Sercu, and Van den Bergh, 2010). This chapter presents a promising approach to support the students effectively in the learning process of this complex writing task: A repeated collaboration in groups of three, scaffolded by a video model and a script.

Strobl, C. (2015). Learning to Think and Write Together: Collaborative Synthesis Writing, Supported by a Script and a Video-based Model. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 67–93). Leiden: Brill.

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A beneficial effect of peer collaboration on foreign language (l2) writing has been documented by various scholars for different tasks, proficiency levels, and settings (Elola and Oskoz, 2010; Kessler, Bikowski, and Boggs, 2012; Kost, 2011; Storch, 2005; Würffel, 2008). On a cognitive level, peer collaboration has been shown to foster reader-orientation (Blin and Appel, 2011; Würffel, 2008). On a metacognitive level, the benefit of collaboration lies in the raised awareness of effective strategy use (Würffel, 2008). Finally, there is also an affective bonus consisting in reduced anxiety of the individual writer through the shared responsibility for the outcome (Würffel, 2008). In l2 synthesis writing, two more important benefits can be added to the ones already mentioned: (a) Peer collaboration can help students to master the complexity of this task by pooling their linguistic (Storch, 2005) and cognitive resources; (b) Peer collaboration can help overcome the reproductive patterns observed in inexperienced synthesis writers because the setting creates an extrinsic need to exchange information about, and therefore cognitively engage with, the source information. For this collaboration to be effective, students need to be supported in the collaborative process (Slavin, 1992) and trained in peer feedback (Min, 2005). But what type of instructional support works best for this specific task and target public, that is, advanced foreign language students in higher education? Does this depend on the group’s proficiency level? These are the main questions of the empirical study described in this chapter. Two state-of-the-art instructional methods to support online collaboration are scripting and observational learning. Scripting is a well-researched instrument in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (cscl) (Fischer, Kollar, Mandl, and Haake, 2007). It has been stated that the main effect of a script consists of a better organization of the collaborative process (Rummel, Spada, and Hauser, 2009), and that it depends on group characteristics (Hämäläinen and Arvaja, 2009; Schellens and Valcke, 2000). Observational learning has been shown to foster effective results both for individual synthesis writing (Raedts et al., 2007), and for peer revision in l2 writing (Van Steendam et al., 2010). The present study provides evidence for the following hypotheses, building on previous scholarship on computer-supported collaborative learning (cscl) and collaborative l2 writing: 1. Instructional support leads to a higher interaction density which translates to a better outcome, both in terms of content elaboration (Rummel et al., 2009) and in terms of language accuracy (De la Colina and García Mayo, 2007). 2. Instructional support leads to a better coordination of the collaborative process (Rummel and Spada, 2007).

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3. Observational learning leads to increased amounts and, to a lesser degree, to diversification of peer feedback (Van Steendam et al., 2010). More discussions and editing activities regarding both text level concerns and word or sentence level concerns take place after students have observed the model. 4. Both model and script exemplify successful collaboration and writing strategies which some high-proficiency learners already use. Nonetheless, the high-proficiency student groups also benefited from the instructional support, albeit more to reinforce the strategies they already used.

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Study Design

To measure the effect of both instructional support methods on computer supported collaborative synthesis writing, a three-week intervention study was carried out in an l2 writing class at a university college (see flowchart in figure 4.1 for an overview of the intervention and the task set-up). The participants (n = 42) are third-year bachelor students of an applied languages program including German l2. All are Dutch native speakers with an advanced language proficiency for German (b2-c1 of the Common European Framework).1 To tackle the effect of proficiency level, the students were grouped in triads based on pre-test results into low-proficiency groups (ngroups = 3), high-proficiency groups (ngroups = 3), and mixed-proficiency groups (ngroups = 8). Each week, the students wrote a synthesis in German in these collaborative groups of three in class. They had 90 minutes on average to perform this task,

figure 4.1 Flowchart of the intervention (left), and of the task structure in each session (right)

1 Correspond with actfl Proficiency Guidelines levels ‘Advanced mid’ and ‘Advanced high’.

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figure 4.2 Screenshot from the model video illustrating communication channels in Google Docs: the collaborative text on the left, the comments in the middle, and the chat on the right

which consisted in synthesizing the information of three popular scientific texts on a common topic in one collaborative text. Each week, a different topic was chosen, all relating to language variation. Before actually writing the synthesis, the main ideas of the three source texts had to be summarized. This part of the task was carried out individually, following the Jigsaw concept: each student only read one source text and was held ‘responsible’ for summarizing its main ideas. This way, the individual commitment of all group members, which is a hallmark for effective collaboration, was ensured. At the same time, this information gap serves as extrinsic motivation to elaborate the content of the source texts through negotiating meaning. After all, every group member needs to get the gist of all source texts in order to proceed with the task. The students used a text editor for the individual part of the task and an online document sharing and versioning tool, Google Docs, for collaborative synthesis writing. Google Docs allows for synchronous interaction in a text and provides communication facilities that match the different types of interactions occurring during text elaboration (see screenshot in figure 4.2): The chat lends itself to interactions of quick consensus building, like work flow discussions, whereas the comments, that are linked to a highlighted section in the running text, allow for in-depth discussions related to specific parts of the text, regarding both content and language use. In session 1 (‘no scaffold session’), all students received a short introduction to peer collaboration using Google Docs facilities, but were given no further

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instructions on how to proceed with the collaborative task. In the two subsequent weeks, instructional support was provided through a model and a script: In session 2 (‘model session’), the students watched a screencast video depicting a collaboration model prior to engaging in their own task. This 13minutes-video shows a collaborative synthesis writing process conducted by a dummy peer group. Crucial moments of the planning, writing, and revising processes are modelled, including commonly occurring problems. In session 3 (‘script session’), the students received a macro-script (Dillenbourg and Jermann, 2007) that lists six process steps, including recommendations on the expected outcome, the tool to be used, and the time to be spent on each step. All writing sessions were recorded and analysed using the screencast software Morae that allows for customized coding of process phases and single actions. These recordings were analysed using a mixed-methods approach: A quantitative approach is used to detect patterns in the collaboration of all groups in terms of the development of intensity and efficiency. The qualitative approach, zooming in on the interaction of three randomly selected groups, grants an insight into the effectiveness of the collaboration process.

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Results: Collaboration Efficiency and Intensity

3.1 Development of Collaboration Efficiency in Terms of Work Flow One of the major challenges for all groups was time efficiency, as they had to accomplish the task within approximately 90 minutes. In order to reveal how groups organized their collaboration to meet this time limit, the task phases were coded and their duration was measured. The coding was based on the steps that were recommended in the script and depicted in the model (see table 4.1). table 4.1

Task phases used for work flow coding

Nr. Short description 1 2 3 4 5

Phase

Individual summary of one source text } Planning Collaborative content discussion and synthesis planning Individual writing of a synthesis fragment } Writing Collaborative integration of the fragments Collaborative revision of the final text Revising

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figure 4.3 Time on task per phase—Mean of all groups per session of approximately 90 minutes (in minutes)

As the steps were only revealed in sessions 2 and 3, the triads developed their own work flow in the first session, which explains the occurrence of hybrid phases covering more than one of the task steps. Figure 4.3 gives an overview of the mean time spent on the task steps in each writing session. The time spent on the first individual preparatory phase, the summary of one source text, was reduced by one third on average in the scaffolded sessions (mean 1st session: 42.16 min > mean 2nd + 3rd sessions: 27.33 min). The model played an important role here: In the first session, 43 % of the students wrote out a fully elaborated text summary of their source. After watching the model, all but four students followed the depicted strategy, jotting down the main ideas of the source text in numbered bullets. Conversely, the groups dedicated a lot more time to the second planning phase, the collaborative content discussion and selection after viewing the model. No group engaged in a final collaborative revision in the first session. In fact, most groups did not even get as far as integrating their individual fragments into a collaborative text. Besides inefficienttime management and work flow—most groups tried to combine phases 2–4 in their Google Doc which led to rather chaotic synchronous planning and writing—an additional hindering factor was the fact that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the students had to finish the task in 70, instead of 90, minutes in this session. The quality of the few syntheses that effectively were completed in the no scaffold session was rather poor. Groups basically cut-and-pasted their individual summaries into one piece without integrating them at content or language level. Furthermore, figure 4.3 shows a trend towards a greater diversification of the task phases in the scaffolded sessions, especially in the script session. Not only did the groups start earlier to actually write the synthesis (phases 3 + 4), the different task phases are clearly distinguishable in the work flow. This indicates that the steps modelled in the video, and explicitly written out in the script,

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were effectively followed. The script seems to have had a decisive impact on the task organization. It was only then that all triads finished their syntheses, and most triads revised their texts in a collaborative effort. This result should be qualified by saying that they were allowed an additional 10 minutes in the script session, a deliberate measure to facilitate collaborative revision, which, after all, forms part of the research focus. Other factors which might have contributed to the improvement of work flow, are a learning-by-doing effect and a cumulative effect. Indeed, based on quantitative data exclusively, it is difficult to discern whether the improvement was mainly an effect of the scaffolding mechanisms. Qualitative introspection in the next section, though, provides evidence for the high impact of pedagogical support. Another interesting observation concerns the workflow of the groups according to proficiency. The high-proficiency groups already split the tasks in up to four phases in the no scaffold session, whereas in the other groups, only two (hybrid) phases can be distinguished, except for one mixed-proficiency group with three phases. This difference is less prominent in the model and script sessions, which indicates that the low- and mixed-proficiency groups benefited more from the scaffolding in terms of work flow. 3.2

Development of Collaboration Intensity in Terms of Interaction Density In order to quantitatively measure collaboration intensity, the communication of the groups in two different channels was examined: (1) All chat turns were counted and classified according to their main focus on (a) work flow, (b) content, or (c) socializing, and (2) all comments were counted and classified according to their focus on (a) lower-order concerns (loc), that is, discussions about issues concerning word or sentence level, such as lexical and grammar problems, or (b) higher-order concerns (hoc), that is, discussions on text level. The hoc discussions, in turn, were subdivided into content-related issues (hoc1) and issues related to coherence and cohesion (hoc2). The bar chart in figure 4.4 provides an overview of chat usage in all groups. Chat related to work flow issues (for example, information about individual task step progress or discussions about the next step) is represented by the dotted columns, content-related chat (for example, discussions about the outline of the synthesis) by the black columns, and socializing chat (for example, building group spirit) by the striped columns. Overall, a considerable increase in chat usage can be observed in the model and script sessions compared to the no scaffold session. Work flow communication increased by more than 60 % in the model session, and remained stable in the script session. Content communication in the chat even doubled after viewing the model, and contin-

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figure 4.4 Number of chat turns per session, means of all groups

ued to increase slightly in the script session. The development of collaboration intensity through chat varied considerably between triads (for more details, see appendix 1). While in some triads, chat usage remained relatively stable throughout the three sessions, in others, observing the model literally led to a communication explosion in the chat. A decrease of chat usage in session 3 in six triads was related to a diminishing need to discuss work flow. The second quantitative instrument to measure collaboration intensity is the comments that students gave on the collaborative text emerging in the Google Doc. For this analysis (see figure 4.5), only the original threats were counted, irrespective of the number of responses they triggered. All comments related to content or language, and were used predominantly in two specific task phases. In task phase 2 (elaboration of the outline), comments were often used to verify the meaning of a concept or wording, and to discuss the relevance of specific information for the common synthesis (these content discussions were labelled hoc1). In task phases 4 and 5, they were predominantly used for revision purposes, either to discuss the sequence of text fragments (coherence) and the lexical links between them (cohesion) (labelled hoc2), or to discuss language use at the surface structure regarding vocabulary, grammar, or punctuation (labelled loc). In the no scaffold session, comments were scarcely used, although their function had been exemplified beforehand. In the model session, comment usage shows an exponential growth (loc: x 3.5, hoc1: x 3.1, hoc2: x 1.2). Interestingly, in the script session, the amount of comments related to content continued to grow by a factor of .8, whereas the communication intensity regarding hoc2 and loc was not affected by the script. This corroborates the

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figure 4.5 Number of comments per session, means of all groups

chat results. In both communication channels, content discussions increased throughout the collaborative writing experience. This result indicates that the students grew more aware of the importance of content elaboration and selection for synthesis writing in the course of the intervention study. Again, this might as well be mirroring a learning-by-doing effect. However, there is a clear indication of the model effect. Some groups hardly used any comments (if at all) in the no scaffold session (for more details, see appendix 2). All but one of these groups, however, did communicate lively via chat in this session. This indicates that they had not discovered the advantage of using the two channels for different communication purposes. After watching the model, all groups engaged in discussions via comment and chat. 3.3 Results of the Quantitative Analysis To conclude, the quantitative analysis led to the following insights: 1. Scaffolding had a clear bearing on effective work flow organization. This was more prominent in the low-proficiency and mixed-proficiency triads than in the high-proficiency ones; 2. Collaboration density increased considerably after watching the model video, irrespective of triad composition according to proficiency; 3. Collaboration density for both loc and hoc issues increased to a similar extent throughout the sessions; 4. The number of content discussions increased throughout the sessions, indicating a growing awareness of the importance of content elaboration for synthesis writing.

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figure 4.6 Data sources used in the qualitative analysis of collaboration effectiveness

Using quantitative analysis, it was possible to detect significant tendencies in the development of online collaborative writing processes thanks to the impact of scaffolding mechanisms. However, there are some open questions. How exactly do script and video model benefit the work flow process? Does increasing collaboration intensity translate to effectiveness, that is, a deeper elaboration leading to a better content selection and/or more instances of peer revision, leading to a higher text quality? To answer these questions, we rely on qualitative data which will be provided in the following section of this chapter.

4

“You Use the Konjunktiv Here out of the Blue”: Qualitative Insight into Collaboration Effectiveness

For a detailed qualitative analysis of group interactions, three triads, each representing one of the composition types (one low-proficiency, one highproficiency, and one mixed-proficiency triad), were randomly selected. All interactions contributing to the text genesis including chat, comments, and revisions, were transcribed and connected in an interaction protocol (see figure 4.6 for an overview of the data used in the qualitative analysis). As a theoretical background for the analysis of the group interaction, the framework of Meier et al. (Meier, Spada, and Rummel 2007) was found to be helpful. The authors established a rating scheme for a quality analysis of online collaboration consisting of nine dimensions, which they bundled into five basic aspects: good online collaboration requires good communication and coordination management, strategies for joint information processing, and the interpersonal skills needed to build a (working) relationship and maintain task

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motivation high. In the present analysis, Meier et al.’s dimensions (Meier et al., 2007, p. 68) were used as a background for the selection of critical episodes that provide evidence for the effect of instructional support. These episodes relate to the following aspects of collaboration: (1) efficient task coordination and (2) interaction effectiveness, translating to (2a) deep content elaboration, and (2b) text improvement through successful peer-induced revisions. In addition, data from the questionnaires administered in the course of the intervention were used to triangulate the interaction protocol data where appropriate. In the discussion of the selected episodes, the aspects and dimensions of the Meier et al. (2007) framework are italicised. All discussed episodes are listed in appendix 3. Quotes from the questionnaires are presented in the running text, directly translated into English. 4.1 Episodes of Efficient Task Coordination Two sequences of critical episodes were selected to demonstrate how coordination induced by the model and the script leads to better task division and time management. Episode 1 (see appendix 3.1) originates from the high-proficiency group interaction in the no-scaffold and in the model session. It shows that, while in the former, good individual attempts of coordination were already present, the group only gains confidence in their work flow management through the video model as common ground, to which they explicitly refer several times. This development is supported by their statements in the questionnaire administered after the model session: I actually knew beforehand that this was the best way to do it but it was difficult to carry out until everyone had seen the model (questionnaire excerpt) For me, the model was really necessary to collaborate efficiently. Last week we tried to find our own way which caused uncertainty and stress. The model made us feel more secure, it worked like a fallback. We saved a lot of time by following the modelled steps. (questionnaire excerpt) In many groups, one member tacitly took on the role of time guardian. The time guardians interfered when difference in work pace threatened to thwart the task progress. The script seems to be of great help here, because the time guardians used it as backing for their reminders, as two episode sequences from two mixed-proficiency groups exemplify (see appendix 3.2). In episode 2b, one group member explicitly appealed to the individual task orientation of her peers:

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I really would like to finish the task this time, it’s not impossible but everybody has to stay focused on the task To conclude, the episodes discussed in this section show that both script and model helped coordinate the work flow (r7), and that this was the case for all groups under analysis, including the high-proficiency one (r8). The added value of the script was the time indications that worked as a fall-back. 4.2 Episodes of Interaction Effectiveness 1: Deep Content Elaboration Episodes 3 and 4 (see appendices 4.3 and 4.4) illustrate how joint information processing following the model video leads to deep content elaboration in different groups and at different stages of the collaborative process. Episode 3 relates to grounding processes to sustain mutual understanding in a high-proficiency group. The participants discuss the individual summaries they have just pasted in the common Google Doc to make sure everyone gets the gist of each other’s source texts and to prepare the content selection. An interesting aside of this episode is the evidence of a constructive interpersonal relationship. Two group members try to help and encourage the third who seems overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Episode 4 illustrates the joint effort to create an outline for the synthesis. After having reached consensus on a rough structure, the students discuss a possible conclusion. In doing so, they interact as equals in the solution process thanks to their high individual task orientation. Inappropriate ideas are discarded in a non-face-threatening way, and a consensus is reached by combining several individual suggestions. The two selected episodes in this section demonstrate that good collaboration copying the model leads to deep content elaboration by joint information processing. The group members interact as equals, contributing to the consensus by giving constructive critique and by suggesting solutions. 4.3 Episodes of Interaction Effectiveness 2: Successful Revision Sequences To gain an overview of the revisions carried out in the three sessions by the three selected groups, some quantitative results are listed below. The revisions under investigation are those made in the collaborative text in phases 4 and 5 of the task process. Table 4.2 reveals inter-group variance in some aspects that might be attributed to proficiency. With regard to origination, the highest number of peerinduced revisions was observed in the high-proficiency group. This might be attributable to their high self-efficacy beliefs in their writing skills. The participants of this group rated the corresponding statements (in the pre-hoc ques-

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Revision analysis for three selected groups

Aspect

Revisions measured

h2 (low-proficiency)

h4 (high-proficiency)

h11 (mixed-proficiency)

Intensity Origination Focus Success

Total number Peer-induced hoc-related Successful

11 7 (64%) 5 (45%) 8 (73%)

18 14 (78%) 10 (56%) 16 (89%)

18 7 (39%) 8 (44%) 12 (67%)

tionnaire2) on average 1 to 1.5 (out of 5 on a Likert-scale) higher than the other two groups. Also, the percentage of successful revisions is higher in the highproficiency group than in the other two. The difference in revision intensity is due to the fact that the low-proficiency group only reached the revision phase in the script session, whereas the other two groups revised their texts in the model and in the script session. In the no-scaffold session, no collaborative revision took place. There are no salient differences between the three groups in terms of revision focus. To conclude, the high-proficiency group seems to have profited most from the collaboration in terms of revision. On a cautionary note, it has to be stated that since the total number of analysed revisions is low, the tendencies observed have to be corroborated by a larger revision corpus in order to allow for generalizing statements. In the following, two episodes are presented to illustrate the effect of joint information processing on text quality through successful peer-induced revision. Episode 5 (see appendix 3.5) refers to a hoc revision concerning a quotation in a low-proficiency group. Apart from cohesion improvement, this interaction led to a clear learning effect, as one group member realized that using a conjunctive form without actually referencing the source does not make sense. The second hoc revision episode (see appendix 3.6) originates from the end of the revision phase in a high-proficiency group. As they realized that their synthesis exceeded the 450 words limit, they engaged in a lively debate about which propositions to eliminate, concentrating on the examples. One group

2 English translation of the statements to be rated (from Dutch original): “I believe I can write a well-structured / fluent / accurate text on a complex subject in German”

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member tried to defend ‘her’ examples at first, but was finally persuaded by the convincing arguments of her peer. The revision overview and the selected episodes provide evidence for the positive influence of the so-called ‘pooling of knowledge about language’ (Storch, 2005), as well as the pooling of cognitive resources on the final text quality. Indeed, factual and linguistic errors are detected, and coherence, cohesion, and lexical choices are improved by critical peer observations. Although the high-proficiency group seems to have benefited most from peer-induced revision, episodes from the other two groups show that this benefit is not necessarily dependent on proficiency.

5

Conclusions and Recommendations

The study reveals the usefulness of both scripting and observational learning as instructional support methods for online collaborative synthesis writing in higher education. The quantitative analysis supports most of the posited hypotheses regarding collaboration intensity and efficiency, and the episodes selected from the qualitative analysis provide evidence for the effectiveness of collaboration. Results from the questionnaires corroborate the benefits of scaffolding for this collaborative writing task. Students rated the usefulness of both instructional support instruments high. The video model, that is, the first instrument, was rated 4.1 (on a scale of 5), and the script was rated 3.65. Students specifically mentioned the high usefulness of the video due to the immediacy of the model. Positive aspects of the script that were reported include the clear sequencing of the work steps and the time indications. The somewhat lower overall satisfaction rate for the script might be attributed to an effect of ‘overscaffolding’, expanding Dillenbourg’s concept of ‘over-scripting’ (Dillenbourg, 2002), as this was the second scaffold instrument administered in a row. Given that both instruments have their strengths, it seems nonetheless recommendable to administer them both, if possible at the same time: Students could watch the model prior to engaging in the task, and have the script as a fallback at hand while executing it. Drawing on Mauri and Onrubia’s suggestion (this volume), another possibility would be to allow students to choose the scaffolding instrument for themselves, according to their individual preference for concrete visual aid including examples (the model) vs. abstract guidelines (the script). What remains unanswered in the presented setting is the question whether the sequence of the two scaffold instruments played a role in their uptake by

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the students. This will be explored with a second data set where the sequence was switched to a ‘script-first condition’. Another interesting question to be explored is: To what extent has a ‘learning by doing’ effect played a role, in addition to the instructional support, in the development of the collaborative process? In order to answer this question, at least two consecutive sessions without support in a control group would be required. Though interesting from a scholarly point of view, this seems to be daunting in terms of motivation. In some groups, the lack of support in session 1 led to disbelief and even bewilderment, as a chat contribution in one triad evidences: ‘How are we supposed to go along with this? This is just impossible’. As the task in itself is complex, and students are usually not familiar with online collaboration, it is strongly recommended to provide them maximum support in this process. The most noticeable, and important, effect of the training sequence was the enduring increase of attention to content throughout the intervention. Students realized that content elaboration plays a key role in synthesis writing. The following statement by a student in the post-hoc focus group interview is a case in point: ‘I have learnt to focus more on content. First read the whole text and don’t start to summarize the first paragraph directly. First find out what’s it all about actually.’ This is the stepping stone needed to move away from unreflecting verbatim copying of original source texts to elaboration and subsequent reformulation of content.

List of Abbreviations Used l2 Foreign language hoc higher-order concern loc lower-order concern cscl Computer-supported collaborative learning

Appendix 1 Chat Usage per Session per Group (Number of Turns) The chart (see figure 4.7) provides insight into the difference in chat usage between the triads. The triad id numbers are followed by a letter indicating their composition regarding proficiency (l = low-proficiency group, h = high-proficiency group, m = mixed-proficiency group). While in some triads, chat usage remained relatively stable throughout the three sessions (H2l, H8h), in others, observing the model literally led to a communication explosion in the chat that sometimes even progressed in the

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figure 4.7 Chat usage per session per group (number of turns)

script session (H9l, H10m, H13m, H14m), and sometimes was followed by a decrease (H5m, H6m). Data inspection reveals that the decrease of chat usage in the scripted session in six triads (H1l, H4h, H8h, H5m, H6m, H12m) is mainly caused by diminishing conversations about work flow. 2 Comment Usage per Session per Group (Number of Original Threads) The chart provides insight into the difference in comment usage between the triads. The triad id numbers are followed by a letter indicating their composition regarding proficiency (l = low-proficiency group, h = high-proficiency group, m = mixedproficiency group). Some triads did not use comments (nearly) at all in the no scaffold session (H9l, H8h, H6m, H12m). All but one (H6m) of these triads, however, did communicate lively via chat in this session. This indicates that they had not discovered the advantage of using the two channels for different communication purposes. After watching the model, all triads engaged in discussions via comment and chat. Again, in line with chat usage, some triads still intensified the exchange of comments in the scripted session (H8a, H6m, H12m), whereas in other triads, the amount of comments remained stable (H9l, H3h, H4h, H7m, H13m) respectively dropped to a noticeably lower level (H1l, H2l).

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figure 4.8 Comment usage per session per group (number of original threads)

3 Episodes from Interaction Protocols The first column contains the unique reference code of the communication turn in the interaction protocol, starting either with “c” for “chat” or “k” for “comment”. The code in the second column refers to the participant’s identity, also used between brackets to anonymize the names in the conversation. The third column contains the episode in the original language (mostly Dutch3 interspersed with German and occasionally English), followed by the translation to English in the forth column (in italics, apart from the fragments originally written in German and English). 3.1

Episode 1: High-Proficiency Group Gaining Confidence in Workflow Management through Observational Learning Part 1a No scaffold session, after reading the individual source texts c12 c13

4b 4a

Ik heb een ideetje zeg maar :)

I’ve got an idea shoot :)

3 The linguistic standard variety quite often is blended with—or even replaced by—Flemish youth sociolect typically used in online communication, displaying a lot of dialectal influences, characteristic abbreviations and emoticons.

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c14

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c15

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Als we nu es allemaal gewoon per alinea heel kort zeggen waarover het gaat, in een paar stichwörter, in googledocs, maar heel kort hé. En dan kijken we wat we kunnen pakken van elkaar en wat we aan elkaar kunnen linken en wat we kunnen weglaten … wat denken jullie? of is er een andere en rappere manier? ja is goed

If we now just all of us would say what’s the gist of each paragraph, in a few stichwörter [keywords], in googledocs, but really short alright. And then we’ll see what we can take from each other’s sources and what can be linked and what can be left out … what do you think? or is there any other or faster way to do it? yeah seems ok

Part 1b Model session, several episodes throughout phase 2 c01 c02 c03

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Hey! ’k Stel voor dat we het doen zoals in de video? 4c Ja best zeker ;) 4a Ja natuurlijk :) Dus, waarover gaat jullie tekst? (…) 4b ok; dus nu beschrijft iedereen z’n puntjes tamelijk uitgebreid maar toch niet te ;) 4c Oké in Word en dan plakken hierin [in the Google Doc] (…) 4b Misschien moet ieder nu voor zich eerst eens uitdenken hoe we de tekst gaan verdelen, welke 3 punten we gaan nemen zoals in de video? En dan kunnen we gaan kijken welke punten er bij passen? (…) 4b ok dus nu alle puntjes van onze eigen tekst onder de hoofdpunten slepen? Of hoe deden ze dat in de video?

Hey! I suggest we do it like in the video? Yep seems the best ;) Yes of course :) So, what’s your texts about? (…) ok; now everyone describes her main ideas in detail but not too ;) Okay in Word and then we paste it here [in the Google Doc] (…) Perhaps everyone has to come up with an idea about how we could divide the text, what 3 main topics we will have, like in the video? And then we can see which propositions fit in? (…) ok so now we drag all the items from our own text under the respective headers? Or how did they do it in the video?

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Episode Sequences 2a and 2b: Using the Script as Backing for Time Management 2a Low-proficiency group, starting phase 2 in script session c22

2a

zijn jullie ook bijna klaar? Volgens het schema zijn we al 7 min over tijd :p

are you nearly done as well? According to the script we’re running 7 min late :p

2b Several reminders by a time guardian of a mixed-proficiency group growing desperate in the course of the script session c32 c35

c39 c44

12b [12c], hoe lang nog? :) (…) 12b Je bent al bijna een kwartier over de tijd [12c] … (…) 12b Timemanagement, [12c] … :p (…) 12b Om 14u25, binnen een minuut dus, zouden we al moeten het skelett verdeeld hebben en schrijven aan ons stukje ik wil het echt eens proberen klaar hebben, ’t is niet onmogelijk, alleen moet er doorgewerkt worden

[12c], how long to go? :) (…) you are running nearly 15 min late [12c] … (…) time management, [12c] … :p (…) at 14.25, i.e. in one minute, we should have divided the skelett [enriched outline] and start writing on our individual fragments. I really would like to finish the task this time, it’s not impossible but everybody has to stay focused on the task

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3.3

c01

c02

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c04

Episode 3: Joint Information Processing in a High-Proficiency Group in Order to Get the Gist of Source Texts4 4a

Hey :) In mijn tekst staan veel voorbeelden uit verschillende thema’s (bv. groente), maar volgens mij zijn die niet zo belangrijk en kunnen die weggelaten worden. Het is zo bij alinea 1, 2, 3, 5, en 6. Heb ze soms niet in mijn samenvatting vermeld, maar bij vb. 1 kon ik niet anders want behalve voorbeelden staat er niets anders in 4b Ok dus [4a]: jouw tekst gaat er (heel algemeen) over dat het Oostenrijks Duits verdwijnt? Mijn tekst gaat erover dat Oostenrijkse woorden wel behouden worden en niet moesten veranderen toen ze bij de eu kwamen (dus in tegenstelling tot jouw tekst) en dat het Oostenrijks geen aparte taal is maar gewoon een variant, een deel van een Sprachraum maar dat het wel zijn eigen identiteit heeft 4a Ja. Er zijn veel voorbeelden en er komen enkele “wetenschappers” aan het woord, vooral die Wiesinger is belangrijk (komt twee keer voor) en ook Sedlaczek die dat boek geschreven heeft 4c Sorry, maar ik begrijp echt niet veel van mijn tekst …

Hey :) My text contains a lot of examples from different topics (e.g. vegetables), but I don’t think they are important and we can just leave them out. This is the case for paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. I sometimes did not mention them in my summary, but couldn’t avoid it in 1 because it consists of only examples ok so [4a]: your text is (mainly) about the disappearance of the Austrian German language? My text says that Austrian terms were conserved and did not change with the integration into the eu (so this opposes what’s said in your text) and that Austrian German is not a language in its own right but just a variety, a part of a Sprachraum [language area] but that it has its own identity Yes. Lots of examples, and some quotes of “researchers”, especially that Wiesinger seems to be important (is mentioned twice) and also Sedlaczek who wrote that book sorry, but I really don’t get the gist of my text …

4 The overarching topic of the three source texts is the development of the Austrian German language variety in the light of globalization, more specifically, the political integration in the eu and the influence of German media.

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Ja bij mij staat er ook dat het een Variant is, maar door de invloed van de media en boeken (die allemaal in het Hochdeutsch vertaald worden) verdwijnen de typisch Oostenrijkse woorden Bij mij gaat het er dus over dat het Österreichische Deutsch verdrängt wird en dat sommige daar niets tegen hebben en andere wel dat men niet alleen moet blijven bij zijn eigen taal en dus volledig gesloten moet zijn, maar dat men ook moet open staan om andere talen te leren ja je interpreteert het goed hoor [4c]! Maar er zijn precies allemaal verschillende onderwerpen en ik zie geen samenhang Zoals ik kan zijn uit jouw samenvatting gaat het erover dat ze het Oostenrijks Duits wat willen beschermen omdat het ook een identiteit, een stuk “eigen” is, maar dat je ook moet openstaan voor nieuwe dingen en dat je Oostenrijks niet als een taal mag zien, maar je ook moet openstaan voor andere dingen ja idd

my text also says that it’s a variety, but the typical Austrian terms disappear due to the influence of the media and books (that are all translated into Hochdeutsch [standard German]) my text says that Österreichische Deutsch verdrängt wird [Austrian German is being replaced], and that some don’t mind it but others do that you shouldn’t stick to your own language and seclude yourself, but you should be open to learn other languages yes your interpretation is good, [4c]! but they are all different topics, and I don’t see how they are related what I can get from your summary is that they want to somehow preserve Austrian German because it is also an identity, something “of their own”, but at the same time one should be open to new things as well, and don’t regard Austrian German as one language, but you have to be open to other things yes that’s right

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c41

11c ok :) dus we hebben 1. inleiding, 2. waar het od goed voor is en wat er gedaan is om het od te beschermen en 3. waardoor het od verdwijnt?

c42 c43

11b fine by me 11a ok spreken we af wie wat uitschrijft? 11c zijn er nog dingen die erbij horen en die nog niet in die 3 puntjes passen? 11b + we moeten nog weten wat we als slot gaan zeggen (…) 11a als slot kunnen we zeggen dat elke dialect voor elk volk belangrijk is en dat het ins ons geval dus van belang is dat od niet zomaar verdwijnt kunnen we dat zeggen?

c44

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c48

c49 c50 c51

11b staat dat in je tekst? 11a nee, daarom dat ik aan het twijfelen ben :p 11c Misschien kunnen we een zin van mij daarin steken in die conclusie en weglaten uit de middentekst? Das Eigene = was die Leute sprechen, beiseitegeschieben [sic]= einen Teil der Bevölkering [sic] verdrängen.

ok :) so we have 1. introduction, 2. what Austrian German is good for and what has been done to preserve it and 3. what are the reasons for it disappearing? fine by me ok shall we distribute the parts? any items left that are important and that don’t fit under these 3 headers? + we still need to know what to put in the conclusion to conclude we could say that every dialect is important for its speakers and that in our case it is therefore important that Austrian German does not just disappear can we say that? does this come from your text? no, that’s why I am in doubt :p Perhaps we could transfer one of my propositions to the conclusion, and omit it from the text body? Das Eigene = was die Leute sprechen, beiseitegeschieben = einen Teil der Bevölkering verdrängen. [The idiosyncratic = how people speak, eliminate = crowd out a part of the population]

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11b kversta de zin niet :D in mijn slot staat er dat niet alle woorden al verduitst zijn dat er ook nog woorden zijn die niet wegraken 11a Zusammenfassend sei festgestellt, dass, wie schon zuvor erwähnt, Sprache Identität verleiht dat is mijn slot

c54

11c und wenn man die Sprache verdrängt, verdrängt man auch einen Teil der Bevölkerung

c55

11b schöne [sic]

3.5

I don’t understand this sentence :D in my conclusion it says that not all words have been Germanized that there are still some words that haven’t been replaced Zusammenfassend sei festgestellt, dass, wie schon zuvor erwähnt, Sprache Identität verleiht [To conclude, one can state that, as mentioned before, language provides identity] that’s my conclusion und wenn man die Sprache verdrängt, verdrängt man auch einen Teil der Bevölkerung [and when you eliminate the language, you also crowd out a part of the population] schöne [nice one]

Episode 5: Learning to Quote Correctly through Peer Assistance in a Low-Proficiency Group

k11 k12

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(waarom hier een konjunktiv?) Omdat het de hele tijd Rudolf is die spreekt, die wetenschapper. Mss niet nodig hier maar kweetniet, kvind da nog leuk om te gebruiken :p Oké maar waar staat die zijn naam ergens? Die zeg ik nergens … hebben jullie ook wetenschappers die dat allemaal zeggen? Bij mij soms eens ene ma dat gaat dan om een onderzoek dat niet belangrijk is. Ik zou zijn naam er zeker bijzetten! Anders gebruik je die konjunktiv zomaar …

(why a konjunktiv here?) Because it’s Rudolf, this researcher, who talks the whole time. Perhaps it’s not really necessary here but I don’t know I just like to use it :p Okay but did you mention his name anywhere? No I didn’t … do you two also have researchers who say all that stuff? In my text sometime there is one but then it’s about an investigation that doesn’t matter. I really think you should mention his name! Otherwise you use the konjunktiv here out of the blue …

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Episode 6: Synchronous Use of Chat and Comment to Decide upon Elimination of Examples in a High-Proficiency Group This episode also illustrates the synchronous use of two different channels for different communicative goals, yet related to the same topic: The chat (= turn codes starting with c) is used for workflow organization, whereas the content is discussed in the comments section (= turn codes starting with k). c60

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k18* 4b k19 4b k20 4a k21 k22

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vlug eerst es kijken hoeveel woorden we al hebben damn 536 :s dus: iedereen leest nu alles na en geeft een opmerking als er een fout staat, of als er iets weg kan! mss kunnen we dit weglaten?** of samen met vorige zin neen da’s redelijk belangrijk, da’s zo’n Pseudoanglizismus ahja juist ok hmmm:p misschien dit ook inkorten? Het zijn voorbeelden … *** ja kan ik wegdoen Ja idd, ik zou ook alle voorbeelden weglaten mss deze voorbeelden ook weg? **

let’s first have a quick look at the word count damn 536 :s so: everyone reads through everything and comments on errors or things that can be left out! perhaps we can cut this one?** or join it with the previous sentence no, this is quite important, it’s a pseudo-Anglicism oh yes right ok hmmm:p perhaps shorten also these? They are examples …*** yes I can cut them Yes indeed, I’d also leave out all examples perhaps these examples can also go? ** Ik heb die erbij gezet omdat het I put them in there because volgens mij anders niet duidelijk is otherwise I think it’s not clear what it waarover het gaat (ik verstond het is about (at least I didn’t understand alleszins niet zonder). Maar wat it without). But what do you think? denken jullie? Verstaan jullie het Do you understand the point without zonder voorbeelden? Of mss eentje the examples? Or perhaps cut one of van de twee weglaten? the two? ja alles is natuurlijk duidelijker Yes of course everything is clearer met voorbeelden, dat had ik in with examples, I felt the same way mijn tekst ook :s We zullen ze er with my text :s We shall leave them in voorlopig laten staan en kijken by now and count the words again naar het aantal woorden en als and if the’re still too many in the end, we er nog te veel hebben, ze op we’ll cut them het einde weg 492 woorden 492 words

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4b

[4a], jouw voorbeelden gaan wegmoeten :( sorry … Maar kdenk dat dat het meeste woorden al kan schrappen

[4a], your examples have to go :( sorry … but I think that this will eliminate the biggest chunk

* switch of communication channel ** highlighting a fragment in [4a]’s contribution *** highlighting a fragment in [4b]’s contribution

References Baurmann, J. (2002). Schreiben—Überarbeiten—Beurteilen. Ein Arbeitsbuch zur Schreibdidaktik [Writing—Revising—Assessing. A handbook for writing pedagogy]. Seelze: Kallmeyer. Blin, F., & Appel, C. (2011). Computer supported collaborative writing in practice: An activity theoretical study. calico Journal, 28(2), 473–497. doi:10.11139/cj.28.2.473– 497 De la Colina, A.A., & García Mayo, M. d. P. (2007). Attention to form across collaborative tasks by low-proficiency learners in an efl setting. In M. d. P. García Mayo (Ed.), Investigating tasks in formal language learning (pp. 91–116). Clevedon ny Ontario: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Dillenbourg, P. (2002). Over-scripting cscl: The risks of blending collaborative learning with instructional design. In P.A. Kirschner (Ed.), Three worlds of cscl: Can we support cscl? (pp. 61–92). Heerlen: Open Universiteit Nederland. Dillenbourg, P., & Jermann, P. (2007). Designing integrative scripts. In F. Fischer, I. Kollar, H. Mandl, & J.M. Haake (Eds.), Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning. Cognitive, computational and educational perspectives (pp. 275–301). New York, ny: Springer us. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-36949-5_16 Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2010). Collaborative writing: Fostering foreign language and writing conventions development. Language Learning and Technology, 14(3): 51–71. Fischer, F., Kollar, I., Mandl, H., & Haake, J.M. (Eds.) (2007). Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning. Cognitive, computational and educational perspectives. New York, ny: Springer us. Hämäläinen, R., & Arvaja, M. (2009). Scripted collaboration and group-based variations in a higher education cscl context. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 53(1), 1–16. doi: 10.1080/00313830802628281 Kessler, G., Bikowski, D., & Boggs, J. (2012). Collaborative writing among second language learners in academic web-based projects. Language Learning & Technology, 12(1), 91–109.

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Kost, C. (2011). Investigating writing strategies and revision behavior in collaborative wiki projects. calico Journal, 28(3), 606–620. doi:10.11139/cj.28.3.606–620 Meier, A., Spada, H., & Rummel, N. (2007). A rating scheme for assessing the quality of computer-supported collaboration processes. International Journal of ComputerSupported Collaborative Learning, 2(1), 63–86. doi: 10.1007/s11412-006-9005-x Min, H. (2005). Training students to become successful peer reviewers. System 33, 293–308. doi:10.1016/j.system.2004.11.003 Paulus, T.M. (1999). The effect of peer and teacher feedback on student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(3), 265–289. doi:10.1016/s1060–3743(99)80117-9 Raedts, M., Rijlaarsdam, G., van Waes, L., & Daems, F. (2007). Observational learning through video-based models: impact on students’ accuracy of self-efficacy beliefs, task knowledge and writing performances. In G. Rijlaarsdam (series Ed.) & P. Boscolo, & S. Hidi (volume Eds.): Studies in Writing. Volume 19. Writing and Motivation (pp. 142–165). Oxford: Elsevier. Rummel, N. & Spada, H. (2007): Can people learn computer-mediated collaboration by following a script? In Fischer, F., Kollar, I., Mandl, H., & J.M. Haake (Eds.) (2007), Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning. Cognitive, computational and educational perspectives (pp. 39–55). New York, ny: Springer us. doi:10.1007/978-0387-36949-5_3 Rummel, N., Spada, H., & Hauser, S. (2009). Learning to collaborate while being scripted or by observing a model. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4, 69–92. doi:10.1007/s11412-008-9054-4 Schellens, T., & Valcke, M. (2000). Re-engineering conventional university education: Implications for students’ learning styles. Distance Education, 21(2), 361–384. doi:10 .1080/0158791000210210 Slavin, R.E. (1992). When and why does cooperative learning increase achievement? Theoretical and empirical perspectives. In R. Hertz-Lazarowitz, & N. Miller (Eds.), Interaction in cooperative groups: The theoretical anatomy of group learning (pp. 145– 173). New York, ny: Cambridge University Press. Solé, I., Miras, M., Castells, N., Espino, S., & Minguela, M. (2013). Integrating information: An analysis of the processes involved and the products generated in a written synthesis task. Written Communication 30(1), 63–90. doi:10.1177/0741088312466532 Storch, N. (2005). Collaborative writing: Product, process, and students’ reflections. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14(3), 153–173. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2005.05.002 Van Steendam, E., Rijlaarsdam, G., Sercu, L., & Van den Bergh, H. (2010). The effect of instruction type and dyadic or individual emulation on the quality of higher-order peer feedback in efl. Learning and Instruction, 20(4), 316–327. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.08.009 Würffel, N. (2008). Kooperatives Schreiben im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Potentiale des Einsatzes von Social-Software-Anwendungen am Beispiel kooperativer Online-

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Editoren [Collaborative writing in foreign language education. Affordances of social software using the example of collaborative online editors]. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht [Online] 13(1), [http://zif.spz.tu-darmstadt.de/jg -13-1/beitrag/Wuerffel1.htm].

chapter 5

Online Collaborative Writing as a Learning Tool in Higher Education Teresa Mauri and Javier Onrubia

1

Introduction

This chapter presents and discusses the rationale, instructional design and results of two innovative teaching interventions in higher education, both of which focused on online collaborative writing as a learning tool. The main goal of the interventions was to design learning environments that can support, in diverse and flexible ways, the processes of students’ individual and collaborative writing as a means of promoting deep and meaningful learning. Our interest in this goal is twofold: As university teachers we are interested in teaching (online) collaborative writing as a way of learning, and we regard (online) collaborative writing as an important competence to achieve. As researchers we are interested in better understanding (online) collaborative writing processes.

2

Theoretical Background

Our interest in (online) collaborative writing stems, firstly, from the reason that writing is an epistemic tool (i.e., Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987; Carlino, 2004; Emig, 1977; Parker and Goodkin, 1987) that enables students to reflect and transform knowledge by using discursive genres that are characteristic of a given community’s socio-cultural and communicative practices and which act as artefacts in activity (Prior, 2006). In the case of higher education, students use the genre of academic writing in order to participate in knowledge practices that are relevant to their training (Halliday and Martin, 1993; Lemke, 2000). From this perspective, writing encourages students to create and recreate the

Mauri, T. & Onrubia, J. (2015). Online Collaborative Writing as a Learning Tool in Higher Education. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 94–110). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004290846_007

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meanings that are available to them and to make links between the learning content and their own ideas and knowledge. A second reason for our interest in online collaborative writing has to do with maximizing the potential of computer-supported collaborative learning (cscl) environments to facilitate the co-construction of knowledge (Stahl, 2006; Suthers, 2006). In these environments, students have the possibility of collaborating so as to develop knowledge jointly with one another. For this to be achieved, each student must be prepared to become involved in the task, both in terms of giving help and receiving it from others, as well as by contributing to the progress of the task and the development of knowledge. Understood in this way, collaborative participation creates, in practice, a network of mutual support and assistance that is distributed among all the participating students as well as with the teacher (Garrison and Anderson, 2003). This network can give rise to zones of proximal development (zpd) (Vygotsky, 1978) on several levels and including different voices (Bakthin, 1999). In online collaborative writing, this process of creating zpd is manifested through students’ participation in the joint production of an academic text. The core of this participation involves commenting on, revising and continually improving the text that is being written, and also implies the use of forms of communication, by way of written dialogue, whose purpose is to promote knowledge and to encourage participants to work together towards a shared understanding. In our view, this process cannot be understood solely from an individual perspective or simply as the accumulation of different contributions by participants. Rather, it needs to be considered in terms of certain kinds of constructive interaction among participants that are mediated by the use of specific discursive forms (Stahl, 2006). As highlighted by various authors in the field of cscl (i.e. Järvelä and Häkkinen, 2000; Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2003; Schrire, 2006), these specific discursive forms are based on taking into consideration the views of others and their contributions and ideas; the mutual and continual revision of one’s own ideas and those of others, where these ideas are considered as elements that can be improved through the development— and the joint and public discussion—of arguments that serve to encourage shared understanding; and the presence of mutuality and support in the contributions of others. Consequently, feedback among students, as well as from the teacher, plays a key role in the network of mutual support and assistance that is established among the participants (Dysthe and Lillejord, 2012; Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2004). If these are its premises then online collaborative writing becomes a highly demanding task for students, since it requires them to master a diverse range of complex abilities: establishing participation in a regulated way and, when

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necessary, modifying it according to rules through which responsibility for managing the collaboration is shared; characterizing the task, its different stages, and the rules to be followed when carrying it out; and contributing to the production of successive co-elaborated versions so as to advance knowledge. Various studies have highlighted that students often find it difficult to perform these tasks successfully, and have also discussed some of the competences and dimensions involved in achieving such goals (i.e., Erkens, Jaspers, Prangsma, and Kanselaar, 2005; Strijbos, Narciss, and Dunnebier, 2010; see also Mauri, Clarà, and Remesal, 2011; Onrubia and Engel, 2009; Strobl, this volume). Within the framework of the above, the general aim of this chapter is to present and evaluate two teaching interventions designed to support collaborative writing tasks linked to academic learning in cscl environments. The role of the teacher in these interventions was to provide students with guidelines and scaffolds in the form of scripts, rubrics or feedback, which were offered on different levels, at different points in the process and with varying degrees of details. The overall design implied integrating all these forms of assistance into a system that could be applied throughout the process of text production, thereby sustaining the students’ joint activity so that together they could successfully tackle the complexity of this kind of task.

3

Teaching Intervention 1

This intervention was carried out as part of a course on Educational Psychology, taught during year one of the teacher training degree offered by the University of Barcelona. Participants were 205 students and four teachers. The students had access to a Moodle virtual classroom. The intervention centred on thematic unit 3, entitled Motivational, affective and relational factors in meaningful learning. Working in self-assigned groups of 4–5 members, the task for students was to write an essay analysing two written accounts in which students from previous years described the experiences that they considered to have been especially significant in relation to their learning process. Each small group examined the two accounts during a two-stage process lasting around six weeks. In the first stage (s1), the groups identified those text fragments that indicated the presence of motivational, affective and relational factors linked to learning (see Table 5.1). In the second stage (s2) each group collaboratively produced a text in which they explained, and justified theoretically, their analysis and interpretation of the learning experience described in each account (see Table 5.2). The first stage was completed face-to-face, whereas the second stage was mostly done online.

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Stage 1 of the task

b3. s1. Learning Support

Teacher Activity

Week 1

Week 2

At the start of the learning process

During the learning process

At the end of the learning process

Study guide (s1sg) Guidelines for understanding the reading material (s1sr1) (s1sr2) Scripts and scaffolds Guidelines for identifying and analysing: Factors related to goals and motivations (s1sa1)

Affective factors (s1sa2)

Feedback

Immediate retroactive/proactive feedback

Rubric

Rubric (s1r1)

Relational factors (s1sa3)

Assessment feedback regarding the final analysis of each account

During the first week of s1 the teacher gave each group of students a study guide (s1sg) and a rubric (s1r1) setting out the task and its requirements. Reading guidelines for the reading material associated with the thematic unit were also provided (s1sr1, s1sr2). The students were also given guidelines for analysing and interpreting the goals and motivations of the protagonists of the accounts (s1sa1). At the end of this period they were given oral feedback aimed at helping them identify those areas where they needed to improve. During the second week of s1 the students used two new sets of guidelines to analyse the affective factors (s1sa2) and the relational factors (s1sa3). They were also given written feedback with the aim of improving the process of analysis, correcting errors and resolving queries related to understanding the concepts, and increasing the rigor and precision—and improving the conceptual

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table 5.2

Stage 2 of the task

b3. s2. Learning Support

Teacher Activity

Week 3

Weeks 4–5 (virtual)

Week 6 (virtual)

At the start: Planning

During the process: Producing the text

At the end: Review

Script for shared production of meanings regarding the text’s content (s2sm)

Script for collaborative revision of the final product (s2fr)

Task management script (s2st1) Script for transforming the Scripts and analytic data into a text scaffolds plan (s2st2) Script for managing collaborative participation (s2sp) Feedback

Retroactive/proactive feedback to each small group Evaluation of and proposed ways of improving the diagram regarding the learners’ accounts

Rubric

Evaluation of and proposed ways of improving the individual contributions to text

Assessment feedback Evaluation of the final text

Rubric (s2r2)

interpretation—of the analysis. Stage 1 ended with assessment feedback, providing students with evidence of what they had achieved and the extent to which this met the learning objectives. The teacher used the rubric (f1r1) to inform students of the final evaluation of their work. At the start of the second stage, during week 3, the teacher gave the students a task management script which took the form of an explanatory text (s2st1) and another script in diagram form that proposed a process for transforming the results of the previous analysis into text elements (s2st2). They were asked to use the diagram to indicate the factors that characterized each account and the route to follow in explaining the protagonist’s learning. The

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resulting product was a highly detailed index of the text. The third script (s2sp) guided the small group in establishing the rules they would apply to manage participation in the production of the collaborative text (number and frequency of individual contributions, turns, rules for shared management of participation and their revision). The week ended with feedback focused around an evaluation of the diagram corresponding to one of the accounts, as well as of the relevance of some of the participation rules to the production of the collaborative text. In weeks 4 and 5 the students used a script for the elaboration of the text (s2sm). This script guided their individual contributions to the progress and improvement of the collaborative text (starting out, extension, correction, moving or deleting certain parts or elements), as well as the putting forward of proposed changes. In week 6, a further script concerning the collaborative revision of the final product was provided (s2fr). On weeks 4, 5 and 6, the teacher gave feedback regarding the collaborative production of the text via the virtual classroom (Moodle), and used a rubric (s2r2—see Table 5.3—) to evaluate both the process followed and the final product. Table 5.3

Some examples of dimensions considered on Rubric s2r2

Rubric s2r2 included four sections. Sections 1 to 3 dealt with the collaborative writing process followed: section 1 focused on the organization and coordination of work within the group; section 2 focused on the steps to solve the task and write the text; section 3 focused on text content. Section 4 dealt with the final text. For instance, section 1 included five assessing criteria: – Participation of all group members – Mutuality of communication (connection, bidirectional communication, deepness) – Flexibility of group organization and roles and responsibilities assignment – Common elaboration of group norms promoting personal engagement, shared responsibility and interrelated work – Continuous monitoring of the group norms And section 3 included six assessing criteria: – Quality of information contributed by each participant (correctness, relevance, detail)

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– Contribution of each group member to the elaboration of shared meanings (connection with other contributions, argumentation) – Joint elaboration of shared meanings (exploration of ideas, negotiation, co-construction) – Joint elaboration of integrative synthesis of previous contributions – Elaboration and use of norms to enhance negotiation and progress of shared meanings – Functional use and learning of subject content In all cases, four levels of attainment were considered: high, medium-high, medium-low, low.

The intervention was evaluated on the basis of the students’ marks and the satisfaction ratings and opinions of both teachers and students, which were gathered by means of questionnaires, self-reports and some in-depth interviews. All the participating students answered three satisfaction questionnaires. The first questionnaire was filled at the end of the first stage of the process, and evaluated both the task developed and the teacher support throughout this stage. The second questionnaire was filled at the end of the second stage, and also evaluated the task developed and the teacher support during this stage. The third questionnaire was filled at the end of the process, and focused on teacher support all along the whole intervention. Questionnaires included both closed (Likert) and open items. 30 % of the students were also interviewed at the end of the process for a more in-depth evaluation of the intervention. The students were asked on different issues: easier and more difficult parts of the process, adjustment of the teacher support, collaborative writing as a learning resource, and overall satisfaction with the intervention. All the teachers filled a self-report at the end of the intervention, asking for their opinions on several dimensions: general evaluation of the intervention, strong and weak points of the intervention, benefits of the intervention both for the students and for the teachers themselves, and aspects to be improved. In terms of students’ marks, the intervention clearly had a positive outcome. On a scale categorized by fail, pass, very good or excellent, 25 % of the students achieved the highest rating, 50% the second highest and 25 % the minimum required to pass. No students failed, and none of them failed to present the work required. According to the teachers, a key strength of the intervention was its flexibility, enabling it to be adapted to each group at each stage of the process,

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in part due to the combination of face-to-face and virtual contacts. Another aspect that was highly rated was that the intervention included a range of supports (distributed across the stages and according to the students’ needs) that sought to foster not only collaboration but also the development of each of the stages involved in producing the written text (preparation, planning, development and revision) and the co-construction of knowledge. Overall, this range of supports was regarded as highly effective in helping students learn through collaborative writing. It should be noted, however, that the teachers also highlighted the considerable effort that was required in developing a highly structured teaching proposal that could compensate for the limited knowledge that students initially possessed regarding collaboration, writing and the use of Moodle. For their part, the students were positive about the assistance they received in overcoming difficulties in relation to the collaborative transformation of knowledge, and also as regards going beyond a cumulative/summative approach to academic writing (Carlino, 2004; Mauri et al., 2011; Onrubia and Engel, 2009). As one student said: “Well, at first we used the forum to exchange versions of the documents […] but thanks to the scripts we began to explain the changes to each other and to explain the problems to each other: “[…] this is what I changed in this version”, “please, look at this, I have problems to improve this fragment”; we started to exchange directions to the others: “where the problems are?”, “what do we need to improve?”; and we started to propose alternatives”. However, the students also felt that the intervention included too many guidelines and that this had hampered their ability to decide how to move towards more autonomous learning, at the expense, perhaps, of doing so less effectively.

4

Teaching Intervention 2

This intervention formed part of two separate courses on Educational Psychology that were taught to teacher training students and undergraduate psychology students at the University of Barcelona. Four teachers and 229 students participated in course a (teaching students), while three teachers and 86 students participated in course b (psychology students). In both courses the task for students was to produce a collaborative piece of academic writing, working in groups of 4–6 members. Group composition was decided by the students themselves. Both courses used Moodle as their virtual environment. Via the virtual classroom the teacher provided students with instructions and materials for carrying out the tasks, and could communicate with them asynchronously. In order to carry out the task each small group had access to a private forum, a

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private chat room and a collaborative editor (wiki) that was exclusive to their group. The details of the task differed slightly between the two courses. In course a the students had to produce a text that included reference to the fundamental ideas and concepts that had been worked on in one of the thematic units of their course. To this end, their starting point was the teacher’s explanations and certain core reading material. They also had to illustrate the ideas and concepts included with examples from their own experience as learners. In course b the students chose a topic from a list drawn up by the teacher, and then read basic texts, proposed by the teacher, about this topic. They then searched for additional material that provided greater detail about a certain aspect of the topic in which they were particularly interested. After reading this material they produced a piece of collaborative writing in which they set out all that they had learnt. The instructional process lasted four weeks for course a and ten weeks for course b. The purpose of the intervention in both courses was to design a series of scripts that could systematically guide and support the process of collaborative writing in each group. The aim of these scripts was twofold: first, to help students to perform the task better and to achieve a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the content they were working with; and second, to help students to acquire competence in group work and learning, and particularly, competence in academic writing for learning. In both courses, two types of script were developed. The first was a general script that set out an overall sequence for the different stages of the task. This script specified sub-tasks that needed to be carried out and partial products that should be obtained in each stage. In course a, the script described four stages: (1) collaborative identification of the main ideas contained within the reading material proposed by the teacher; (2) collaborative production of an initial index of the material; (3) collaborative revision of this index and the production of a definitive and detailed base schema from which the text would be written; and (4) revision by the group members, in pairs, of the successive versions of the text. In course b, the proposed stages were the same, but there was also an intermediate stage between the first two: this involved the collaborative and reasoned choice of additional reading material that would form the basis of the work. Specific scripts were also developed to guide students through each of the stages and sub-tasks considered in the general scaffold (see Table 5.4). These scripts typically proposed particular ways of organizing and coordinating the work for each of the stages, setting out roles and responsibilities for different group members. A key objective that was always sought through these scripts

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Table 5.4 Specific script for the collaborative identification of the main ideas contained within the reading material proposed by the teacher

Scripted discussion of compulsory readings The goal of this group discussion is to identify the main concepts and ideas of the compulsory readings corresponding to the subject that you have selected for your assignment. Organize your discussion in three phases: Phase 1. Each group member posts a contribution identifying three to five ideas that he/she consider/s as the most important for each of the compulsory readings corresponding to your subject. Phase 2. All group members comment and discuss in an argued manner on the contributions posted in Phase 1, indicating specific points of agreement and disagreement, and trying to establish common, shared elements. In this phase, each group member can post as many contributions as he/she considers. Anyway, it is expected that each member posts, at least, one substantial contribution. Phase 3. Each group member posts a contribution identifying three to five ideas that he/she consider/s as the most important for all the compulsory readings as a whole, considered in an integrated manner. For so doing, he/she has to take into account the contributions to Phases 1 and 2 from all group members.

was a balance between individual responsibility and group production, in other words, between the effective contributions of each group member and the exchange, discussion and improvement of ideas by the group as a whole. The students’ work and learning was constantly monitored by the teachers, who continuously supervised the process being followed by each group, their fulfilment of the guidelines set out in the scripts and the quality of the partial products that were created. Teachers intervened when they considered it necessary to do so, and they responded to any queries raised by the groups. Within this general common structure, each of the course modules had a number of particular features. In course a, students were encouraged during the final stages of the task to produce their own scripts for organizing and coordinating the work, basing these on the scripts presented by the teacher

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in the earlier stages. In course b, the detailed scripts for each of the stages were drawn up in such a way that they prioritized, at each stage, different ways of organizing and coordinating the group work, as well as different skills for doing this work; for instance, arguing over and discussing ideas and drawing shared conclusions, reaching decisions from among various options, or the collaborative revision of the work and the piece of writing (see Table 5.5). The overall working process within this course also included two face-to-face tutorials with each of the groups, these being held at the end of the first and third stages of the task. Table 5.5 Some examples of the dimensions and items used to support the collaborative revision of the group work and the final piece of writing

Part 1. Revision of the collaborative writing process Dimension 1. If different group members have written different parts of the text – Everyone read the other members’ parts? – Did you adjust and agree on advance the extension of each part of the paper, considering its relevance for the whole text? – Did you systematically check coherence between what was said in each part of the text and what had been said before? … Dimension 2. Process of revising the text – Did you go into a systematic revision of the whole text in terms of structure? – Did you go into a systematic revision of the whole text in terms of content? – Did you go into a systematic revision of the whole text in terms of form and format? – Did you read aloud the text to check comprehension? – Everybody read the final version of the text and felt comfortable with the whole text? … Part 2. Revision of the final text Dimension 1. Text structure …

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Dimension 2. Integration of ideas from the compulsory readings … Dimension 3. Main ideas … Dimension 4. Clarity and adequacy of writing … Dimension 5. Citation and referencing …

The intervention was evaluated on the basis of students’ marks, students’ satisfaction questionnaires and teachers’ self-reports. All the participating students answered one satisfaction questionnaire at the end of the process. Students were asked to evaluate the general scripts as well as each one of the specific scripts used on the intervention, the teacher monitoring and the adjustment of support all along the process, the face-to-face tutorials, and their overall impressions and satisfaction with the intervention. The questionnaire included both closed (Likert) and open items. All the teachers filled a self-report at the end of the intervention. The self-report was similar to the one used on Teaching Intervention 1. Student marks were high among both sets of students (trainee teachers and psychology undergraduates). Specifically, 20% of the small groups in both course modules achieved the highest grade, while the second highest grade was obtained by 51% in module a and 67% in module b. Only 9 % of the groups failed the evaluation in module a, and none of those in module b did so. Satisfaction was high among both sets of students. Between 86 % (module b) and 93% (module a) of students said they were “fairly” or “very” satisfied with the process as a whole, and with the final product. Most of the students were highly satisfied with both the general and specific scripts that had been provided, as well as with the specific resources made available in relation to them. Likewise, the majority of them said that the intervention had helped them to organize better their individual work, to coordinate better their work as a group, and to learn to work collaboratively. The main difficulties raised concerned the time and effort required by the task. For their part, the teachers also reported high levels of overall satisfaction with the intervention and its outcomes, and particularly with the various scripts designed for each course module. They also suggested a number of

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changes that might lead to further improvement, namely greater monitoring of and more specific help for each group, and the incorporation of monitoring and feedback strategies between the groups of students themselves.

5

Discussion and Conclusions

On the whole, the scripts and scaffolds used in the two interventions seem to have had positive effects in that they contributed to students’ learning and to the satisfaction of both teachers and students. When analysing these interventions, there are a number of key issues to consider, not only in relation to explaining the results obtained but also in terms of aspects that require further exploration and understanding. We would like to conclude our chapter by discussing four of these issues: – the articulation of different scripts and scaffolds at different levels of granularity; – the orchestration of those different scripts and scaffolds; – the balance between instructional support and group control/agency; – the potential conflict between the collaborative, knowledge-transforming goals of the proposed activities and the competitive, knowledge-telling norms that often govern the broader activity system of university learning. 5.1

The Articulation of Different Scripts and Scaffolds at Different Levels of Granularity Research on the use of scripts for collaborative work and learning has highlighted the variety of different ways in which small-group activities can be guided. In this regard, a distinction has been made between epistemic scripts, whose aim is primarily to support students in carrying out the different stages of a task in a suitable order, and social scripts, whose purpose is predominantly to support effective kinds of interaction among group members, for example, by establishing roles or specific actions that each member should perform (see, for example, Weinberger, Erl, Fischer, and Mandl, 2005). A distinction has also been made between macro-scripts, a kind of general scaffold that divides up the task into broad units, and micro-scripts, which target highly specific aspects of the task (Dillenbourg and Hong, 2008). Our proposed interventions involve the combined use of both kinds of scripts, and the results suggest that this combination is one of the keys to greater effectiveness in supporting the processes of online collaborative writing.

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5.2 The Orchestration of Different Supports Another defining feature of the two interventions used here is the combination of supports offered to students before they begin the task or a particular part of it (scripts, rubrics) and those supports which are made available during or after completion of the task (tutorials, different types of feedback). In our view, this combination is another key to the success of the two interventions, especially as regards the satisfaction reported by students. This view is supported by the opinions expressed by students during the in-depth interviews conducted as part of the evaluation of the interventions. Consequently, we would argue that the ability of the teacher to “orchestrate” (Dillenbourg and Jermann, 2009) the different scripts and scaffolds that are offered to groups throughout the process, adapting and adjusting them as necessary, is another fundamental element in supporting the processes of online collaborative writing. 5.3

The Balance between Instructional Support and Group Control/Agency Achieving an adequate balance between teacher support and group autonomy is an enormously complex issue in the context of collaborative learning, in general, and in cscl environments, in particular (Rienties et al., 2012). In this regard, some authors have proposed the term “overscripting” to refer to the risk of offering students scripts and scaffolds that are too detailed, and which end up stifling or displacing the collaborative dynamics of groups, transforming their work into a merely routine execution of what has been proposed (Dillenbourg, 2002; see also Strobl, this volume). In our interventions we sought to maintain this balance in several ways. In some cases, for example, we presented and discussed with students a rubric that would enable them to see the criteria used to evaluate the task or certain aspects of it, the aim being that they could then decide how best to organize the work process in relation to these criteria. On other occasions, students were invited to draw up their own scripts or scaffolds on the basis of the framework they had been given in previous stages of the task. Despite our best attempts, however, the feedback received from students indicated that some of them felt that the scripts and scaffolds provided were too detailed, while others, for the same intervention, asked for even more structure and guidance on the part of the teacher. One possible solution for this situation that we are considering at the moment is that the groups could decide, to some extent, which scripts to use, and how to use them. It would be possible, for instance, to design different paths for the task—i.e. with a different number of scripts and/or with different (more or less detailed) versions of (some of) the scripts—and to let the groups choose a particular path with a particular level of support. The initial decision of each group could be

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then assessed, discussed and eventually reviewed at some points of the process, with the participation and agreement of both the teacher and the group members. 5.4

The Potential Conflict between the Collaborative, Knowledge-Transforming Goals of Collaborative Writing and the Competitive, Knowledge-Telling Norms That Often Govern the Broader Activity System of University Learning As already pointed out, our interest in collaborative writing is mainly focused on its epistemic dimension, in other words, on its ability to transform knowledge and serve as a learning tool. Our aim, therefore, is that students write in order to learn and that they do so in collaboration with other students. However, in university classrooms, writing is often used as an evaluation tool at the service of individual assessment, that is, in tasks where the aim is not to transform knowledge and produce it collaboratively, but rather to provide individual verification of the extent to which the student can reproduce the knowledge that has already been presented by the teacher. This conflict between an approach that is driven by the goals of learning and collaboration, as in the case of the interventions we propose here, and an approach that prioritizes the reproduction of knowledge and individual performance (Eales, Hall, and Bannon, 2002) is, in our view, another potential obstacle to enabling students to learn through collaborative writing. We have some evidence from informal observation and talking with the students that this conflict does influence how they experience our interventions and how they approach the process of collaborative writing. However, we need to widen and refine the instruments used to evaluate the interventions in order to explore this issue in a much more systematic way. This exploration could also lead to some suggestions, both at the course level and at a broader institutional level, in order to deal with this conflict.

Acknowledgements The innovations described in this chapter form part of two projects funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences of the University of Barcelona (redice a0801–16), and by the Department of Universities, Research and Information Society of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009mqd 00073).

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References Bakthin, M.M. (1999). Speech Genres & Others late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, nj: Erlbaum. Carlino, P. (2004). El proceso de escritura académica: cuatro dificultades de la enseñanza universitaria [The process of academic writing: four difficulties of university teaching]. Educere, Revista Venezolana de Educación, 26, 321–327. Dillenbourg, P. (2002). Over-scripting cscl: The risks of blending collaborative learning with instructional design. In P.A. Kirschner (Ed), Three worlds of cscl. Can we support cscl? (pp. 61–91). Heerlen: Open Universiteit Nederland. Retrieved from http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/19/02/30/PDF/Dillenbourg-Pierre2002.pdf Dillenbourg, P., & Hong, F. (2008). The mechanics of cscl macro scripts. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 3, 5–23. doi:10.1007/s11412007-9033-1 Dillenbourg, P., & Jermann, P. (2007). Designing integrative scripts. In F. Fischer, H. Mandl, J. Haake, & I. Kollar (Eds.), Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning–Cognitive, computational, and educational perspectives (pp. 275–301). New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-36949-5_16 Dysthe, O., & Lillejord, S. (2012). From Humboldt to Bologna: Using peer-feedback to foster productive writing practices among online master students. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 8, 471–485. doi:10.1504/IJWBC.2012.049561 Eales, R.T.J., Hall, T., & Bannon, L.J. (2002). The motivation is the message: Comparing cscl in different settings. In G. Stahl (Ed.), Computer support for collaborative learning: Foundations for a cscl community. Proceedings of cscl 2002, Boulder, Colorado, usa (pp. 310–317). Hillsdale, nj: Erlbaum. Emig, J. (1977). Writing as a Mode of Learning. College Composition and Communication, 28, 122–128. Erkens, G., Jaspers, J.G.M., Prangsma, M., & Kanselaar, G. (2005). Coordination processes in computer supported collaborative writing. Computers in Human Behavior, 21, 463–486. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2004.10.038 Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer. Halliday, M.A.H., & Martin, J.R. (1993). Writing Science. Literacy and Discursive Power. London: The Falmer Press. Järvelä, S., & Häkkinen, P. (2000). Levels of web-based discussion: Theory of perspective-taking as a tool for analyzing interaction. In B. Fishman, & S. O’Connor-Divelbiss (Eds.), Fourth international conference of the learning sciences (pp. 22–26). Mahwah,

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nj: Erlbaum. Retrieved from http://www.umich.edu/~icls/proceedings/pdf/Jarvela .pdf Lemke, J.L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7, 273–290. doi:10.1207/S15327884MCA0704_ 03 Mauri, T., Clarà, M., & Remesal, A. (2011). La naturaleza del discurso en la escritura colaborativa online: intersubjetividad y elaboración del significado [The nature of discourse in on-line collaborative writing: Intersubjectivity and meaning-making]. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 34, 219–233. doi:10.1174/021037011795377629 Nicol, D., & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2004). Rethinking formative assessment in he: a theoretical model and seven principles of good feedback practice. In C. Juwah, D., Macfarlane-Dick, B. Matthew, D. Nicol, D., & Smith, B. (Eds.), Enhancing student learning though effective formative feedback. York: The Higher Education Academy. Onrubia, J., & Engel, A. (2009). Strategies for collaborative writing and phases of knowledge construction in cscl environments. Computers & Education, 53, 1256–1265. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.06.008 Parker, R.P., & Goodkin, V. (1987). The Consequences of Writing: Enhancing Learning in the Disciplines. Upper Montclair, nj: Boynton/Cook. Prior, P. (2006). A Sociocultural Theory of Writing. In C.A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of Writing Research (pp. 54–66). New York: Guilford Press. Rienties, B., Giesbers, B., Tempelaar, D., Lygo-Baker, S., Segers, M., & Gijselaers, W. (2012). The role of scaffolding and motivation in cscl.Computers & Education, 59, 893–906. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.04.010 Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2003). Knowledge building. In J.W. Guthrie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of education (2nd ed., pp. 1370–1373). New York: Macmillan. Schrire, S. (2006). Knowledge building in asynchronous discussion groups: Going beyond quantitative analysis. Computers and Education, 46, 49–70. doi:10.1016/ j.compedu.2005.04.006 Stahl, G. (2006). Group Cognition. Cambridge, ma: The mit Press. Strijbos, J.W., Narciss, S., & Dünnebier, K. (2010). Peer feedback content and sender’s competence level in academic writing revision tasks: Are they critical for feedback perceptions and efficiency? Learning and Instruction, 20, 291–303. doi:10.1016/ j.learninstruc.2009.08.008 Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Cole, V.J. Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.), Mind in Society (pp. 79–91). Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press. Weinberger, A., Ertl, B., Fischer, F., & Mandl, H. (2005). Epistemic and social scripts in computer-supported collaborative learning. Instructional Science, 33, 1–30. doi: 10.1007/s11251-004-2322-4

part 3 Online Course Design

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chapter 6

Freewriting Reprogrammed: Adapting Freewriting to Online Writing Courses Patty Wilde and Erin Wecker

1

Introduction

Freewriting has long been extolled as a valuable pedagogical practice, one that, as Bizzell and Herzberg (1996) explain in The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing, is “part of every writing teacher’s repertoire” (p. 8). In the face-toface (f2f) classroom, instructors often assign freewriting as a low-stakes writing activity, an informal exercise that emboldens students to explore ideas in a lowpressure environment. It is an activity that is flexible enough to help students explore ideas, generate text, and deliberate course concepts. Also called automatic writing, fast writing, inkshedding, or quickwriting, freewriting, at its core, is writing without stopping. In these exercises, grammar, punctuation, spelling, structure, and format are not important: students just aim to get words on the page. In the f2f classroom, teachers ask students to freewrite either via paper or computer. They may invite students to write whatever comes to mind or have them respond to a specific prompt. Depending on their pedagogical objective, instructors in f2f settings may collect these writings or have the students keep them; they might also ask students to read their freewrites out loud to the class. When assigned in the online writing course, however, freewriting should be modified to fit this particular setting; this is in accordance with the best practices for online writing instruction outlined by the Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee (2012, p. 14). In the virtual classroom, discussion boards, as Warnock (2009) explains in Teaching Writing Online, ‘create opportunities for low-stakes writing’ (p. 84). While we recognize that discussion boards can be used for a range of purposes, we wanted to investigate if and how freewriting in discussion boards impacted

Wilde, P. & Wecker, E. (2015). Freewriting Reprogrammed: Adapting Freewriting to Online Writing Courses. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 113–127). Leiden: Brill.

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student experience in online writing courses: Did students find freewriting in these circumstances to be a valuable invention strategy? Was it helpful as a writing-to-learn heuristic? What were the perceived benefits and impediments to freewriting in the discussion board? To begin answering these questions, we conducted a study that surveyed students’ experiences freewriting in the online writing course. In this chapter, we detail our findings, which suggest that freewriting can be an advantageous exercise for helping online composition students develop their writing, engage with course materials, and cultivate community. To advance this claim and close the chapter, we offer suggestions for implementing freewriting activities in the online writing course.

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Ever Onward: The Shifting Landscape of Freewriting

While its origins are often located in the Dadist movement and French surrealist poetry popular in the 1930s (Elbow, 2012; Hawakaya, 1962; Macrorie, 1991), freewriting went mainstream in college writing courses in the United States in the 1980s. Elbow’s Writing without Teachers (1973) contributed to the normalization of freewriting techniques. In what Glenn and Goldthwaite (2008) describe as ‘the most carefully wrought freewriting plan published thus far’ (p. 169), Writing without Teachers outlines a writing process that breaks from traditional approaches that don’t give writers time and space to think through their ideas. Instead of aiming to produce perfect prose in the first draft, Elbow encourages writers to compose a series of freewrites. The writer, as he explains, attempts to turn off the internal editor and write whatever comes to mind: ‘Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing’ (Elbow, 1973, p. 30). In these ‘teacherless’ classrooms, writers can share their freewrites or keep them private, a choice that allows for more liberty on the page. As writing teachers (perhaps ironically) appropriated and modified Elbow’s concept of freewriting, new iterations developed that addressed their particular f2f pedagogical purposes. Belanoff, Elbow, and Fontaine (1991) identify three variations of freewriting: focused freewriting, public freewriting, and focused public freewriting (p. xiii). With the advent of writing-across-thecurriculum (wac) movement, focused freewriting was often repurposed as a writing-to-learn heuristic. In Engaging Ideas (2001), a text commonly utilized for wac purposes, Bean offers focused freewriting as a writing-to-learn activity that gives students an informal opportunity to explore a given topic, lecture, or reading. The focused freewrite, Bean explains, still asks students to ‘[t]hink aloud on paper without being concerned about spelling, organization,

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or grammar’; however, they ‘keep [the] entire entry focused on the assigned question or problem’ (2001: 102). In the f2f classroom, these kinds of freewrites might be collected by the teacher, kept by the student, or shared with the class. The variations of public freewriting ask writers to share their focused or unfocused freewrites with others. Although Elbow (1991) does express concern for the ‘slightly “public,” tinny quality’ that this kind of freewriting may assume (p. 200), he does find it beneficial ‘for the community of it and the learning it produces’ (p. 197). He recalls the enjoyment experienced through listening to students reading their work aloud; students, of course, were given the option to pass if they did not want to share. When freewriting is shared, as described by Elbow (1991), community response is more immediate and tangible because of temporal f2f space. The dynamics of an online writing class, however, necessarily complicate freewriting, as these kinds of synchronous, physical responses are less available in the online classroom. How freewriting is conceived, then, must necessarily be reconfigured to fit best the dimensions of the online classroom, a virtual space that often is comprised of text-based, asynchronous communication. For our purposes, we specifically explore the implications of freewriting in online discussion boards. A feature common to many learning management systems, discussion boards are places where online students and teachers can “talk” to one another. Similar to in-class conversations, online discussions, although often informal, are essential to learning. Like the agora in ancient Greece, the discussion board functions as a cornerstone of community within the online writing class: it is the marketplace where students collaborate and challenge each other’s ideas. These semi-public areas are open to instructor and students for the duration of the course, which both magnifies and modifies the concept of public freewriting. In virtual spaces, writers can post their freewrites at any given time for all to see—inchoate thoughts, grammatical mistakes, and all. Responses to freewrites are generally text-based in the online classroom. Such responses could come hours or even days after the initial posting. Moreover, there does not have to be a response. These kinds of virtual delays and silences may prey on the insecurities of student writers. Such features of the online classroom prompted us to investigate how students approached freewriting in these circumstances; that is, how did the online medium change the messages? To explore this issue further, we compiled a survey (see Appendix a) to determine how students gauged their experiences with freewriting in online courses. Via email, we distributed an optional digital survey to two sections of Patty’s College Composition course at a community college and two sections of Erin’s Advanced Writing course at a four-year university. Both institutions are located in urban settings in the United States, and all sections take place online. At the

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Race

Credit hours

Age

Gender identity

White: 32 (58%) Asian: 11 (18%) Hispanic: 5 (8%) Black: 3 (5%) Mixed race: 3 (5%) Other: 1 (1%)

1–25: 16 (27%) 26–50: 18 (31%) 51–75: 11 (18%) 75–100: 5 (08%) Unsure: 5 (08%)

17–23: 32 (55 %) 24–30: 11 (18 %) 31–40: 12 (20 %) 41–50: 1 (01 %) 51 and up: 1 (01 %)

Female: 43 (74%) Male: 15 (25 %)

beginning of the term, we both introduced students to the concept of freewriting through Elbow’s Writing without Teachers (1973) and Lamott’s Bird by Bird (1994). Although we both use freewriting to meet a range of course goals, the freewrites Patty assigned focused more on invention issues in essay writing. In her classes, Patty asked students to conduct weekly freewrites to brainstorm paper topics, to work through areas of revision, and to explore different perspectives of an argument. Erin frequently assigned freewrites for writingto-learn purposes. Twice a week, students were asked to freewrite about the assigned readings. In this way students were able to test notions and theories about various texts, as well as develop scaffolding for more formal writing assignments. Across the four sections, 58 of 92 students completed the survey: 32 out of 41 were from Patty’s class, and 26 out of 51 were from Erin’s class (see Table 6.1). Without 100% participation, it is not possible to determine how freewriting impacted all students; however, the feedback from the majority who did participate—63% of total participants—begins to provide a sense of how effective freewriting can be in online courses. Fifty-six percent of the participants indicated that they had no previous experience freewriting. Twenty-five percent responded that they had extensive experience, while 19% acknowledged that they had some experience freewriting.1 Only one participant commented that she been asked previously to freewrite in an online setting. These findings suggest that many students will encounter freewriting for the first time in online courses; additionally, those 1 We computed these percentages based on student responses to question five. “Some experience” referred to the students who indicated they had conducted freewriting at some previous point in their educational careers. “Extensive experience” referred to the students who indicated that they had regularly encountered freewriting in previous courses.

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who do have experience have often acquired that familiarity via the f2f classroom. Such observations further underscore the need to investigate freewriting in the online course. While we recognize the limitations of our study, as our sample size was relatively small and fairly homogenous, we maintain that the initial findings hint at how online writing instructors can most effectively shape freewriting to fit the needs of the students inhabiting their virtual classrooms.

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Freewriting 2.0: Digital Invention and Engagement

Freewriting is perhaps most frequently assigned in f2f classrooms as an invention strategy (Belanoff, Elbow, and Fontaine, 1991; Elbow, 1973; Elbow, 2012; Glenn and Goldthwaite, 2008) and as a writing-to-learn heuristic (Bean, 2001; Bledsoe, 2009; Fishman, 1997; Hammond, 1991). And while an array of scholarship has endorsed freewriting for these particular purposes in the f2f context, we have yet to see targeted consideration of how these applications of freewriting may be impacted by the discussion boards found in the virtual classroom. Therefore, the first objective of our survey was to gauge how participants conceived of freewriting as a tool for invention and as a writing-tolearn activity in an online medium. Our findings suggest that the attributes that make freewriting a valuable pedagogical tool in the f2f setting also hold true in the online classroom. Participants did find freewriting to be a beneficial exercise, although aspects of its function and the composing process did change. Respondents indicated that freewriting in online composition courses helped them generate and explore ideas, corroborating scholarship that positions freewriting as a strategy for invention in the f2f classroom. Freewriting, as participants reported, allows them to ‘expel ideas’, ‘clear out mental blocks’, ‘get rid of clutter’, ‘take a chance’, and ‘vomit your brain on paper’. As one participant explained, ‘Freewriting has really helped me just be able to write. I always get so stuck on what word sounds the best and which punctuation to use in my writing so it takes me 5 times longer to actually get the work done’. Another commented, Freewriting ‘let my ideas flow more freely. I came up with some interesting points that never would have crossed my mind without using freewriting’. Participants indicated overall that the ability to ‘let go’ enabled them to work toward high-stakes final products assigned in the course. Sixty-two percent of participants commented that freewriting helped them work toward their final products, while 18% noted that freewriting only helped somewhat. As one student explained, ‘i hate writing first drafts because I get so concerned with

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self-editing. But with free writing I can simply write down everything that I am thinking and then organize it later into my first draft.’ Eighteen percent, however, believed that freewriting did not help them with formal writing assignments. Participants who did not find freewriting useful voiced frustrations generally lobbed at freewriting in the f2f classroom. They remarked that freewriting was ‘too unorganized,’ that they liked to approach formal writing assignments in a ‘more structured manner.’ Only two students felt that freewriting seemed like ‘busy work … something the professor can grade for participation.’ While 5% of our participants indicated that they did not enjoy freewriting, the majority, 53%, responded that they did like the activity, and 42 % said that they somewhat enjoyed it. Most anticipated, too, that they would utilize freewriting outside of the course. The ways that they envisioned using freewriting often centered on invention strategies. Some remarked that they would use freewriting in the future ‘when [they] get stuck’ and when they need to ‘overcome writer’s block.’ Students also identified a range of genres with which freewriting could be of benefit. These included formal academic assignments and professional writing documents, such as resumes, emails, and letters. Other participants, however, saw this exercise as one that could help them with creative writing projects, such as song writing and fiction writing; one student even planned to use freewriting to help him write his wedding vows. Participants who at least somewhat enjoyed freewriting seemed to celebrate its flexibility and applicability to a range of purposes personally relevant to them. But freewriting can be utilized for purposes other than invention. Focused freewriting as a writing-to-learn strategy is particularly well suited to online learning, as it gives students an opportunity to engage actively with course concepts introduced in lectures and readings. When we asked students to discuss their experiences with these kinds of focused freewrites, the results were overwhelmingly positive. Ninety-one percent of participants noted that freewriting in their online writing course helped them engage with course materials, while 5% answered that freewriting only somewhat helped them. Only 3% replied that freewriting did not help them engage with course materials. Responses centered on three key aspects of how focused freewriting spurred them to interact with course materials: these activities 1) gave them a space to discern and process information; 2) encouraged dialogical and dialectical thinking; 3) exposed them to varied viewpoints and opinions. Several participants commented that these kinds of freewriting activities helped to ‘solidif[y] your knowledge of a certain topic’ and to ‘make more sense of the material [you] have just read.’ Others talked about how freewriting allowed them to explore various positions on certain concepts. It encouraged participants to

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‘keep an open mind,’ ‘write whatever [their] mind thinks of,’ and ‘think critically.’ Because the writing-to-learn freewrites were posted to the discussion board, students were exposed to the viewpoints and perspectives of others. As one participant explained, ‘Freewriting really helps me engage with course materials because it shows everyone’s point of view and how people think differently about one subject.’ While our study suggests that freewriting does benefit online students in terms of invention and writing-to-learn activities, participants did comment on a few key differences in how freewriting was composed and utilized in the online medium. One notable difference between freewriting in the f2f course and online is the composing mechanism: the computer. A number of participants shared that the temptation to edit was exacerbated by typing their freewrites, as all of the participants in the study composed their freewrites via a word processing program or directly on the discussion boards, both of which have a spell check feature. Students frequently mentioned the red and green squiggly lines and how distracting they were to their freewriting processes. One student acknowledged, ‘freewriting on the computer is a bit more challenging than doing it on paper because it’s so easy and so ingrained to just press the backspace button on something that doesn’t sound right whereas on paper you have to stop, reread, flip the pencil, or cross out the words you don’t like.’ At the heart of freewriting is the notion that the pen or cursor keeps moving forward. The ease of moving backwards poses the potential for students to disengage from writing freely. To resist this temptation in the computer-generated freewrite, students could darken their screen to avoid seeing the mistakes or disengage spelling and grammar check tools, a suggestion that we offered our students. When freewrites are posted to the discussion board, they are given a semipermanent place to reside for the duration of the course. This archival component proved beneficial and enjoyable for students, according to our findings. Respondents repeatedly noted that they returned to the discussion board to read their own freewriting and the freewrites of their classmates. One student shared, ‘I love rereading my freewrites.’ Another explained, ‘When you put your thoughts down on paper and re-read them, you can examine them from a different angle which helps you to gain more knowledge about the subject itself.’ The ability to return to the discussion over the course of days, weeks, and throughout the semester provides students with a powerful learning opportunity. By tracing their thoughts and the ideas of their peers, participants positively suggested the archival nature of freewrites provides an academic space to ‘look back,’ ‘return to ideas,’ and understand how ‘everything is interrelated.’

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Virtual Connections: Freewriting and Community-Building Practices

One of the most surprising outcomes of the study concerns the potential of freewriting to foster relationships in the online composition classroom. This is a finding of particular import because, as observed in several studies (Nash, 2005; Gaide, 2004; Rovai, 2003), students often cite ‘social distance and isolation’ (Jaggars and Xu, 2010, p. 5) as a major obstacle to online education. This lack of connectivity is problematic, as feeling connected and having a sense of affiliation are essential components of effective online learning environments (Rovai, 2003). Our research, however, posits public freewriting as one potential way to mitigate some of these frequently cited issues. Participants in the survey expressed a desire to read their classmates’ freewrites. Because we asked students to post their freewriting assignments to the discussion board, the freewrites were public, open for the class to read. Overall, participants in the survey indicated that their classmates’ freewrites caught their attention in the discussion board. 37 % reported that they were very interested in reading their classmates’ freewrites, while 63% indicated that they somewhat interested in reading them. What is most striking about these responses, however, is that no one professed to be uninterested in reading their classmates’ freewrites. Several students remarked that the greater range of responses piqued their curiosity in reading freewrites. As one explained, ‘In my other experiences with online discussion boards, I never read my classmates’ responses because we all had the same prompt and all basically said the same thing in our responses, but with freewriting each person can have a very individual response even if it is to the same question.’ Participants who enjoyed reading their classmates’ freewrites, however, most frequently discussed how freewriting helped them to see their classmates as real people. Responses frequently commented on how freewriting allowed students to exhibit ‘personality’ and ‘character’ and ‘student voice.’ Although participants appreciated reading their classmates’ freewrites, this was not always illustrated through their written replies. In the survey, 19 % of the participants frequently responded to their classmates’ freewrites, while 35% answered that they sometimes did. Forty-six percent, however, said that they did not respond to their classmates’ freewrites. These statistics are consistent with our own observations of student responses to freewriting in the discussion board, making responses to reading classmates’ freewriting much more salient. In regard to discussion board activities, instructors and students alike often gauge reader interest by the responses received. If there is a lack of responses, we are likely to assume that there is a lack of interest, but our survey

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indicates that this may not be the case. Although participants often enjoyed or somewhat enjoyed reading their classmates’ freewrites, they did not often feel inclined to write a response. Some thought that this would violate the freewriting experience of their classmates. One explained that a written response felt like ‘invad[ing] someone’s privacy.’ Others were unsure of how to respond to freewrites. As one student commented, because of the ‘very open’ nature of freewriting, she found it ‘difficult to find a stepping “grip” on where to start commenting.’ Participants who were more discriminating in their responses often remarked that not all freewrites merited a written reply. That is, they would provide a written response if they felt connected in some way to their classmates’ freewrite. One student explained that ‘[s]ome students wrote heartfelt bits about family and important things to them or about things that were happening to them that deserved responses.’ Conversely, some freewrites were ‘students complaining, writing about having nothing to write about.’ These kinds of responses were ‘not worth the effort,’ as one participant wrote. While students may not have always demonstrated their interest in reading their classmates’ freewrites through their written responses, they generally indicated that freewriting helped to foster community in the online composition classroom. When asked if they thought freewriting helped them connect more with their classmates in the online environment, 66 % responded in the affirmative, while 18% said that it somewhat helped them to connect with their classmates. Freewriting, explained one respondent, gives online classmates ‘glimpses of your life and that makes a connection like “Oh! you’re not just words on a screen; you’re a person and I can relate to that.”’ Another wrote that ‘You get to read about what’s going on, what [my peers] are thinking, what they’re feeling …. Online students don’t get to develop relationships with other students in the way you could in a face-to-face classroom.’ Some respondents were skeptical about the potential of freewriting to build community in online writing courses, as 16% indicated that freewriting did not help them to connect with their classmates. These participants, however, often commented that they were generally dubious about the ability to build relationships in online courses. ‘Due to the class being online,’ one participant wrote, ‘it will be an obstacle no matter what to be connected to the classmates. But it is helpful to see how they might process the same text or prompt differently than me.’ Although in these kinds of responses were in the minority, they serve as a reminder that freewriting activities are only one of many pedagogical strategies that should be employed to foster community in the online setting. While the majority of participants saw freewriting as a way to connect with classmates, their responses split when asked if they thought freewriting helped them bond with their instructor. Forty-one percent believed that freewriting

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did help them to cultivate such a relationship; however, 39 % responded that freewriting did not help facilitate a relationship, and 20 % thought that it helped somewhat. Their choices seemed dependent on one main variable: written instructor feedback. Those who responded in the affirmative saw the freewrite as a ‘starting point’ for dialogue; conversely, those who did not find freewriting exercises helpful in this regard cited a lack of written response as the reason. These responses serve as a reminder that the online medium does impact the approach. In f2f courses, instructors don’t often respond in writing to students’ freewrites, although they may be collected or read aloud in class. While such an approach seems to work in the f2f course, it does not readily translate to the online classroom. Although we, the instructors, explained in the freewriting instructions that we would respond selectively to the freewrites that students composed, participants still overall indicated that they felt heard when we responded to their freewrites in the online classroom and ignored when we didn’t. Several respondents, however, did comment that reading the instructor’s freewrites helped them to ‘get better acquainted with [her].’ Just as we would freewrite with our students in the f2f course, even sometimes reading our freewrites to the class, we thought it important to participate in the freewriting exercises in our online courses. Students did remark that they ‘looked forward to [the teacher’s] freewrite’ and they ‘liked the teacher’s responses.’ The freewrites that we posted to the discussion board, said one participant, made ‘the experience feel less like a one-way street’ between instructor and student. From our perspective, composing and posting our own freewrites was a relatively easy and fun exercise that made us feel more present and invested in our courses. While many participants commented on the opportunity to experience the ‘humanness’ of their classmates and instructors through freewriting, their comments also indicated that having the space to express their own personality to their classmates and instructor in their own voices was important to them. Several participants saw the freewrites as ‘extension[s]’ of themselves, and that, as one explained, ‘help[ed] me connect with classmates.’ Just as students felt that their freewrites allowed them to showcase their personality to their classmates, they believed that the freewrites gave them the opportunity to ‘share’ themselves with their instructors, a point this participant explained more fully: I feel like my instructor is able to get a better understanding of my thoughts through freewriting. Usually when writing a response I feel like I almost try to impress my instructor but with freewriting there is so much

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less pressure. I do think it is important to have structured writing assignments but I think freewriting nicely supplements those with casual writing. I think that my writing style and tone in freewrites are much more close to my actual personality and it is good to know that my instructor gets to see that. Especially with an online class where we don’t have very much contact with our professors. Freewriting, as some respondents testified, gave them the opportunity to ‘be themselves’ with their instructor and classmates; it gave them a safe space to write in their own voices and languages about ideas that were important to them. And these occasions made them feel more connected with the course.

5

Suggestions for Implementing Freewriting in Online Writing Courses

The findings from our study have informed how we approach freewriting in the online composition classroom. While freewriting could be conducted in a number of ways, we recommend that instructors utilize discussion boards. This space is particularly well-suited to host freewriting exercises because of its ease of construction, its accessibility, and its assessment options. In this section, then, we outline our suggestions for implementing freewriting into the discussion board. Educating students about approaches to and purposes of freewriting can help invest them more in the exercise. Instructors should introduce the foundations of freewriting early in the course, as a means to explain and legitimize the practice in an academic setting. Although there are many readings that would be appropriate, we suggest using excerpts from Donald Murray’s A Writer Teaches Writing (1968); Elbow’s Writing without Teachers (1973); Ede’s Work in Progress (1989); Lamott’s Bird by Bird (1994); Rief’s 100 Quickwrites (2003). Each approach to freewriting varies slightly; hence, instructors are best served by exploring the wealth of freewriting resources available and honing their selections to meet their particular objectives. Based on our study, we recommend that for each assigned freewriting task, instructors clearly articulate the kind of freewriting that they are assigning and its corresponding outcomes. We found that unfocused freewriting works well as an invention activity that helps students brainstorm potential writing topics, generate text, and work through areas of revision. Often taking the form of icebreakers and personal reflections, unfocused freewriting also functions as a community-building activity. Focused freewriting, as corroborated by our

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survey, encourages students to contemplate specific topics, explore course concepts, analyze their own writing, and assess their progress in the course. Because freewriting can be utilized in myriad ways, transparency in learning objectives is imperative; further, explaining the applications of freewriting enhances practice. Online writing instructors should clarify how they will grade and respond to student freewrites. While there are a number of assessment options, we suggest freewriting be graded leniently. In our courses, freewrites are not heavily weighted assignments, but we do assign grades to ensure participation. Our study revealed that students’ appetite for freewriting feedback was exacerbated in the online classroom. Participants interpreted an absence of response from instructors to mean their work wasn’t being read. This demonstrates one of the central challenges of utilizing freewriting in an online course. In the f2f course, there is minimal expectation for written feedback. In the online course, however, students interpret this feedback as evidence that their work is being read. As instructors of the course, we knew that we were reading students’ freewrites, helping us to get to know them better, yet when we didn’t regularly respond to these low-stakes assignments, students thought their work was being ignored. To address this misreading of silence in the discussion board, we suggest instructors explicitly and regularly share the expectations of freewriting, which includes minimal written feedback. Additionally, it is important that instructors remind students of the expectations for responses to classmates’ freewrites. In our own classes, students are welcomed and encouraged to respond; however, responses were not mandated. Students may not receive written feedback from their classmates, but that does not necessarily mean that their classmates aren’t paying attention. Our study indicates that students were reading each other’s freewrites, that they actually enjoyed reading them and found them to be helpful academically and socially. It is important, therefore, to remind students that their work is being read, even if they don’t receive any written responses. To make this “behind-the-scenes” behavior even more visible to students, instructors can enable the statistics tracking function, a feature that allows students to see how many times their post has been viewed. Highlighting that students are reading their peers’ freewrites is integral to the cultivation of community in an online writing course. As a final recommendation, we strongly encourage instructors to compose their own freewrites and post them to the discussion board. Our findings underscore the importance of instructor participation in freewriting assignments. Instructor contributions model the activity while also giving students the opportunity to know them more fully. Freewriting provides instructors with

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valuable insights into students with whom they are linked only virtually; it follows, then, students are likely to feel more connected to instructors from reading their freewrites.

6

Conclusion

After decades of successful implementation in the f2f setting, freewriting needs to be reprogrammed for the online classroom. While it is important to remember that freewriting is only one low-stakes pedagogical approach, as our findings demonstrate, it has the potential to morph the way students learn and connect in virtual classrooms. Our study supports scholarship that positions freewriting as an indispensable component of the invention process. When shrugging off the constraints of the inner-editor, students move productively toward honing their rhetorical purpose within the digital world. As a writingto-learn activity, freewriting proved invaluable as students used the archival nature of their posts to elaborate on their initial impressions. Deeper understanding was achieved through freewriting on discussion boards as a public place of inquiry. One of the more noteworthy outcomes of the study was that freewriting helped foster kinship and meaningful bonds between students and instructors. Certainly, freewriting cannot eradicate feelings of seclusion for all online students, but it proves beneficial for making inroads to an area of online learning that was previously sequestered. This single activity undoubtedly impacted the way we approach teaching writing in the virtual classroom. Freewriting, we believe, is a valuable writing strategy that should feature prominently in every online instructor’s repertoire.

Appendix a: Survey Questions 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

What is your gender identity? Female, Female to male transgender, Male, Male to female transgender, Not sure, other (please specify). Are you Hispanic, White, Black or African-American, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or Mixed Race? Please write in any racial designation that best describes you. In what year were you born? How many college credit hours have you completed? Did you have previous experience with freewriting before this class? If so, was it in face-to-face courses or online courses? How do your previous experiences compare to the freewriting that you composed in your course?

126 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

wilde and wecker How would you define freewriting and what is its purpose? Has freewriting influenced your writing and/or thinking? Does freewriting add to an online writing course? Are there any limitations? Does freewriting help you to connect more with your instructor? If so, how? Does freewriting help you to connect more with your classmates? If so, how? Rate your interest in reading your classmates’ freewriting on 1–3 scale. 1 is very interested in reading your classmates’ freewriting; 2 is somewhat interested; 3 is not interested in reading your classmates’ freewriting. Rate your interest in reading your classmates’ freewriting on 1–3 scale. 1 is very interested in reading your classmates’ freewriting; 2 is somewhat interested; 3 is not interested in reading your classmates’ freewriting. In discussions, did you tend to write responses to your classmates’ freewriting? Please explain why your choices. Do you think that freewriting helped you to improve your formal writing assignments? If so, how? Does freewriting help you to engage with course material, including learning objectives, lectures, assigned readings, formal essay assignments, etc? If you answered yes, please explain. Rate your enjoyment of freewriting on a 1–3 scale. 1 suggests that you enjoyed freewriting; 2 suggests that you somewhat enjoyed freewriting; 3 suggests that you did not enjoy freewriting. Do you think that you will use freewriting outside of this course? If so, in what contexts?

References Bean, J.C. (2001). Engaging ideas. San Francisco, ca: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Belanoff, P., Elbow, P., & Fontaine, S.I. (1991). Introduction. In P. Belanoff, P. Elbow, & S.I. Fontaine (Eds.), Nothing begins with n: New investigations of freewriting (pp. xi– xviii). Carbondale, il: Southern Illinois University Press. Bledsoe, M.R. (2009). Dialectical notebooks. In T. Vilardi & M. Chang (Eds.), Writingbased teaching: essential practices and enduring questions (pp. 95–118). Albany, ny: State University of New York Press. Bizzell, P., & Herzberg, B. (1996). The Bedford bibliography for teachers of writing (4th ed.). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee for Best Practices in Online Writing Instruction (2012). A position statement of principles and example effective practices for online writing instruction. Retrieved from http://www .ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/owiprinciples.

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Ede, L. (1989). Work in progress: A guide to academic writing and revising. Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without teachers. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (1991). Towards a phenomenology of freewriting. In P. Belanoff, P. Elbow, & S.I. Fontaine (Eds.), Nothing begins with n: New investigations of freewriting (pp. 189– 213). Carbondale, il: Southern Illinois University Press. (2012). Vernacular English: What speech can bring to writing. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Fishman, S.M. (1997). Student writing in philosophy: A sketch of five techniques. New directions for teaching and learning, 69, 53–66. Gaide, S. (2004). Best practices for helping students complete online degree programs. Distance Education Report, 8(20), 8. Glenn, C., & Goldthwaite, M.A. (2008). The St. Martin’s guide to teaching writing (6th ed.). Boston, ma: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Hammond, L. (1991). Using focused freewriting to promote critical thinking. In P. Belanoff, P. Elbow, & S.I. Fontaine (Eds.), Nothing begins with n: New investigations of freewriting (pp. 71–92). Carbondale, il: Southern Illinois University Press. Hawakaya, S.I. (1962). Learning to think and to write: Semantics in freshman English. College Composition and Communication 13,(1), 5–8. Jaggars, S.S., & Xu, D. (2010). Online learning in the Virginia community college system. New York, ny: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life. New York, ny: Anchor Books. Macrorie, K. (1991). The freewriting relationship. In P. Belanoff, P. Elbow, & S.I. Fontaine (Eds.), Nothing begins with n: New investigations of freewriting (pp. 173–188). Carbondale, il: Southern Illinois University Press. Murray, D. (1968). A writer teaches writing: A practical method of teaching composition. Boston, ma: Houghton Mifflin. Nash, R. (2005). Course completion rates among distance learners: Identifying possible methods to improve retention. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 8(4). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/ Rief, L. (2003). 100 quickwrites: Fast and effective freewriting exercises that build students’ confidence, develop their fluency, and bring out the writer in every student. New York, ny: Scholastic Teaching Resources. Rovai, A. (2003). In search of higher persistence rate in distance education online programs. Internet and Higher Education, 6, 1–16. Warnock, S. (2009). Teaching writing online: How and why. Urbana, il: National Council of Teacher of English.

chapter 7

The Experience of an Online University Course for Learning Written Communication Skills in ict Studies Maria-Jesús Marco-Galindo, Joan-Antoni Pastor-Collado and Rafael Macau-Nadal

1

Introduction

This chapter first provides a detailed description of the design process and of the course designed to improve students’ writing skills. Secondly, it shows the quantitative and qualitative evidence of its efficiency and efficacy gains, based on the analysis of the results obtained during the last nine years. This analysis allows us to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the course with regard to key elements such as the teacher’s role, teaching materials and the assessment model. Finally, the chapter concludes with a brief summary of the longitudinal extension to the course with a recently system designed to provide opportunities to continue practicing the enhanced writing skills during the remaining time the students study for their degree. Prior research has indicated the importance of written communication skills for ict professionals (Anewalt, 2002; Cunningham, 1994; Etlinger, 2006; Fell, Proulx and Casey, 1996) and the need to incorporate the learning of this key skill throughout ict studies’ curricula. Graduates’ weak communication skills have been highlighted as an important shortcoming for their professional development and progression (Beaubouef, 2003; Gruba and Al-Mahmood, 2004; Liebowitz, 2004). Furthermore, according to a range of studies, ict professionals spend between 40% and 80% of their time, depending on their position, writing reports and documents of different types, documenting projects, or making presentations (Baren and Watson, 1993; Pinelli, Barclay and Kennedy, 1995). Similarly, poor communication, in a broad sense, has been pointed to as

Marco-Galindo, M.J., Pastor-Collado, J.A. & Macau-Nadal, R. (2015). The Experience of an Online University Course for Learning: Written Communication Skills in ict Studies. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 128–148). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004290846_009 .

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one of the causes behind the failure of some ict projects (Hall, Wilson, Rainer and Jagielska, 2007). Despite this, there is an overall perception that many graduates do not possess the level of competence required for professional life (Agoki, Ng and Jonhson, 2007; Ford and Riley, 2003; Moodie, Brammer and Hessami, 2007). What is more, students remain unaware of the importance of the issue until they find themselves in the world of work. Thus, they are not motivated to acquire these skills and are unaware of their limitations, which can be diverse in nature, until they are close to the end of their studies (Rusinaru, Popescu and Popa-Nistorescu, 2010). Most international ict curricula referent frameworks and benchmarks include in some way the recommendation that soft skills,1 including written communication, be addressed and learned within specific ict courses. Of particular importance here are the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (abet), the acm/ieee’s Computing Curriculum (cc2001), the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (aacsb), the Computer Science Accreditation Board (csab) and, in Europe, the Tuning Project (González and Wagenaar, 2003). However, many ict curricula are still far from meeting these requirements, implicitly accepting that students will obtain their degrees without achieving an adequate mastery of these skills. More recently, in Europe, within the European Higher Education Area (ehea), the Bologna process has underlined the need to adequately include, in a longitudinal way within the new curricula, and in addition to conventional technical competences, the teaching and learning of soft skills, the effective communication of which is considered as one of the most important. Nevertheless, the idea of integrating communicative competence in curricula is not a new one, although it has only recently been applied in many universities, particularly in Europe, where little or no work had been done on the issue until recently. It is more commonly found in North America, due to the influence of the Writing Across the Curriculum (wac) movement (Anewalt, 2002; Becker, 2008; Blume, Baeker, Collins and Donohue, 2009). Scholars are generally in agreement on how the skills should be taught to ensure that this learning is transferred to the professional world: (1) the process must be eminently practical in nature (Anewalt, 2002; Harvey and Kadlowec, 2010; Pesante, 1991; Vampola, Eichhorn, Thomson, Messere and Manseur,

1 The term soft skill refers to a cluster of personal qualities, habits and attitudes that make someone a good employee.

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2010), (2) in a way as integrated as possible with the context of the course itself (Beer, 2002; Etlinger, 2006; Gruba and Søndergaard, 2001; Hartman, 1989; Kay, 1998) and (3) distributed throughout the entire length of the degree program. However, researchers also make it clear that the inclusion of this competence within the curriculum presents some difficulties, like: the fact that ict curricula are already very full, or the lack of specialised resources, such as teaching staff knowledgeable and willing to take this lead, or the need for new teaching and assessment strategies, quite different from those of classical ict content, and the complexity of coordination when communication skills need to be integrated across the curriculum, and not just in a single place. The literature in this field records a number of experiences that tackle one or more aspects to progress in providing solutions to the issue, each of which is adapted to the conditions and constraints of its individual context, some of which have been analysed after being put into practice. All these experiences can basically be classified into three different approaches to tackling with the issue and include teaching/learning these skills in ict curricula: 1) Inclusion of specific writing courses in the curricula (Blume et al., 2009; Etlinger, 2006; Kaczmarczyk et al., 2004; Kay, 1998; Liebowitz, 2005; Walker, 1999). 2) Incorporation of writing activities in different curriculum courses (Al-Othmany and Solaiman Ali, 2012; Etlinger, 2006; Falkner and Falkner, 2012; Ford and Riley, 2003; Harvey and Kadlowec, 2010; Magleby and Furse, 2007; Mertz and McElfresh, 2010; Pesante, 1991; Pomykalski, 2006; Walker, 1998). 3) Opting for a “longitudinal” focus that combines the two previous approaches (Fellows, McGrann and Laferty, 2004; Fisher, Usrey and Beasley, 2003; Flateby and Fehr, 2008; Ford and Riley, 2003; Giangrande 2009; Grossenbacher and Matta, 2011; Geonetta, 2005; Pet-Armacost and Armacost, 2003; Watson and Alexander, 2005). A more detailed and comprehensive literature review was previously published in Marco-Galindo, Pastor-Collado and Macau-Nadal (2012b). Generally, the experiences described in the literature offer a valid basis for progressing towards improving the current situation, but none of them have been applied to a virtual learning environment or provide in themselves a complete, easily generalizable or definitive model. It is therefore important to start experimenting with, and drawing good practice pointers from, some teaching and learning systems to improve the written communication skills of ict students based on the aforementioned research.

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Motivated by the above situation, we at the Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies Department of the uoc decided to address the written communication difficulties shared by many of our engineering students taking into special consideration our particular context (that of a “virtual” online university).

2

Research Method

The design of a holistic and longitudinal model to incorporate writing into the ict programs of uoc has been carried out as a curricular research and innovation project, a research angle which is helping us to give the project consistency and formal structure. The main research methodology that we have adopted is Design Research (dr), (Hevner, March, Park and Ram, 2004; Kuechler and Vaishnavi, 2008). dr is an emerging research method, also applied to training and learning (Collins and Bielaczyc, 2004), that provides a transformative vision of education research in which the results obtained during the process allow for assessment and progressive refinement of the designs themselves. dr was used earlier and even more naturally in engineering research where its culture attaches especial importance to finding incremental solutions that are effective and applicable to the problems dealt with, and to change and improve situations by creating new artefacts (Hevner et al., 2004; Oates, 2006; Peffers, Tuunanen, Rothenberger and Chatterjee, 2008). More specifically, we designed our course by broadly following the so-called Design Science Research Methodology (dsrm) presented by Peffers et al. (2008). According to dsrm, any design process—in our case the design of a teaching/learning system first consisting in a new course—is one that consists of six activities that are iterated until a sufficiently valid solution is found with available resources: (1) problem identification and motivation, (2) definition of the objectives for a solution, (3) design and development, (4) demonstration, (5) evaluation and (6) communication. Finally, as noted in more detail below, this study’s design process has been carried out in two main stages. The first involves the design of a specific course and the second consists in the design of a ‘longitudinal extension’ of the learning of the skill throughout the study program, which culminates with the endof-degree project.

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Course Description

The course aims to provide students with the practical tools of current Linguistics needed to solve the main problems with text writing in the area of ict. Its theoretical orientation, concepts, learning methodology and activities are based on the contributions of Text Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, which take the text as a point of departure and focus on the study of the use of language and communication needs. The course examines not only the sentence, but also the text as a unit and its determining factors: purpose, audience and, in general, circumstances that make up the communicative situation. According to Text Linguistics, a well-written text respects three properties: context awareness, coherence and cohesion.2 We have designed a program focused on the needs of future ict professionals, considering the usual mistakes identified in previous student texts. The goal is not to learn grammar, but rather to use linguistic knowledge to resolve the difficulties faced in writing texts for specific purposes.

4

Context

uoc is a distance university, established in 1995, that bases all of its curricula on virtual learning. The majority of its students are adults who cannot attend physical classes or who find it more convenient to study online. They are in the 35–40 age range, most married with families, already working as ict professionals, and some already have a prior, non-ICT-related, university degree. They study at home, interacting online with other students, and they organize their learning efforts with the help of course guides and the support of tutors and professors from the university. Our model is centred upon interaction with a learning system based on asynchronous encounters that rely on three elements: sound learning materials, teaching process and continuous assessment. Teaching and learning happens within a virtual classroom organized around four independent sections: planning, communication, resources and assessment (see Figure 7.1). Within each course, a member of the teaching staff who we call ‘consultant’, a specialist in 2 A text is appropriate when it fits the communication environment, the communicative purpose, the subject matter, the receiver, etc. A text is coherent when it contains adequate information that is exposed in several paragraphs in a logical order. A text has a good cohesion if its elements are well connected through connectors, pronouns to avoid repetition, synonyms, etc.

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figure 7.1 Virtual classroom for communicative competence for ict professionals

the subject area, guides the learning process. Guidance on more general or longitudinal issues is provided by a ‘tutor’. The consultant is responsible for the learning plan, for answering questions regarding the subject and for continuous feedback to, and final assessment of students.

5

Approach and Structure

To design the subject, which we named ‘Communicative competence for ict professionals’, a multidisciplinary team was created, made up of two ict lecturers and two experts in applied linguistics. In line with the dsrm methodology, the team followed an iterative and incremental design process. There were four main design iterations, which evolved from the design and deployment of an initial optional course within our Computing Engineering bachelors towards a final mandatory course for all ict bachelors. This course now provides the starting point for a ‘longitudinal’ system for the teaching/learning of the skill throughout the entire program. Chronologically, these iterations took place between 2002, when the project was suggested, and the second semester of 2010/11, when we implemented the mandatory course for all the new ict

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courses, following ehea guidelines. Next we present the final outcome of the design, without examining in detail each of the different intermediate iterations:

6

Problem Identification

The team’s first task was to examine the problem and to establish those writing skills that needed covering and that could be useful and important for our students. To do this, 203 real student texts were analysed to detect the most common writing-related weaknesses. This revealed different types of difficulties, which we classified in accordance with the three textual properties proposed by text linguistics: context awareness (registering problems, such as the use of inappropriate words or colloquial forms in formal text or a lack of consistency in the use of the grammatical person), coherence (such as structural problems and disorganised presentation of information, repeated or irrelevant ideas) and cohesion (syntactical, orthographical and punctuation errors and lexical imprecision, among others). See Figure 7.2a and Figure 7.2b for different detailed examples of detected problems.

figure 7.2a

An example of the detected problems

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figure 7.2b

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An example of the detected problems

Goals for a Solution

In light of the issues detected, one of the goals we set ourselves was to provide the subject’s students with the resources and support needed to improve their writing. Students must achieve the following objectives: 1. To learn that texts must comply with a set of rules—rules specified in the text properties—in order to achieve efficient communication. 2. To know that human communication produces different text types and genres which conform to certain models and are governed by different conventions. 3. To learn the basic features of texts written during ict studies and professional practice.

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4. To understand the main mechanisms in order to adapt the text to the context in ict settings. 5. To understand that selecting, prioritizing and organizing information is necessary in order to compose a coherent text. The students need to know how to organize the information in a text (chapters, sections and paragraphs). 6. To identify the features of the specialized lexicon, accuracy and the use of terms. 7. To know that the main mechanisms of cohesion in texts for specific purposes are syntactic and lexical cohesion and appropriate use of connectors. 8. To learn the importance of the punctuation as an essential element of the structure and organization of texts. 9. To practice all these concepts through continuous activities to gradually assimilate the text production techniques.

8

Design and Development

The design architecture was developed with reference to the three basic elements of virtual learning at uoc. The first decision to be made was what the subject focus should be. From the beginning, we were quite clear that we wanted to design a subject that was theoretically sound in the sense of having a solid, relevant linguistic grounding. This theoretical basis would enable us to provide, in a rationally structured way, all the basic knowledge that underpins good written communication and that would become the reference point for students in their future writing tasks, in the subject itself, in other subjects and in their daily work. At this initial point (but also later on) the linguistic specialists’ guidance was essential, showing how positive it can be to set up teams with experts from specialist fields that usually do not work together in universities. Based on the prior analysis of the main writing problems, the team prepared a proposal for a selection of skills based on text linguistics, which gave shape to a syllabus organized around three core themes: 1) Basic concepts (communication competences, textual properties, types of text); 2) General characterization of some typical texts drawn from the ict field (project plans and reports, draft outlines, systems descriptions, operation manuals and meeting minutes); 3) Production techniques (production process, context awareness, coherence and cohesion).

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This approach helped us to focus the course content on structuring texts and on their effective communication, rather than on grammatical and orthographical problems. The second key decision was how the teaching materials presenting this content could be made to fit in a virtual learning environment. The contents are presented in a clear, plain and concise way, focusing on aspects that foster the student’s self-reflection on writing. The types of texts are explained using real examples, most of them form the ict field, commented in order to reinforce key concepts and highlight practical issues. The third key decision was regarding the teaching process. We decided that the profile of teaching staff needed to be specialists in applied linguistics and be coordinated by a lecturer specialist in ict. Thus, the multidisciplinary team was retained, something we consider vital for the success of the course, given that the content is linguistics-based, but the target students and texts lie within the field of ict. The teaching process itself was designed to consist basically in the expert guiding and counselling of the student throughout the learning process, resolving any doubts and ensuring continuous and individualised feedback and assessment of the student progress, in line with a learning plan in which practical work plays the key role. To complement teaching, the continuous assessment element was designed. Effective learning only occurs with continuous performance of writing exercises. This is why continuous assessment is a key aspect, as it guarantees ongoing, individualised feedback on student progress, according to the learning plan in which practical work plays the key role. To do this, the consultant provides students with general guidelines for each theme, guides them when they carry out the activities (feed-up), corrects and advises them on any issues detected (feed-back)—on either a group or individual basis—and on how to solve them, to progress in learning (feed-forward). Continuous assessment comprises four tasks and a final practical assessment. Each task includes structured exercises on specific aspects of linguistics, of increasing difficulty. The final practical assessment consists in writing a text on a specialist subject in which the student must demonstrate the writing skills learned during the course as well as his understanding of the writing techniques of texts for specific purposes. (See Table 7.1 for some types of specific exercises). Finally, also with regard to continuous assessment and given the importance of feedback in both virtual learning and learning how to write, the final important decision was on the feedback model and system. The feedback model we designed permitted the building and sharing of a common activity model and correction criteria that allowed all members of teaching staff to follow agreed common guidelines that were in line with the objectives that had been

138 table 7.1

marco-galindo, pastor-collado and macau-nadal Types of exercises to work each linguistic concept

Category

Type of exercise

context awareness

Transform an informal text into a more formal one. Transform an oral text into a written one. Identify typical traits of a specialized text (use of precise terms, structured exposition of information, …) and in a non-specialized text (subjective expressions, use of ambiguous terms, …). Discover if a text contains repetitive or irrelevant ideas. Draw a diagram or a conceptual map from the ideas of a text. Write an introduction, a conclusion and a summary for a text. Divide a text into paragraphs. Analyze if a text follows the traditional structure of introduction, body and conclusion. Identify the reference mechanisms of a text. Identify the connectors of a text. Correct the punctuation mistakes of a text. Correctly apply the punctuation mechanisms to a text. Rewrite and correctly order a set of references. Correctly cite the references in a text. Detect and replace the incorrect words in a text. Replace the repeated words in a text. Detect and correct the misspellings and syntax in a text.

content coherence

cohesion

presentation suitability

set. With this in mind, a rubric was drawn up that specified the criteria upon whose basis texts would be regarded as well-written, stemming from textual properties together with a description of the quality expected of each of them (see Table 7.2). The rubric also helped with the processes of feed-up (indicating to students what we expect them to do and how), feed-back (detailing what has been well and poorly done in each activity) and feed-forward (providing guidelines for correcting errors and progressing in the learning process).

the experience of an online university course for writing table 7.2

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Rubric criteria to determine a well-written technical text

Category

Criteria

context awareness

Use the right vocabulary for each individual case. Make proper use of technical terminology when required. Deal with the issue with the objectivity required of an academic text. Write correctly. Explain the subject’s important and core ideas and concepts. Use original discourse. Follow the traditional structure of introduction, body and conclusion. Clearly divide the text into sections. Properly divide the information into paragraphs. Make statements in a logical order (subject-verb-object) and of a suitable length. Link ideas within and between sentences. Proper use of grammatical and lexical mechanisms to refer to textual referents (subjects or topics). Use punctuation marks properly. Correct citation of bibliographic references. Proper presentation in accordance with common academic standards and use of suitable resources to accompany the text. Use the right vocabulary for each individual case. Make proper use of technical terminology when required. Deal with the issue with the objectivity required for an academic text. Write correctly.

content

structure

cohesion

presentation

suitability

Note. The full rubric includes this table with the criteria together with a description of the different performance levels expected for each of them. It defines four quality levels: below-minimum level, minimum level, expected level and excellence level.

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Demonstration and Evaluation

After nine academic years, we have been able to obtain a great deal of empirical quantitative evidence on the academic results obtained, as well as qualitative evidence on students’ perceived satisfaction with the course in general, with teaching materials, and with the teaching and assessment processes. We have analysed all this evidence in a systematic way, allowing us to develop and improve the course from its initial design. We have tried to consolidate and improve the strengths, and to redress and correct the weaknesses in light of the aforementioned key educational elements in a virtual learning environment. Qualitative and quantitative data is systematically collected through the institutional survey and the ad-hoc course survey conducted each semester. Other quantitative data is provided by the university’s academic management information systems. Our analysis of the data gathered since the start of the course indicates that: – With regard to student registration, over the nine academic years, the subject has been followed by 5,036 students, a very high number for a subject with this content. What is more, when it was still optional, it was the one most registered by students. – Academic performance, defined as the number of students passing the course, is high and above the average for the degree in question. Performance was higher when the subject was optional (ranging between 68 % and 91 % but usually above 80%), as it was taken only by those students most interested in its content (see Figure 7.3). After becoming mandatory, performance has declined, varying between 56% and 80%, usually above 70% (see Figure 7.4). – Completion of continuous assessment tasks has been very high in both cases, varying between 80% and 96%, showing how the vast majority of students properly follow the continuous learning process. – There is a high degree of satisfaction with the subject (varying between 78% and 99%), particularly with regard to its teaching, due to the positive impact of individualised continuous assessment feedback on the perception of personalised attention and learning support. Satisfaction with continuous assessment is at similar levels. The only area in which these satisfaction rates are lower is that of learning resources, because teaching materials do not provide detailed coverage of orthography and grammar, areas in which students also have significant shortcomings.

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figure 7.3 Optional course. Academic performance and completion of continuous assessment tasks

figure 7.4 Mandatory course. Academic performance and completion of continuous assessment tasks

This quantitative analysis has been rounded off with analysis of qualitative data due by using the Atlas.ti qualitative analysis tool. In short, qualitative data shows that the vast majority of students believe that the subject has provided them with a valuable learning experience that they will be able to put into practice in their personal and professional lives, that the materials and contents are well structured and clear, that the examples they provide as being essential for properly understanding the content, and that the individualised feedback was of great help to the learning process. Finally, they would like to continue receiving their consultant’s advice while studying for the remainder of their program, when the skill needs to be put in to practice in other subjects.

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Analysis of the results enables us to conclude that the course has consolidated its position as a good starting point for improving writing skills. A description of the design and a more detailed analysis of the results obtained were previously published in Marco-Galindo, Pastor-Collado and Macau-Nadal (2010a, 2010b).

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Longitudinal Extension

Within the ehea, the Bologna process has underlined the need to adequately include, in a longitudinal way within the new curricula, the teaching and learning of generic soft skills, of which effective communication is one of the most important. In this context, now that our course has been consolidated and has been properly adapted, and given its satisfactory results, we are in a position to propose that it be extended “longitudinally”, in an organised and guided manner, for our students to practise the skills learned throughout the rest of their ict curricula. This longitudinal extension of the initial course represents a new iteration in our system and has also been designed by following the dsrm process. The fundamental idea behind our new extended learning system is that we want students to apply the written communication skills they have learned in any opportunity that they encounter in the remaining subjects taken as part of their studies. From an educational perspective, the learning and evaluation of skills such as written communication imply an important change in approach. On the one hand, they call for proposed learning activities to be very much practiceoriented, provided in a context as similar as possible to professional or academic practice. On the other, in our case it means that we must change the role of our existing subject from being the unique learning framework for written communication skills into being a key but initial starting point for a wider system for learning and improving such skills. The system we are currently designing is based upon an evidence-based evaluation methodology in which students present evidence of what they have learned, which is discussed and evaluated by them and a specialized consultant before it can become part of the set of improvement evidence. Thus, it is the student who is responsible for thinking explicitly about his/her writing skills and related improvement opportunities, and for selecting and providing the evidence that they regard as providing improvement proof. This can only be done after they have passed the mandatory course “Communicative competence for ict professionals”. Students use an electronic portfolio tool to provide evidence of their improvements and the rubric to reflect upon the degree of achievement shown by this evidence.

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This new system was implemented with a pilot group of 256 students in the second semester of academic year 2009/10. Analysis of the first results indicate that continued writing practice beyond the initial course increases their perception of the importance of these skills in the professional world, helps consolidate what they have learned initially and allows them to reflect upon the difficulty of transferring what they have learned to the other written work. In this regard, the continued support of a specialist member of the teaching staff, who reviews and provides feedback, is vital to ensure continued student learning. Also noteworthy is the students’ negative perception of the amount of effort and time they have to invest in taking their writing skills into account in technical subjects whose focus is on other areas. This means that it is important to carefully limit and coordinate when and how we ask students to prove their improvements. See more details of this longitudinal extension in Marco-Galindo, Pastor-Collado and Macau-Nadal (2012a).

11

Conclusion and Lessons Learned

The designed course ‘Communicative competence for ict professionals’ accomplishes the goals set for it and follows the indications of both the literature and the main curricular frameworks associated with the teaching and learning of communication skills within ict curricula: it provides students with specific training and resources for producing texts in the specialist ict domain, based on the main writing problems detected, it is highly practical in nature, based on continuous practice of and feedback on the production of written texts, and it is now included as mandatory in the overall study program and extends beyond the course itself. Offering students a range of opportunities to practise, it meets the needs of an exclusively virtual learning environment and it improves the perception of the importance of writing in the students’ professional life. Thus, our proposal includes the contributions drawn from the other courses located in the literature but we believe it to be the only that has a solid theoretical basis, stemming from Text Linguistics, while being contextualised within the professional ict world, making extensive use of examples of real texts, both in teaching materials and in continuous assessment activities, that is being supported by a multidisciplinary team of teachers, and that is fully developed for a virtual learning environment. Despite all this, our learning system still suffers from some limitations, which open up new research opportunities:

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– For the moment it focuses exclusively in writing, ignoring equally important components of communication skills such as speaking or public presentations. Nevertheless, many of the things learned with regard to writing are also applicable to these other communication tasks. – Managing students’ diverse initial skill levels is a complex task. The teaching process needs to make it possible for all, whatever their initial level, to improve their skill set. – Students do not always find it easy to transfer these initial skills into their professional lives. – It is difficult to achieve the necessary coordination between different courses in which the skills are practised, given that this depends, to a great extent, on the degree of commitment of each subject’s teaching staff. Finally, our experience also allows us to identify key issues to consider for some other similar situations where a similar system could be considered. We summarized them with the next recommendations: – Analyze first the specific and real writing problems that you want to solve. – Decide and follow a theoretical approach. Text Linguistics is a valid one. – Review the literature to search similar experiences that you can adopt, adapt or use as model or inspiration. – Design the appropriate content course according to the problems located and to the decided approach. – Produce a practical material with real academic and professional examples from your field. – Prepare a set of activities to ensure that the student acquires the knowledge and can apply it continuously, not only during the course but also afterwards along the remaining curricula. – Provide the student the continuous assistance of an expert teacher in writing. Decide the appropriate profile of the teachers involved. A multidisciplinary team is a good option if possible. – Give an individual feedback for each text that the student writes. Do it in a systematic and organized way, using a rubric for example. – Be careful with the teachers of technical courses along the curricula. They may also require training and assistance on writing. – Don’t forget to motivate the student about the importance of writing well in his professional and academic live. – Include some mechanisms to regularly observe, review, correct and improve your experience in a systematic way. It is essential if you pretend to do research with the experience.

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part 4 Interrogating Online Writing Instruction (owi)

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chapter 8

Engaging Students in Online Learning Environments for Success in Academic Writing in the Disciplines Helen Drury and Pam Mort

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Introduction

Given the diversity of today’s student cohort, and in particular, students’ varied experiences of using English for writing in educational contexts, e-learning resources for supporting students in developing their academic writing have an important role to play. However, the impact of these can be limited if students perceive them to be an ‘add on’ to the curriculum and the risk is that they will be little used by students most in need (Skinner, Mort, Calvo, Drury, and Molina, 2012). In this context, overcoming the challenge of motivating students to engage in independent e-learning resources for academic writing is crucially linked to the constructive alignment (Biggs and Tang, 2007) of resources with discipline curricula and, most importantly, with assessments. Thus collaboration between academic writing specialists and discipline staff, together with e-learning specialists and, most importantly, with potential student users, is a key factor in the successful development of an online learning environment for teaching writing. Since 2005, the authors have collaborated on Australian government funded projects across two universities (the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales) to develop online learning resources for academic writing in the disciplines of engineering and science. In this chapter, examples from the online programs WRiSE (Write Reports in Science and Engineering) and iWRITE, a site for writing in engineering, will be included to illustrate our approach to the design of online pedagogy and the implementation and evaluation of online programs.1 Drury, H., & Mort, P. (2015). Engaging Students in Online Learning Environments for Success in Academic Writing in the Disciplines. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 151–175). Leiden: Brill. 1 WRiSE can be accessed from http://learningcentre.usyd.edu.au/wrise; iWRITE can be accessed from http://iwrite.sydney.edu.au © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004290846_010

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Writing Pedagogy

Genre pedagogy is an influential approach for teaching writing in the disciplines. This approach is grounded in theories of language in education such as new rhetoric (Freedman and Medway, 1994), discourse analysis (Schiffrin, Tannen, and Hamilton, 2001), academic literacies (Lea, 2004) and systemic functional linguistics (sfl) (Halliday, 1994). A genre-based literacy pedagogy in the sfl tradition or Sydney School (Martin and Rose, 2008; Rose and Martin, 2012) focuses on making both the product and the process of academic writing explicit to students through deconstruction and explication of the genre in context, followed by scaffolded practice with peers, and a cycle of feedback with both peers and the teacher before individual practice and, as a final option, a questioning or critical approach to the genre (Figure 8.1). In this way, students are apprenticed into the disciplinary practices and purposes associated with particular genres and genre sequences. Genre pedagogy aims to improve the writing experience of the student and provide a better understanding of the disciplinary contexts and processes in which s/he is engaged (Hyland, 2007; Jones, 2004). The teacher’s role varies as the cycle of teaching/learning progresses, and as students gain mastery of the genre. The underlying principle is to promote learning through teacher/student dialogue where student voices and experience are valued and become shared knowledge for both teacher and students. This happens throughout the cycle, but particularly at the beginning where the purpose of the genre, its context and disciplinary field are explored. In the deconstruction phase, the teacher models the genre and provides explicit knowledge about structure and language. This includes providing students with a language to talk about the language of the text (a metalanguage) which can then be used in the joint construction phase where both students and teacher share genre construction. During this phase, the students increasingly take control of their writing, guided by the teacher who models how to change their more spoken contributions into abstract, formal, written academic text. This stage can be extended through collaborative peer writing practice with teacher feedback. Finally, students are ready to create their own texts, still with the teacher and peers on hand to provide feedback. The overall role of the teacher is described by Martin as ‘guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience’ (Martin, 1999, p. 135). This scaffolded approach ensures that students acquire knowledge of both the product and process of academic writing and can be moved, with teacher support, through their ‘zone of proximal development’ (Kozulin, Gindis, Ageyev, and Miller, 2003) and towards independent control of

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figure 8.1 A genre-based teaching and learning model (martin, 1999: 131)

the genre. Student motivation is supported through valuing their contributions throughout the cycle, through collaborative writing with peers and the teacher, and through increasing confidence in making the text their own with the potential to experiment or critique the genre for their own purposes. The above pedagogy was initially implemented in the k-12 school context in Australia, and has been adapted for teaching university discipline based writing. In this new context, discipline lecturers and academic writing specialists collaborate in the design and development of teaching materials and approaches. The genre pedagogy tends to be constrained by a crowded contentbased curriculum which results in a focus on deconstructing assessment genres. Student motivation is largely extrinsic, namely to learn about genre structure and language to maximise their marks. The primary goal in this university context tends to be to facilitate student mastery of conventional discipline

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genres to satisfy assessment regimes, government quality frameworks and accrediting bodies.

3

Moving Writing Pedagogy Online

In both the us and Australia, the disciplines in which university managers, government bodies, and industry leaders have expressed most concern for students’ communication skills are science and engineering (Department of Education, Science and Training (dest) 2007; Accreditation Board for Education and Technology (abet), 2011). Writing in these disciplines is often challenging for students, and academic writing specialists in Australia have worked successfully with discipline staff to address this issue through the provision of face-to-face writing support and interventions in curricula. Nevertheless, this has been difficult to accommodate within a demanding curriculum (including laboratory sessions) and increasing class sizes. Therefore, moving to an online learning environment offered a possible solution to address the development of students’ writing in these disciplines. Teachers, in their role as educational designers, could provide a ‘thicker’ discipline context for genre pedagogy (Swales, 1990, 2004) as well as information and practice on genre as both a product and a process (Drury, 2004). Finally, developing a comprehensive elearning writing pedagogy in science and engineering would be a move towards a more systematic approach to genre development across the undergraduate years. Taking into consideration the university and disciplinary context, online learning environments need to be both a stand-alone resource for independent learning, and a resource for blended learning that discipline-based staff can integrate into their units of study. Also, given students’ varied prior knowledge about academic writing, the design of an online environment should allow students to create their own learning pathways through the site in order to personalise their learning (Kress, 2007). Student control over a learning pathway can be highly motivating (Clark & Mayer, 2011; Ryan & Deci, 2000), although effective learning also depends upon students being able to assess their own needs accurately (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006). Moving online also means that it is possible to bring together related genres from a range of disciplines in one site, which enables students to compare and contrast across genre boundaries, promoting transfer among genres and ‘genre flexibility’ (Johns, 2008).

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The Design of Learning Pathways

In our online learning environments, we created possible pathways for students to build their genre knowledge. The design features of these pathways comprise menu and hyperlink choices, and the sequencing of website content (navigation), interactive learning activities (interaction), and screen layout and arrangement of online content (screen affordances). To begin the design process, our ‘redesign’ of genre pedagogy was based on the ‘results of past production as the resource for new shaping, and for remaking’ (Kress, 2000, p. 160). In other words, our teaching experiences, methods and materials from the faceto-face context were transformed for the new context of online learning. In this way, we built on the tried and tested genre pedagogy in the sfl tradition, our ‘Available Designs’, and we made ‘new use of old materials’ (New London Group, 1996, p. 43). In addition, our design was informed by research and developments in using multiple modes for meaning making underpinned by a social semiotic theory of communication (Kress, 2010). Finally, we drew on research into cognitive learning processes in the online learning environment (Clark and Mayer, 2011). The overall aim of our design was to provide students with an online learning environment to engage them in learning about genre in three areas: – genre as a textual product – genre writing process – genre in its discipline context.

5

Navigation

Designing a navigation network consisting of menu items and hyperlinks allows students to choose their own learning pathway. Menu choices formed a compositional hierarchy in our resources, moving from general choices on the home page to specific sub-menu choices as a user moves into the site. The mode ensembles (e.g. writing, visuals) for these menu items or icons make meaning, as does their arrangement and foregrounding on screen and the social relations they create (Bezemer and Kress, 2008). For example, when students first come to the entry screen of the WRiSE site, the most general level of the navigational hierarchy, they can immediately see the website content, namely, science and engineering discipline modules or learning units (Figure 8.2). In addition, we have found that the choice of mode for these menu items helps students to engage in a personal way with the site. Writing, image and

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figure 8.2 Entry screen in the WRiSE site

colour are used together in the design of menu icons for each discipline, and a composite of the images comprises the banner at the top of the entry screen. The use of discipline-linked images encourages students to identify with their areas of study. These images and their accompanying colours continue as a banner when students enter each discipline module, helping students to know their site location and reinforcing their membership within the disciplinary community online (Figures 8.2 and 8.3). When students move further into the website by choosing a disciplinary module, for example the Microbiology module, they encounter a more specific set of menu items forming a choice network, as seen in Figure 8.3. This menu arrangement aims to support learning about genre as a text product, genre in its discipline context and the genre writing process. Repeating this menu pattern on the home page for each discipline module helps students to create their mental map of the site (Mayer, 2002). In the top part of the Microbiology home page (Figure 8.3), the menu items bring together the content about the genre as a product (Help with report writing) within a disciplinary context (Help with understanding content). These menu items are displayed on the left of the screen, the ‘Given’ or ‘taken for granted’ position for information in social semiotic theory (Kress, 2000, p. 200; Kress, 2010). This leaves the right of the screen for ‘New’ information, a sum-

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figure 8.3 Home page of the WRiSE Microbiology module

mary of what students will learn by engaging with this part of the module. The Help with report writing menu items consist primarily of the sections of the report genre as a textual product. These are listed in the same way as headings in a paper-based report, and this logical arrangement reinforces students’ understanding of the typical structure of the report genre. In each report section, for example, the discussion (Figure 8.5), menu and sub-menu items are grouped under structure and language headings (Structuring the Discussion, Scientific Language). This pattern is repeated in each section reinforcing the link between structure and language choices. Help with understanding content invites students to identify with their discipline and its prac-

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tices. The inclusion of a strong discipline context reinforces the relevance and usefulness of learning the discipline genres and this is a major motivating factor for students. (Keller, 2008; Jones, 2009). The genre writing process is addressed through the audio mode, with staff and student speakers from the discipline area. Audio icons located at the base of the screen equate with ‘Real’ meanings in semiotic theory, in other words, the report writing experiences of students and staff (Kress, 2000 p. 200). This is in contrast to the ‘Ideal’ represented in the resources provided at the top of the screen which model how students can successfully write a report. The audio icons where possible consist of a still image of the lecturer or student speaker to create a sense of authentic and personal interaction with the site, as many students would know the lecturer and could identify with the student as the following comment shows: good to hear from people we knew, more real. Student comment on audio in WRiSE

Students can listen to their lecturers talking about their expectations for student writing, the difficulties students experience in writing, and how to overcome these. Lecturers communicate their concerns and interests in supporting students to achieve successful writing outcomes, which can also promote student engagement (Jones, 2009). Students talk about their planning and writing processes, common challenges of report writing, and how they have overcome these. Each icon is annotated with a short description of the content of each clip plus its time in seconds so learners can decide whether to listen or not (Clark and Mayer, 2011). The linear sequencing of screen content plays an important role in scaffolding students’ growing understanding, and this is usually the default option in asynchronous programs for students with little background knowledge in the area. To promote understanding of genre structure and language, a typical screen sequence in WRiSE follows that of the deconstruction phase of genre pedagogy. For example, in each genre section, there is usually an explanation screen on genre structure, followed by the deconstruction of an authentic discipline example with lecturer commentary and finally an exercise (Figures 8.5, 8.6 and 8.7). Students particularly appreciate the discipline examples, as revealed by the comment: Those examples or the example and then the structure next to it, I think was great. Student comment, WRiSE

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Numbering at the screen base is used to help students know how many screens there are in the structure and language parts, which mimics paperbased page numbering. Where appropriate, audio icons signal lecturer or student commentaries on the process of writing a particular aspect of a report, which serves to bridge the product-process divide. For students who do not want to follow a linear pathway, navigation options are provided at the base and left side of the screen. In genre pedagogy, it is important to start with students’ current knowledge of the genre and the topic. Whilst classroom interactions throughout the genre pedagogy cycle enable sharing of this knowledge, in an online environment students can assess their own needs to create an individualised pathway. WRiSE provides an ‘entry quiz’ in each genre section, where students can check their current knowledge. Students can also access a ‘Checklist’ menu item located at the end of each section where they can find a summary of the key points. The location of these menus provides students, especially those less confident in writing, with a beginning and end point for their learning pathway.

6

Interaction

Both structured and informal interactions within this online environment are designed to build confidence and competence in students, as well as to develop social relations. The interactivity creates opportunities for shared knowledge construction and social relations. For example, in the design of the online program for engineering, iWrite, the customised learning management system for writing tasks in a blended unit of study can be used to engage students in collaborative writing. Students submit their writing to the system for joint, group-based, ongoing drafting, redrafting and final editing of a single text. Individual writing tasks can also be submitted for peer and lecturer feedback. In this way, the joint construction phase of genre pedagogy is made available within an online learning environment. This social aspect of learning can enhance student engagement and create a community of practice around disciplinary writing tasks. Students can also access support while they are writing, using the engineering genre modules within the iWrite site. Links to these modules can also be provided as specific feedback by lecturers on students’ assessments (Figures 8.4a and 8.4b). Thus, knowledge about the genre product and process is integrated in the site. In face-to-face situations, students learn through negotiation of meanings as they interact and converse around resources and tasks. Through this classroom ‘conversation’ students and teachers come to shared understandings of con-

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An iWRITE screen shot of an email letter being automatically generated as the lecturer grades a student’s written assignment (Calvo et al., 2011) (see section Joint Genre Construction for further explanation)

tent (Laurillard, 2002). As such nuanced spoken interaction is not possible online, the design challenge for online pedagogy is to scaffold students’ developing understandings of content through student interaction with the online learning resources. It is also important to provide guidance on how to use and interact with the online medium of instruction itself. For example, in WRiSE the deconstruction of a genre section, such as the discussion, is initially displayed using an animated, labelled diagram which students are guided to view progressively (Figure 8.5).

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An iWRITE screen shot of an email letter being automatically generated as the lecturer grades a student’s written assignment (Calvo et al., 2011) (see section Joint Genre Construction for further explanation)

The frame of the diagram with a vertical arrow alongside symbolises the structure of the text at this stage, namely, a movement from general to specific and back to general. Colour, framing and other meaning making devices, such as arrows as well as numbering and written headings, identify the typical structural stages in this report genre section, their sequencing and repetition. Students can interact with the link embedded at each structural stage to progressively reveal its function and an example text extract. These appear in a separate window on the same screen (Figure 8.6). The colour coding for each stage is continued as the functions of the stage and the text examples are revealed, reinforcing the connection between the content in the windows and the screen display. Since the authentic texts used in WRiSE are based on student writing, teacher commentary is provided for students via hyperlinks (Figure 8.7). Finally, at the end of each genre section, such as the discussion, students can check their understanding through an online exercise that provides immediate feedback. Writing their own assignments while interacting with WRiSE supports students in transferring their learning, as one student user remarks:

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figure 8.5 Structure of discussion section in the WRiSE Biology module showing the typical stages in the discussion

figure 8.6 Window showing the functions of the ‘Relate to aim’ stage of the discussion (left side) and an example text extract (right side)

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figure 8.7 Example of lecturer feedback on student text example provided by hyperlink 1

I used it [WRiSE] on the structure, mainly what to put where, I tend to blur my results in discussion a little bit. After I wrote it [my report] I went back and looked at it [WRiSE] and kind of pasted a few things of what I wrote. Student comment on WRiSE

7

Screen Affordances

Changing to an online medium results in both ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ compared with traditional pedagogy (Kress, 2005). Screen size limits what is visible in a window at any one time, and restricts the number of windows that can be viewed simultaneously. Nevertheless, the online interface allows students the greater convenience of access to all the resources they need in one place, including links to library resources, even though they may not be able to view everything at the same time. Writing an assignment on screen whilst using a resource such as Help with report writing within WRiSE to check structure and language, as well as the background knowledge for discipline content provided in the Help with understanding content, is a strong motivation for students to use the site. The deconstruction phase of genre pedagogy involves the analysis of a whole example text or ‘model’ in terms of its structure and language. In designing the WRiSE site, it was considered important to use authentic student reports to illustrate typical features of this genre. Authentic student texts help students understand the requirements of writing at this level in their disciplines, as well as providing a standard to aim for (Sadler, 2010). However, using authentic multi-page texts in a screen medium is challenging as scrolling reduces the

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ability to interact with the whole text. To overcome this, there is an Overall Structure section in WRiSE which shows how the text works as a complete genre (Figure 8.3). Teaching about writing in any medium, of necessity uses the mode of writing for teaching and learning resources, such as example texts and exercises. In an online environment, the question for a teacher/designer is which modes best draw students’ attention to critical features of the text’s generic structure and language. Although the graphic modes of font and colour are available for teachers/designers in both the face-to-face and online situation, an online environment offers the possibility of hyperlinks so that explanations and examples can be immediately shown alongside the parts of the text that they relate to. The following comment suggests that these affordances help students with their learning. Seeing those different colours is what helped me the most and, yep, I did change it [my report]. I wrote mine and then went to this site and looked at it [WRiSE] and then went back and changed it [my report]. Student feedback, WRiSE

Although these modes clearly supported understanding in this instance, the challenge is how to maximise this kind of engagement.

8

Evaluation during Design

During design, it is essential to have a design feedback cycle as part of a project management plan. This means that problems can be identified early, although not all issues will become apparent until full implementation. All project team members need to be involved in giving feedback on prototype designs, as they will have only contributed to the design of specific aspects of the online learning environment. For example, academic writing specialists who have designed writing resources using discipline texts will need feedback from discipline lecturers to ensure their insights into language use in the discipline are accurate. While it is also important to include student users in giving feedback on prototype designs, this can be difficult in terms of finding student volunteers with the time available. Feedback from colleagues is also desirable. Evaluation approaches such as direct observation, think aloud protocols and user surveys and interviews can highlight any issues with overall appearance and usability. Testing also needs to be carried out on different browsers, computers and other devices.

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If an online learning environment is designed and implemented in stages, as was the case with the physiology prototype module for WRiSE, small scale studies can inform future design and approaches to implementation and can assess whether the online program has targeted students’ writing needs and contributed to improved learning outcomes. Evaluation approaches can also be trialled. For example, the physiology prototype was designed and partially implemented and evaluated in a second year physiology unit of study over a 12 month period with complete implementation and evaluation occurring at the end of this period with a second cohort. Students rated the site highly in terms of ease of use and user friendly design. They reported improved understanding of report structure and scientific content. In addition, those who used the site more often gained significantly higher marks in their reports (Muir and Drury, 2013). This positive evaluation enabled us to successfully apply for government funding to use the prototype as a model in creating WRiSE.

9

Motivating Students to Use Online Learning Environments for Writing in the Disciplines

The implementation phase of an online learning environment for genre pedagogy is crucial in successfully engaging students and bringing about learning. From the beginning, teachers play a key role in this process by orienting students to test out e-learning resources. The cycle of implementation is illustrated in Figure 8.8 and is adapted from Martin’s genre-based literacy pedagogy (Figure 8.1).

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Setting Context

For busy, struggling, or even over-confident students, a suite of learning resources in an online format can initially be overwhelming. Teachers need to contextualise these online resources within students’ units of study, and illustrate how they are aligned with the learning outcomes and the assessment tasks (outer circle of Figure 8.8). This helps students to understand the purpose and value of the resources for success in the written assessment tasks. Such preparation should occur early in a course, preferably in a networked classroom where students can have a positive and memorable introduction to the online resources and where their independent use is demonstrated for the preparation and production of the target genres.

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figure 8.8 Proposed e-learning genre-base literacy pedagogy for writing in the discipline (adapted from martin 1999)

A single reference to the resources in ‘class’ (face-to-face or online) or through a forum, email or a link in a learning management system is insufficient for encouraging student use. For professional disciplines such as engineering and science, it is also important to contextualise how writing tasks are related to written genres in other courses and workplace communication so that students begin to appreciate the need to become genre savvy (Artemeva, Logie, and St-Martin, 2009; Goodfellow, 2005).

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Joint and Independent Genre Deconstruction

After contextualising the online learning environment, students can create their own independent learning pathway to meet their individual writing needs

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and use the resources to deconstruct their assessment genres. However, if time allows, a teacher guided session for joint deconstruction of the target genres using the online resources can be scheduled in a computer lab or networked classroom where students can use their own devices. A short tutorial, such as 30 minutes, can help students find the e-learning site and then jointly explore the stages of an example genre and check their understanding with an online exercise before individually exploring topics of interest. The e-learning resources activate students’ prior genre knowledge (and assumptions) and allow them to assess what aspects of the resources they need to use. A teacher can monitor, assist, and pose and discuss questions with individuals or the group. Not only do students become familiar with the e-learning resources, and any problems with logging in, navigating, understanding content or completing exercises are addressed promptly; but learners have also undertaken a significant step in deconstructing the target genre that they will prepare over the following weeks. This guided instruction brings transparency whereby students’ online efficacy, competence and comfort can be assessed and supported (Anderson, 2004). We have found that students who are given guided time to explore the online resource are more likely to revisit it than students who only receive a brief overview via the teacher’s slides or a short on-screen demonstration in a class (Mort and Drury, 2012).

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Independent Genre Construction

Following contextualisation and deconstruction activities, students are ready for independently constructing their assessment genres, supported by selfaccess to the e-learning environment. However, learners may not prioritise using online resources, may forget, or may perceive that they lack the time (Skinner et al., 2012). Teachers can remind students and encourage them to value time spent engaging with online resources. Showing students how sections of a resource is relevant to their current stage of assignment preparation can encourage use. This can also be achieved by using hyperlinks in a criterionbased marking rubric linked to the e-learning resources so that students can quickly access the relevant sections in the online resources (Table 8.1). Advising students about how much time to allow for completing a part of the online program is also useful. This can encourage students to reflect on how they manage their time and their writing strategies as many higher education students are still developing self-regulation of their learning (Zimmerman, 1989), along with their writing in the discipline.

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table 8.1

Extract from criterion-based rubric for giving feedback on a draft physiology report writing assignment showing links to WRiSE

Complete Satisfactory Needs work Title—informative, complete & accurate

Comments

You need to refer to http://learningcentre.usyd .edu.au/wrise/physiology/ physiology_home.html

Introduction—introduction to theory – scientific terms defined – hypothesis(es) clearly stated with appropriate variables Using formal scientific style, not colloquial English Key: Complete = well done; well written, Satisfactory = needs some revising/improvement, Needs work = needs major improvements/changes

13

Joint Genre Construction

One of the most powerful ways to reinforce the value of an e-learning writing program is to integrate it with peer and teacher feedback on writing. Formative feedback aligns with the joint construction phase of our e-learning genre pedagogy. Formative feedback on a draft provides opportunities for students to reflect on and revise their writing so that the final text includes the target genre features (Figures 8.4a and 8.4b, Table 8.1). This feedback may also encourage students to refer to the e-learning resources sooner in the assignment preparation phase, especially those students who are overconfident and erroneously believe that they already write well, who see writing as a burden, or who have problems expressing their ideas in English (Artemeva and Fox, 2012; Reiff and Bawarshi, 2011). These students are at risk of using default prior learned genres, which may be unsuitable for the target genre, or learners might be resistant

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to using e-learning resources (Perkins and Salomon, 1989). On the other hand, students who do use the e-learning resources are more likely to acquire a common language to talk about writing, which improves their ability to give and receive constructive feedback. Online formative feedback during this phase also generates rich data, which could be used to further analyse students’ writing behaviours (Calvo et al., 2011; Shute 2008). Semi-automated feedback on final writing tasks has been developed within the iWrite learning management system (Calvo et al., 2011). While a marker is grading writing online using a rubric, an email is automatically created in which each mark for the marking criteria is justified, and the url to a relevant part of the iWrite genre modules is included. This comes with more personal free form feedback from instructors (Figure 8.4b). By linking the grade and the feedback to specific parts of the e-learning resource, students are informed of their strengths and weaknesses, and they have a quick way of finding the information they need to help improve their writing for future assignments. Alternatively, teachers can provide general feedback to the whole class, highlighting common strengths and weaknesses in extracts of students’ writing, and linking this to the relevant sections of the e-learning resources.

14

Towards Transferable Skills and Control of Genres

Helping learners to develop transferrable skills and to master control of genres are prime goals for our e-learning pedagogy (centre of Figure 8.8). These aims are best achieved by integrating the development of writing skills within a relevant discipline context (Perkins and Salomon 1989; Reiff and Bawashi, 2011). For example, the WRiSE site supports students’ understanding of disciplinary content and helps them to communicate their insights by using genres appropriately (Figure 8.3). Novice writers using these resources gradually develop a mental model of their genre knowledge as well as a genre metalanguage. This means they are more able to transfer their knowledge to new writing contexts (Johns, 2008; Reiff and Bawashi, 2011). Teachers can also support the development of students’ meta-cognitive thinking so they are able to articulate their thinking strategies for writing. These meta-cognitive processes enhance learning and develop a deeper understanding of the purpose, structure and language of writing genres in their discipline context (Perkins & Salomon 1989; Reiff & Bawashi 2011).

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Online Learning Environments for Developing Students’ Writing

The long term aim of our e-learning resources for writing in science and engineering is to increase students’ awareness of meaning making practices within their disciplines. We also wanted to build students’ capacity to employ relevant written genres in their chosen fields of study (Goodfellow and Lea, 2007). A key impact of WRiSE and iWRITE has been that a unique suite of genre-based elearning modules are available under the Creative Commons licence for free student use, and for writing specialists and discipline lecturers to adapt and embed into science and engineering programs. The breadth of this impact can be seen in the data analysis of visitors to WRiSE. There is an increasing international usage pattern (Figure 8.9) with a yearly rate of >50 % new visitors from January 2011 to 2014. A second impact is that our analysis of students’ writing, their perceived learning through online resources, and their writing performance, has added knowledge to the field of academic literacy. Importantly, we have shown that most users gained understanding and confidence, and that many achieved significantly higher marks than non-users in the targeted assessments we evaluated (Drury and Mort, 2012; Mort and Drury, 2012). We have not yet assessed these learners’ writing development over the longer term. In the education

figure 8.9 WRiSE Geo Map of visitor location from 1/01/2011 to 1/01/2014. Total visitors = 17000 (data from google analytics: urchin, 4 april, 2014)

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literature, identifying and measuring transferrable skills in students writing of genres is inherently complex (Smart and Gilbert, 2009 as cited in Artemeva and Fox, 2012), and evidence of transfer usually requires a combination of controlled studies, longitudinal studies, intensive analysis of writing, and extensive use of in-depth interviews (Swartz, Bransford and Sears, 2005; Artemeva and Fox, 2012). The third impact is that we have confirmed which design features and teaching approaches work best for motivating and engaging students to use online learning resources. Over confident writers may view all writing as ‘just writing’ and not appreciate the relationship between the context, purpose, structure and language of texts. Inexperienced writers may feel overwhelmed if the information is beyond their ‘zone of proximal development’ (Kozulin et al., 2003) and feel that time spent is not helpful. Weaker students who are struggling with the subject matter, or learners who are non-native speakers of English may claim that they do not have time to read more information or complete more exercises. As discussed above, these issues can be to some extent overcome through guided instruction, scaffolded tasks, and targeted feedback. More importantly, our collaborative cross-discipline projects have verified that faculty engagement is as crucial as student engagement. If resources are developed by educators who do not link these with students’ wider curricula, there is a risk of resources being underutilised. If teachers believe that language and learning support can just be ‘added on’ after a course has been designed, this limits the potential for relevance and uptake by staff and students. In addition, a crowded curriculum with a focus on content over skills development can create a disincentive for students to refer to online writing resources. Ideally, curriculum and course design should integrate language and writing skill development within a disciplinary context. Two remaining issues that require further consideration are the sustainability of e-learning literacy resources, and accessibility for physically disabled students (vision impaired, unable to use a keyboard). Concerning sustainability, rapid changes in the technology of personal devices and ever-evolving elearning platforms can result in an online resource becoming redundant. For example, WRiSE uses Flash for some activities but these are not enabled on Android devices. Therefore, ongoing technical support should be part of the project implementation strategy for supporting users, creating new learning activities and for updating the resource as assessments and courses change (Ellis and Goodyear, 2010). In addition, accessibility for learners who can only use screen reading software needs to be enabled in online learning environments. For example, the use of Flash in WRiSE is not compatible with screen readers.

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Conclusions

Current challenges for higher education practitioners include increasing class sizes, limited face-to-face resources, and moves towards blended and distance learning. These have placed increasing emphasis on students as independent and life-long learners. However, all students require timely and targeted support as they develop their writing skills throughout a degree program. We have found social semiotic multimodal design and sfl genre pedagogy to be effective starting points for developing and teaching discipline writing skills online. Crucially, developing and implementing an online writing skills resource requires faculty support for a cross-discipline team and a commitment to integrating writing development in the curriculum. A teacher’s role in engaging students in these resources begins at the project conceptualisation stage, and continues through the design, implementation, and evaluation phases. Ultimately, the success of an online writing environment depends upon students creating their own learning journeys, and taking ownership of new knowledge about genres to transform and transfer their learning into new contexts.

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chapter 9

Interrogating Online Writing Instruction Scott Warnock

1

Migrating to Online Writing Instruction

An issue that is at the heart of this book is, how does being online affect writing instruction? This is a particularly pertinent question for those educators who begin teaching a course face-to-face, then move into using online tools (see Ko and Rossen, 2004; Smith, 2008; Warnock, 2009). A fruitful way to address this topic is to enquire into the effects of technology-enhanced learning on writing as a process. Online Writing Instruction (owi) pushes educators to think differently about responding to students’ writing, philosophically, pedagogically, and technologically. An example of this is increasing access to students’ informal writing in blogs, wikis, and spaces for relatively low-stakes writing, which offers opportunities for educators to gain insight into students’ thinking beyond and around assessments. The nub of the matter is the concept central to this book, of dialogic space. By providing a natural place for both synchronous and asynchronous communication, online instruction opens up new dialogic spaces for exchanges between collaborators, and disrupts previously established hierarchies between tutor and tutee. It is also fair to say that we have not made enough progress in determining what helps students write more effectively in general (Haswell, 2000), and because of the vast amount of student texts produced in owi, we may gain new insights into how writers can communicate effectively. Whilst recognising that the nature of dialogue is different online, it is often useful to anchor owi in what we do best in onsite instruction, keeping a common baseline and building upon this to specialise in pedagogies that work best for virtual spaces. This chapter enquires into the future of online writing instruction (owi), framing that discussion around an effort to promote effective online writing development through the collaborative creation of a Position Statement designed to shape and direct teacher training, teaching

Warnock, S. (2015). Interrogating Online Writing Instruction. In G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & M. Deane, & T. Guasch (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 29, Learning and Teaching Writing Online, (pp. 176–185). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004290846_011

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practice, and students’ experiences of writing development online: ‘A Position Statement of Online Writing Instruction Principles and Example Effective Practices for owi.’ It was generated upon the basis of research gathered together by a group of educators and then composed and ratified by a committee made up of members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (cccc), which is a North American community of writing developers. The Statement sets out key principles for Online Writing Instruction and outlines effective practices for teaching writing in online learning contexts, focusing on post-secondary education. owi Principle 2 of the Position Statement supports educators in achieving a balanced approach to curricula design that puts technologies into the service of learning: An online writing course should focus on writing and not on technology orientation or teaching students how to use learning and other technologies. cccc owi Committee, 2013: 11

owi Principle 4 states: Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment. cccc owi Committee, 2013: 14

Principle 4 encourages educators to think of ways to maximize the distinct opportunities of the electronic environment.’ However, one impediment to those moving their instruction online is the unfounded belief that everything about their teaching will have to change. cccc owi Committee, 2013: 14

The potentially daunting newness of online instruction can be an obstacle for teachers. Some educators who have established longstanding success in the classroom can feel ‘colonized’ by the many forces driving the trend towards technology-enhanced instruction (Warnock, 2014). Indeed, technologies can be constraining; as Postman observes, ‘the uses made of technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself, that is, that its functions follow from its form’ (1992: 7). To overcome some of the limitations presented by moving online, educators should usefully analyse their own strengths and teaching style, taking control of the elements they can influence and carefully selecting when and how to make the most of digital tools (Warnock, 2009).

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owi offers opportunities to both experiment with and expand teaching techniques; as Lowes argues of teachers who move between onsite and online learning, they and their courses will be transformed. As the teacher switches between environments: The course being taught will also be transformed as it is shaped and reshaped to fit first one context and then the other. Much like immigrants who leave the cultural comfort of their home societies and move to places with very different cultures and social practices, those who teach online leave the familiarity of the face-to-face classroom for the uncharted terrain of the online environment, whose constraints and affordances often lead to very different practices. lowes, 2008

2

Low-Stakes Writing

Another issue that underpins this book is how teaching online can encourage the kind of low-stakes writing activities that help to engage learners, and overcome some constraining factors of working remotely. As Part 1 of the volume indicates, feedback given and received online can be engaging, and tailored to students’ needs, particularly if this happens early in the writing process. As suggested in Part 2, collaboration online can also be a flexible and valuable opportunity for students to articulate ideas and co-create. As Blair (2005) argues, when students communicate online, their ‘perceptions of audiences begin to shift’. Learners who are reluctant to speak in person may feel more comfortable making their opinions known in an online environment. This can be true if students wish to reflect and prepare before sharing their ideas (Blair, 2005). The process can develop, so that learners explore new relationships with their audiences when writing online. Working remotely, students may begin to recognize the biases, opinions, and preconceived notions of their audiences, which can also improve their academic performance. Further, Hawisher (1992) observes the liberating potential in an asynchronous online dialogue that reduces the barriers students can encounter in person based upon identity. Low-stakes writing activities are well suited to owi, which relies fundamentally on technologies like blogs and, particularly, message boards; for instance, many ‘concepts and practices we associate with good writing pedagogy are given new potential with the use of message-board texts’ (Warnock, 2010: 106). Of course, teachers do not need digital tools to invite students to compose lots of texts, but the digital environment enables this type of teaching

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and learning. Students and educators can easily share and distribute texts. Students can write to audiences made focused and intimate through electronic class platforms. Students can engage multiple audiences and stakeholders with their ideas. The digital course text can, indeed, should be fundamentally conversational. The multiplicity of these texts also encourages students to take an introspective, reflective view of their own writing, a view that is often an underappreciated, hard-fought component of being a skilled writer. How can we expect students to take risks when the self-composed texts they work with are always high-stakes? Would their efforts to mine texts for everything from style to error patterns be more successful if they worked from thousands of mutable, low-stakes words? The exchange of low-stakes texts in owi helps students build a writerly self; more simply, it allows them just to write. As Effective Practice 3.11 within the aforementioned Position Statement states: The inherently archival nature of the online environment should be used for learning. To this end, teachers should use the digital setting to encourage students to rhetorically and metacognitively analyze their own learning/writing processes and progress. cccc owi Committee, 2013, p. 12

So, for those invested in teaching students to write, technologies open up vast opportunities. Even those wary in a macro sense about what digital technology represents for education can find ways that their micro lessons and approaches might be enriched with digital tools. They can take these opportunities to rethink how they teach writing in their courses. How do particular tools match long-standing practices? Can programs and institutions investigate how tools and platforms open new directions for writing instruction? The ultimate outcome is growth in writing instruction, writ large (Hewett and Warnock, forthcoming). owi provides us with the opportunity to expand the art and skill of composition instruction and helps us to re-think all writing pedagogy and research. The tools, technologies, and strategies of technology-enhanced learning can make us better writing teachers overall.

3

Responding to Students’ Texts

Another issue addressed in this book is how we can respond to students’ texts online. Digital media offer engaging possibilities for interactions, and educators must consider how to respond to many different genres, includ-

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ing the many different informal texts students create online. owi teachers should think about how we respond to these texts; our discussions of traditional response have focused on teachers’ written comments—and most teachers’ comments indeed have been of the written sort—to students who have submitted “formal,” major writing projects (Sorcinelli and Elbow, 1997; Straub, 1995, 1999). Which new approaches come into play in responding to emails, discussion posts, blogs? More than just the compulsory technologicallyfacilitated dialogue that accompanies teaching online, we should think about how response technologies can also alter the rhetoric of the response process. owi helps us see clearly that part of a smart response strategy is knowing when not to respond. Educators may ask students to write tens of thousands of words more than they would onsite. If teachers feel they are the gatekeepers of all of that writing, they will without question become the bottleneck in the system, and the whole learning process will grind to a halt. Restraint, whether in the volume of comments one writes on a formal project or in the amount of responses offered to dialogic posts, should be part of the approach. This restraint should work with an old-fashioned notion of good teaching, which is given new importance in owi. Providing opportunities for students to build their own knowledge through online conversation with each other is also fundamental. As Bruffee argues, the task of writing developers ‘must involve engaging students in conversation at as many points in the writing process as possible’ (1995: 91). owi helps us see that course designers should plan for students to respond intelligently and substantively to each other, guided by the teacher. What does a re-thinking of response mean practically for writing instructors? Response is the focus of several ‘Effective Practices’ outlined in the owi Position Statement. These practices may make good sense to any writing teacher, but the digital environment encourages a renewed mindfulness of our interactions with student texts. For instance, Effective Practice 3.5 describes specific response strategies such as using open-ended questions and modelling when text is the primary means of teaching, ‘Text-based teacher response to student writing should be explicit in how to improve the writing, if that is the goal of the response’ (cccc owi Committee, 2013: 13). In addition, Effective Practice 3.12 emphasizes the logistics of ‘the feedback loop’ for response, noting that the timing should be well defined. This practice recommends defining a specific time-frame, not only for essay/report/project response but for responding to emails and other messages, because ‘doing so builds appropriate boundaries, trust, and a sense of relationship’ (cccc owi Committee, 2013: 14). At times, the sheer volume of low-stakes assignments may compel instructors to move away from editing-type response, making holistic

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response a core of practice. owi encourages educators to try new technologies as well for response, such as audiovisual tools. As Sommers discusses, the technology shift to spoken response changes the way we conceptualize these interactions; for instance, audio response differs not only in degree, but also in form (2012). Rubric software, which is inherent in many of the learning management systems we would use for owi, can also help us to re-think what we fundamentally ask of students in assignments.

4

owi and New Assessment Opportunities for Writing Instructors?

Referencing the American Federation of Teachers Guidelines for Good Practice, Charles suggested in 2002 that assessment of students’ writing ability is not enough to determine whether a course is effective, and it is also vital to investigate learners’ personal interactions within a course, as well as teachers’ input, the size of classes, and other practical factors affecting the student experience (Charles, 2002). More than a decade later, educators everywhere are battling oversimplified ways of evaluating whether writing instruction works. Response is connected with the course assessment teachers are engaged in, and that assessment is connected to larger evaluations of learning. Putting the pressure of systemic educational change on owi may be too much, but owi certainly presents new opportunities for re-thinking writing assessment. Institutions that have been uninterested in assessing writing courses and processes may introduce Online Writing Centers, and suddenly want to know if these particular courses or approaches are effective. We will want to avoid oversimplified face-to-face versus online assessment models, and for an annotated bibliography to investigate these comparisons (Warnock, 2013). Instead, we can explore strategies driven by interesting assessment, pursuing questions about the learning facilitated by specific technological tools and techniques. Can we look at student behaviors and habits in owi and discover new things about learning engagement? Can we mine the corpus of student texts to drive our evaluations? Can those vast numbers of texts in owi help us think about the challenging question of transfer of writing knowledge and skill? What can we learn about student writing by focusing on the dialogic, informal texts they have create and comparing them to formal reports? owi opens up assessment and accompanying research opportunities because we can so easily gather and analyze student texts written in a range of rhetorical environments. Writing developers at all levels need to be trained in the kind of thinking that accompanies assessment. As owi Principle 7 asserts:

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Writing Program Administrators (wpas) for owi programs and their online writing teachers should receive appropriate owi-focused training, professional development, and assessment for evaluation and promotion purposes. cccc owi Committee, 2013: 13

Guided thinking about assessment should help all writing developers develop strategies as they progress with owi, and that assessment, as discussed below, leads to research.

5

Prospects for Online Writing Instruction

We can be excited about the prospects of learning and teaching writing online, and about the core idea that inherent aspects of digital technology can help educators support students’ writing. After having directed several components of us institutional writing programs, I have been thinking increasingly about how fractal writing instruction work is. By ‘fractal’ I mean in the physics or mathematical sense of typically self-similar patterns that are ‘the same from near as from far’ (Gouyet, 1996: 1). In writing instruction, the smallest components of our teaching interactions resemble structurally our broadest interactions. Writing instructors often work with all members of an institution, teachers as well as students. I am struck by how the interactions we have with faculty and even entire academic units are similar to what happens in our writing center between our tutors and student writers. We are always working on teaching the skills of writing and writing instruction, and that means talking and helping people develop the ability to write and teach writing themselves. What writing instructors do is the antithesis of the banking model of education, as described by Freire (1968). We cannot pour writing knowledge into students; that is not how it works, and in many ways, writing instruction has been out in front of education in recognizing this. Writing developers do not simply edit and re-write a text, and hope that in the future the author will do the same thing. Classroom as well as program assessment and the research that accompanies this work needs not just be experiential and anecdotal, but driven by evidence and really good questions. This too is fractal because that is exactly what we are asking writing students to do. owi offers ways to look at and perhaps even quantify student text production to help us get at questions about writing efficacy, transfer, and teaching strategies. The last of the fifteen owi Principles emphasizes just this kind of work:

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Administrators and teachers/tutors should be committed to ongoing research into their programs and courses as well as the very principles in this document. cccc owi Committee, 2013: 31

Exploring the fractal nature of writing instruction reinforces what it is we do as writing developers, and why online is a great place to learn how to write. Textheavy courses involve students in thinking through the rhetorical decisionmaking of navigating multiple audiences, as well as interacting with digital writing technologies. Recognizing the fractal structures of writing allows us to understand a simple thing: writing well takes practice. In digital environments, practice in writing—and reading—is inherent within the modality. Students are always thinking about the rhetorical implications of their communication decisions. More is not always better, but it is significant that students are presented with the opportunities to write thousands of words within message boards, blogs, wikis, and other digital tools. Perhaps more importantly, they see lots of texts in informal states, so they can experiment and take intellectual risks, the kinds of behaviors skilled writers in all disciplines have always practiced. Teaching online for the first time can be a heady change from onsite teaching. Do not lose your core teaching self, but remember that you are teaching in a medium that fundamentally allows for an incredible, varied amount of writing. You will have to look at and think about that writing differently, and those approaches may lead to your assessing writing in ways that help inform larger conversations on your campus. People invested in writing instruction may feel that, as a group, they have been left out of those conversations. But, because what we do at all levels of writing ‘instruction’ is so structurally similar in approach and theoretically similar in philosophy, realize that the technologies of writing provide us the opportunities we have been seeking all along. We can ask some good questions of writing instruction in general through owi, which can make us more mindful of the many audiences and stakeholders we address. In summary, this chapter has described a few key areas of writing instruction in general that may be given new light with owi, such as allowing students to practice low-stakes writing, re-thinking response in virtual realms, and assessment. The ‘Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for owi’ illustrates a collective way that North American writing developers attempted to create not just guidelines but a broader conversation about owi—and writing instruction writ large. The forms and approaches chosen should be determined by the culture and constraints of our specific contexts, but this book has reported a range of strategies to advance online writing.

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The volume ends with an invitation to educators in higher education to move forward through collaboration on research projects, as well as small-scale evaluations, which are invaluable for providing an evidence base. Indeed, as the authors in this volume have shown, interventions can be modest and cumulative as well as large-scale. I hope the range of approaches within this collection will provide starting points for new investigations into technologies, and strategies to support writing online.

References Blair, L. (2005). Teaching Composition Online: No Longer the Second-Best Choice. Kairos, 8(2) 9 March. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/8.2/binder.html?praxis/blair/ index.html Bruffee, K. (1995). Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’. In C. Murphy, & J. Laws (Eds.), Landmark Essays on Writing Centers (pp. 87–89). Davis, ca: Hermagoras. cccc owi Committee for Effective Practices in Online Writing Instruction (2013). A Position Statement of Principles and Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (owi). http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/owiprinciples. Charles, Cristie Cowles. (2002). Why We Need More Assessment of Online Composition Courses: A Brief History. Kairos 7.3 (Fall). http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.3/ coverweb/charles/. Freire, P. (1968, 1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gouyet, J. (1996). Physics and Fractal Structures. Paris/New York: Masson Springer. Haswell, R. (2000). Documenting improvement in college writing: A longitudinal approach. Written Communication, 17, 307–352. Hawisher, G.E. (1992). Electronic Meetings of the Minds: Research, Electronic Conferences, and Composition Studies. In G.E. Hawisher, & P. LeBlanc (Eds.), Re-Imagining Computers and Composition: Teaching and Research in the Virtual Age (pp. 81–101). Portsmouth, nh: Boynton. Hewett, B., & Scott, W. (Forthcoming.) Future owi ‘Effective Practices.’ In B. Hewett & K. DePew (Eds.), Foundational Practices in Online Writing Instruction. Anderson, sc: Parlor Press. Ko, S., & Rossen, S. (2004). Teaching Online: A Practical Guide. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton. Print. Lowes, S. (2008). Online Teaching and Classroom Change: The Trans-classroom Teacher in the Age of the Internet. Innovate, 4(3). http://www.editlib.org/p/104251/. Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage: New York.

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Smith, R.M. (2008). Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Sommers, J. (2012). Response Rethought … Again: Exploring Recorded Comments and the Teacher-Student Bond. Journal of Writing Assessment, 5(1). http://www .journalofwritingassessment.org. Sorcinelli, M.D., & Elbow, P. (Eds.) (1997). Writing to Learn: Strategies for Assigning and Responding across the Disciplines. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 69. Straub, R. (Ed.) (1999). A Sourcebook for Responding to Student Writing. Cresskill: Hampton Press, Inc. Straub, R., & Lunsford, R.F. (1995). Twelve Readers Reading: Responding to College Student Writing. Cresskill: Hampton Press, Inc. Warnock, S. (2009). Teaching Writing Online: How and Why. Urbana: ncte (2010). The Class Message Board Text: What Is It and How Can We Use It to Develop a Student Text-Centered Course? In J. Harris, J.D. Miles, & C. Paine (Eds.), Teaching with Student Texts: Essays Toward an Informed Practice (pp. 96–107). Logan, ut: Utah State University Press. (2013). Studies Comparing Outcomes Among Onsite, Hybrid, and Fully-Online Writing Courses. wpa-CompPile Research Bibliographies 21. http://comppile.org/ wpa/bibliographies/Bib21/Warnock.pdf. (2015). Teaching the owi Course. In B. Hewett & K. DePew (Eds.), Foundational Practices in Online Writing Instruction. Fort Collins, Colorado: The wac Clearinghouse and Parlor Press, 157–197.

afterword

Writing Pedagogy in Online Settings— A Widening of Dialogic Space? Olga Dysthe

1

Introduction

The explicit or underlying assumption for many of the chapters in this interesting and timely book is that technology provides opportunities for joint building of meaning and thus expands the scope for students’ writing development. The key concept in section 1 is ‘feedback’, in section 2 it is ‘collaboration’ and in section 3 and 4 ‘learning’. All of these processes are dependent on students being able to create knowledge in dialogical interaction with the content and with fellow students, teachers and other resource persons. Three of the chapters refer to ‘collaboration’ in the title: Onrubia and Mauri: Online collaborative writing as a learning tool in higher education, Guasch and Espasa: Collaborative writing online: Unravelling the feedback process, Strobl: Learning to think and write together: Collaborative synthesis writing. Other contributions also refer to related concepts, for instance ‘dialogic processes’ (Warnock), ‘interaction’, ‘meaning negotiations’ (Drury and Mort), freewriting as a way to encourage ‘dialogical and dialectical thinking’ (Wilde and Wecker), ‘text-bound dialogue’ (Angelov and Ganobcsik-Williams). In this afterword I have therefore chosen to take a look at dialogic interaction and learning through the lens of Ruper Wegerif’s theoretical perspectives in his book from 2007, Dialogic Education and Technology. Expanding the Space of Learning. The British author is a nestor in cscl (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning) and in this book he provides a theoretical framework that may be useful for writing teachers even though Wegerif does not specifically address the teaching of writing. In the introduction to his book, Wegerif cites the well-known Spanish sociologist, Manuel Castells, who in his triology The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, syntheses a vast range of data that makes Castells conclude that the new communications technology is leading to a new form of social organization, ‘where the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information networks’ (Castells, 2002). Castells thinks education is the social activity that perhaps is most challenged by the shift

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towards a network society, and Wegerif uses his book to take on and respond to this challenge. He warns, however, against thinking that the solution ‘can be understood in a narrow technological sense as an answer to the question “how to do it”. The challenge we face is not only a technological challenge it is also a conceptual challenge.’ (Ibid: 2) We need to develop a new way to understand our new situation. And one place to start according to Wegerif, is to consider the implications of the shift from physical space-time to dialogic space-time. Several contributions in the owi book refer to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (zpd), the space (distance) between learners’ actual developmental level, shown by independent problem solving, and their potential development shown by their ability to solve problems with another more knowledgeable person (Vygotsky 1978: 86). In this zone or space, teacher scaffolding means to provide support to help the learner achieve a goal that they were unable to reach on their own. In the owi book this concept of building scaffolds is very much to the fore, for instance in the form of ‘scripts’. (See Strobl, Mauri, and Onrubia) Wegerif’s point, however, is that Vygotsky’s and his followers’ idea of space is on the model of physical space and needs to be rethought in ways that promotes creativity, reflection and ‘learning to learn’, aspects of education that Wegerif is particular concerned with. More specifically, we need to rethink zpd as a dialogic space in which learner and teachers engage with each other and learn to see the task through each other’s eyes. This is particularly evident in collaborative writing contexts, whether co-production of a text or feedback. ‘Dialogic space opens up when two or more perspectives are held together in tension. … Dialogic space is intrinsically creative and the more one enters into it the more creativity one experiences.’ (Ibid: 4–5). Wegerif’s dialogic approach to education is thus a challenge to the dominant metaphor of technology in education which is to see technology as a ‘cognitive tool’ that helps students ‘construct’. The dialogic alternative is to see technology as a tool opening up and resourcing the kind of dialogic spaces that enable people to think, learn and play together. Ibid: 5

In light of this all who teach writing as part of their job in higher education need to think through their vision as writing teachers and the choice of role to play in students’ development processes as thinkers and writers. Lea and Street (1998) distinguished between a ‘skills approach’ to the teaching of writing and an ‘academic literacy’ approach (Lea, 2004). In the traditional skills approach

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the vision is limited to help fixing students’ immediate problems with the conventions of academic writing. Then an instrumental view of technology makes sense and the problem is often reduced to choosing the best tool. Within an academic literacies’ approach, learning to write in higher education basically means to develop critical awareness and the ability to think independently as empowered subjects. Many teachers in higher education are responsible for a large number of students, and whether they teach in a campus, blended or online model, time constraints makes a skills approach seem unavoidable. They may not have a theory founded approach to writing, but their vision is more often than not based on a belief that interaction with and among students will help them develop the text as a whole, including content, structure, argumentation as well as formal aspects. Wegerif’s point is that if teachers really want to foster higher order thinking and creativity they need to ‘treat dialogue not only as a means to the end of knowledge construction, but also as an end in itself’ (Ibid: 8). Since ‘dialogue’ and ‘dialogic’ are positively laden terms that are widely and indiscriminately used, it may be useful to reflect on what we actually mean when we use those terms, and Wegerif’s overview of interpretations offers an opportunity to think through where we situate ourselves and maybe update our own understanding of ‘dialogic’. Although there historically have been a number of theoreticians who have emphasized dialogue, for instance Socrates, Gadamer, Freire, Buber and Habermas, the work of the Russian philosopher of language, literature and culture, Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) is today most often referred to when dialogic pedagogy is being discussed. He is also the main reference point for Wegerif.

2

Different Conceptions of the Term ‘Dialogic’

First of all, the dictionary definition of ‘dialogic’ is ‘pertaining to dialogue’, the adjective form of the word ‘dialogue’, and at the basis lies the idea of dialogue as shared inquiry. Wegerif points to the fact that the term ‘dialogic’ today is often used synonymously with ‘collaborative learning’, ‘discussion’, ‘social interaction’ or ‘community of inquiry’, without adding any new depth of meaning. This is unfortunate because it can easily hide the essential qualities of ‘dialogic’ teaching and learning. For Bakhtin, however, ‘dialogic’ primarily referred to his understanding of texts, and this may be a useful starting point. 2.1 Dialogic Texts as Opposed to Monologic Texts According to Bakhtin all texts or utterances are part of larger dialogues and always contain traces of other voices. They can be more or less multivoiced. For

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Bakhtin monologic primarily means that no space is given to doubt, questioning or opposition. Then the authoritative voice becomes hegemonic. A crucial aspect of academic writing is how to handle different voices, whether they are treated as sources, as partners or as opponents. In cscl research theories of multivoicedness have inspired the development of coding schemes for texts to assess the degree of dialogicality and openness to the voice of ‘the other’. Bakhtin contrasted ‘the authoritative voice’ in monologic texts that objectifies the other and ultimately aims to control the other’s understanding, with the ‘internally persuasive’ voice, where the aim is to foster the process of independent thinking. His elaboration on the persuasive word is often quoted in education: ‘Such a word awakens new and independent words, organizes masses of our words from within and does not remain in an isolated and static condition: it is not finite but open; in each of the new contents that dialogize it, this discourse is able to reveal ever new ways to mean.’ (Bakhtin, 1981: 343) Many students experience this when they read texts that awaken new ideas and thoughts. A third way of using ‘dialogic’ is according to Wegerif ‘as an epistemological paradigm’. He sees the Norwegian psychologist (1992) and the Swedish communication theoretician Per Linell (1998, 2003) as two of the main proponents of this understanding of dialogue and dialogic. They emphasise that dialogue is central to all knowledge creation and pick up the claim from Bakhtin that all utterances are a response to a situation or to somebody else’s utterance (Bakhtin, 1986: 168). Meaning does not exist prior to dialogues but is constructed within dialogues, and is always part of a chain of communication. In this sense the word is always dialogic. But Bakhtin also emphasizes that the word always needs to be questioned, doubted and opposed, otherwise it will end up as monologic. It is vitally important that it is being challenged by other words. In the teaching of writing, feedback from teachers or peers, online or face-to-face, may offer such opportunities, but only if there is a mutual acceptance of difference and disagreement as valuable resources that trigger new thinking (Vines, 2009). An ontological view of ‘dialogue’ and ‘dialogic’ is preferred by Wegerif, even though he acknowledges that all the conceptions are relevant in education. A danger of the previously mentioned understandings of ‘dialogic’ is instrumentalism, according to Wegerif. This means that dialogue and dialogic may just become another method or tool in order to produce good learning, or in our case, good writing. The term ‘ontological’ implies a claim about the essence of being human and the existential character of dialogue as a hallmark of being human. Wegerif argues, as do the Russian-American dialogue theorists, Matusov (2006) and Sidorkin (1999), that an ontological definition of

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‘dialogic’ offers a profound shift in orientation towards teaching and learning with dialogue. Dialogue is then not primarily a means to the end of knowledge construction, or the acquisition of skill and identities, but is to be seen as an end in itself (Wegerif, 2007, 2013). This may sound obscurely philosophical, but his claim is that an overarching goal of teaching is to foster students’ dialogic approach to all academic work, not just teach them specific ways of improving a particular text. Wegerif with his inside knowledge of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning claims that cscl has mainly used dialogue instrumentally, as a means to the end of constructing knowledge and called that use ‘dialogic’. Wegerif, however, sees a much larger potential for linking ‘educational technology to the teaching of flexible thinking and learning skills such as creativity and learning to learn’—built on an ethics of openness to the other (Ibid: 28). Obviously, such a vision of ‘moving students into the space of dialogue’ includes all aspects of teaching and learning, and would necessarily integrate the teaching of content and the teaching of writing in each course. Writing has a strong impact on learning (see section 1 and 2), and dialogic thinking and communication is dependent on both talk and writing.

3

Writing in Higher Education—A Responsibility for the Whole Institution?

The contributions in this book present many useful examples of how to develop students’ writing competence in online settings. Some describe approaches and processes that help students master specific cultural tools, genres and conventions in academic writing, including feedback (section 1). Others focus on innovative efforts to change departmental practices or implement new course designs based on collaboration and online writing (section 2), while still others present tools for individual teachers to use in their online or hybrid teaching and feedback practices (section 1, 2 & 3). While higher education institutions in the usa have a long tradition for offering specific writing courses, taught by writing teachers, in Europe the responsibility for students’ writing has primarily rested with teachers in the disciplines, many of whom do an excellent job giving advice and feedback to their students. But in my view is the responsibility of the leadership of the institutions and the departments to initiate and support pedagogical development and research in the area of academic writing. Obvious areas of investigation would be the optimal structuring of study programmes, how writing is incorporated into ordinary courses, the possible need for special courses taught by writing

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experts, how instructors in the disciplines are being qualified to use the technological resources and make Wegerif’s vision of opening up dialogic spaces come true. The European Qualification Framework for Higher Education has resulted in common descriptions of what students are expected to master, and writing competence is high on the list of academic qualification and cannot be ignored. However, while research leadership has been an established practice in most academic institutions, leadership of teaching and learning has not, and this has made teaching a quite privatised and solitary endeavour (Dysthe and Lillejord, 2012). To counter this situation, it is important that leaders in academic institutions understand that enculturation into an academic tradition is increasingly about learning how to work as a community of professionals, particularly at graduate and postgraduate level and that writing is crucial in this respect.

4

Future Research on Web-Based Graduate and Postgraduate Students’ Writing

The studies included in this volume primarily deal with writing in undergraduate courses. There exist today, however, a great number of online graduate and postgraduate study programs, where the challenges as well as the opportunities for teaching writing are different. Even though master’s and doctoral students are expected to be experienced writers, there is a great need for supporting the writing development of students also at this level, particularly to meet the demands of research writing. There are formal aspects of such writing that needs teaching, but the quality of texts at this level is increasingly dependent on higher order thinking and creativity, which is Wegerif’s main concern throughout his book on dialogic education. In his line of thinking teachers and supervisors at this level should use technology to expand and deepen the dialogic space. Specific methods or tools that can be used for online teaching of writing will always be useful for those that teach writing in higher education. But we also need research that answers the question: What are crucial factors in the building of a productive writing community at graduate and postgraduate level in an online environment? Traditionally postgraduate students have been trained for independence and expected to concentrate on their individual project (Johnson, Lee, and Green, 2000). In recent university reforms, expectations of co-authorship and more engagement from peers and supervisors in the writing process is rapidly changing the perception of what it takes to produce academic texts. This shared or distributed responsibility for students’ learning processes and outcomes

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challenges an academic culture where staff frequently collaborates on research, but often fail to facilitate an environment of collaboration for graduate and postgraduate students. According to Etienne Wenger (1998) the limitation of study designs is that neither learning nor communities can be designed, only designed for. ‘One can produce affordances for the negotiation of meaning, but not meaning itself’ (Ibid: 229). Communities can be facilitated, supported, encouraged and nurtured, but never guaranteed. Nevertheless, my wish for a follow-up volume of this book is that it will report on research studies that combine macro-, mesoand micro-level analysis of online writing instruction in higher education, and particularly at graduate and postgraduate level.

References Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (Ed. M. Holquist; trans. C. Emerson & M. Holquist) (pp. 269–422). Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press. (1981). The dialogical imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin, (Ed. M. Holquist; trans. C. Emerson & M. Holquist) (p. 434). Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. (Ed. & transl. C. Emerson) Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Castells, M. (2002). The information age: Economy, society and Culture. Hoboken, n.j.: Wiley-Blackwell. (1996, 2000) The rise of the networked society (2nd ed.). Hoboken, n.j.: WileyBlackwell. Dysthe, O., & Lillejord, S. (2012) From Humboldt to Bologna: Using peer-feedback to foster productive writing practices among online master students. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 4(8), 471–485. Dysthe, O., Lillejord, S., Wasson B., & Vines A. (2011) Productive e-feedback in higher education. Two models and some critical issues. In S. Ludvigsen, A. Lund & R. Säljö (Eds.), Learning Across Sites: New Tools, Infrastructures and Practices (pp. 243–258). London: Routledge. Lea, M. (2003) Academic literacies: a pedagogy for course design. Studies in Higher Education, 29(6), 739–756. Lea, M.R., & Street, B.V. (1998) Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157–172. Linell, P. (1998). Approaching dialogue: Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. New York, ny: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

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(2009). Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically. Charlotte, n.c.: Information Age Publishing. Matusov, E. (2009). Journey into dialogic pedagogy. New York: Nova Science Publications. Rommetveit, R. (1992) On message structure: A framework for the study of language and communication. Oxford, England: John Wiley. Sidorkin, A.M. (1999). Beyond Discourse: Education, the Self, and Dialogue. Albany, ny: suny Press. Vines, A. (2009). Multivoiced E-Feedback in the Study of Law: Enhancing learning opportunities?. In R. Krumsvik (Ed.), Learning in the networked society and digitized school (pp. 225–255). New York: Nova Science Publisher Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press. Wegerif, R. (2007). Dialogic, Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning. New York: Springer. (2013). Dialogic: Education for the internet age. New York: Routledge. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Index of Authors Anewalt, K.

128, 129

Baeker, R. 129 Barker, T. 33 Bean, J.C. 114, 117 Beer, D.F. 130 Belanoff, P. 114, 117 Bereiter, C. 94, 95 Bizzell, P. 113 Blair, L. 178 Blayney, P. 33, 42 Bledsoe, M.R. 117 Bloxham, S. 41 Blume, L. 129, 130 Boyd, P. 41 Brandl, K.K. 33 Brosvic, G.M. 42 Bruffee, K. 180 Brush, T. 33 Burstein, J.C. 36 Calvo, R.A. 31, 33, 36, 151, 160, 161, 169 Carless, D. 13, 15, 25, 26 Chapelle, C.A. 33 Charles, C.C. 181 Collins, A. 129 Cope, B. 41 Cunningham, S.J. 128 Dillenbourg, P. 106, 107 Donohue, A. 129 Dörnyei, Z. 36, 37 Dysthe, O. 14–16, 22, 95 Ede, L. 123 Elbow, P. 114–117, 123, 180 Ellis, R.A. 31, 33, 36 Emig, J. 94 Epstein, B.B. 42 Epstein, M.L. 42 Espasa, A. 15, 19–24 Etlinger, H.A. 128, 130 Falkner, K. 130 Falkner, N.J. 130 Fehr, R. 130

Ferris, D.R. 32 Fishman, S.M. 117 Flateby, T. 130 Flower, L. 33 Fontaine, S.I. 114, 117 Freeman, M. 33, 42 Freeman, R. 33 Freire, P. 182 Gaide, S. 120 Gass, S. 33 Geonetta, S.C. 130 Giangrande, E. 130 Gikandi, J.W. 13, 15 Glenn, C. 114, 117 Goldthwaite, M.A. 114, 117 Goodkin, V. 94 Goodyear, Peter 171 Gouyet, J. 182 Gruba, P. 128, 130 Guasch, T. 19–24 Halliday, M.A.K. 152 Hammond, L. 117 Hann, G. 33 Hartley, P. 33 Hartwell, P. 32 Haswell, R. 176 Hattie, J. 13, 15, 16, 22 Hawakaya, S.I. 114 Hawisher, G.E. 178 Hayes, J. 33 Hedgcock, J. 31 Hepplestone, S. 41 Herzberg, B. 113 Hewett, B. 179 Higgins, R. 33 Hyland, K. 33 Hyland, Ken 152 Jaggars, S.S.

120

Kaczmarczyk, L. 130 Kalantzis, M. 41 Kellogg, R.T. 33, 42 Kirschner, P.A. 19, 20, 24

196

index of authors

Kline, S. 41 Ko, S. 176 Kolln, M. 32 Kress, Gunther

154–156, 158, 163

Lai, Y. 33 Lamott, A. 116, 123 Lefkowitz, N. 31 Lewis, R. 33 Liebowitz, J. 128, 130 Lowes, S. 178 Macfarlane-Dick, D. 95 Mackey, A. 33 Macrorie, K. 114 Martin, J.R. 152, 153, 165 Masters, J. 33 Mather, R. 41 Matsumura, S. 33 Mayer, Richard E. 154–156, 158 McCarthey, S. 41 Meier, Anne 76, 77 Murray, D. 123 Narciss, S. 24 Nash, R. 120 Nelson, M. 22 Nicol, D. 13, 23, 26, 95 Nunan, D. 32 Parker, R.P. 94 Postman, N. 177 Prior, P. 94 Quinlan, T.

Rossen, S. 176 Rovai, A. 120 Rummel, Nicole 68, 76 Rusinaru, D. 129 Saye, J.W. 33 Scardamalia, M. 94, 95 Shermis, M.D. 36 Skelton, A. 33 Smith, R.M. 176 Sommers, J. 181 Sorcinelli, M.D. 180 Stahl, G. 95 Storch, Neomy 68, 80 Straub, R. 180 Strijbos, J.W. 96 Swales, John 154 Vampola, D. 129 Van Steendam, Elke Vojak, C. 41 Vygotsky, L.S. 95

Ware, P. 36, 41 Warnock, S. 113, 176–179, 181 Warschauer, M. 36 Weinberger, A. 106 Whiteford, A. 33, 42 Würffel, Nicole 68 Xu, D.

120

Yang, M. 13, 15, 25, 26 Yelland, N. 33

33, 42

Rief, L. 123 Rose, David 152

67–69

Zamel, V. 31 Zhao, Y. 33

Index of Subjects academic writing 31–33, 36, 37, 42, 46–50, 53, 58, 60–63, 94, 101, 102, 151–154, 164 academic writing tutor(s) 46, 48, 49, 51, 51n3, 53, 54, 58, 58n7, 62 academic writing tutorial(s) 50 engineering 151, 154, 155, 159, 166, 170 microbiology 156, 157 physiology 165, 168 science 151, 154, 155, 166, 170 writing process 156, 158 agency 106, 107 archival component 119 argumentation 188 assessment 35, 42, 176, 181–183 assignment(s) 48, 50–52, 54–56, 58, 60, 62 assignment-centred 49, 50, 54, 61, 62 assignment-centred 49 asynchronous 47, 48, 51–55, 57, 58, 61, 62 asynchronous online writing tutorial(s) 55, 58 asynchronous tutorial(s) 46–54, 59–62 asynchronous writing tutorial(s) 46, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55–57, 58n7, 59, 61, 63 Bakhtin 57, 57n5, 57n6, 58, 60, 61 Bakhtinian 48, 56, 57, 57n6 blended learning 32, 33, 42, 43 challenge vii, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192 coherence 132, 134, 136, 138 cohesion 132, 132n2, 134, 136, 138, 139 collaboration 186, 190, 192 collaboration effectiveness 71, 76, 77, 80 collaboration efficiency 71, 80 collaboration intensity 71, 73, 74, 76, 80 collaborative 186–188, 190 collaborative writing 13, 14, 16, 17, 19–21, 23, 24, 26 collaborative writing assignment 17, 19 communication vii, 186, 189, 190 communities 192 computer-supported collaborative learning (cscl) 95, 96, 107 computer-supported collaborative writing 68, 81

Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee 113 connectivity (community building) 120 constructive interaction 95 content elaboration 68, 75, 77, 78, 81 context awareness 132, 134, 136, 138, 139 continuous assessment 132, 137, 140, 141, 143 corrective feedback 21, 24, 25 course level advanced 36, 37, 39–42 beginner/intermediate 34, 36–42 creativity 187, 188, 190, 191 design science research model (dsrm) 131, 133, 142 dialogic 13–16, 48, 49, 53–58, 61, 62, 186–191 dialogic feedback 25 dialogic process 15, 16, 25 dialogic space 176 dialogic dialogism 48, 61 dialogue 47, 48, 50, 53, 56, 57, 59, 61, 62 dialogical 186 dialogue 49, 54, 55n4, 56, 58n8, 186, 188–190 difficulties in writing teaching 132, 134 directive 50–52, 54, 56, 61, 62 disciplines 190, 191 discourse 47, 58n8, 60, 61 discussion boards 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 123, 125 efl 31, 32, 41–43 enculturation 191 epistemic feedback 21, 24, 25 epistemic vs. social scripts 106 epistemological 189 face-to-face tutorial(s) 47, 48, 53, 55, 61 features 32, 38–41 deep-level 32, 43 surface-level 31, 32, 34–37, 40–43 feedback 13–26, 31–38, 40–43, 48, 50, 52, 54–58, 61–63, 95–99, 106, 107, 152, 159, 161, 163, 164, 168, 169, 171, 186, 187, 189, 190

198

index of subjects

feedback implementation 16, 17, 22–24 feedback loop 17, 22 feedback process 15, 16 Automated 35, 38, 39 Teaching Assistant 34, 36, 43 automated 32, 34–43 formative 32, 35, 36, 40, 42 formative feedback 168, 169 immediacy 38, 41 instructor 33–36, 43 metalanguage 41 peer 34 semi-automated feedback 169 summative 32, 42 formal writing assignments 116, 118, 126 formative feedback 15, 16, 23 freewriting 113–126 genre deconstruction 152, 158, 160, 163, 167 genre-based literacy pedagogy 152, 165 Google Docs 70 higher education vii, 68, 80, 94, 186–188, 190–192 higher-order concerns 73, 81 ict curricula referents 129 iWrite (Writing in Engineering) 151, 159–161, 169, 170 independent learning 154, 166 innovation vii innovative vii, 190 interaction 14–16, 19, 21–23 invention strategy 114, 117 joint information processing 88 juxtaposition 58 knowledge

76, 78, 79, 86,

vii, 186, 188–190

L1 32, 43 L2 32, 33, 36, 42, 43 leadership 190, 191 Literacy vii, 187 literature review 130 longitudinal approach 128–131, 133, 142 low-stakes writing 176, 178, 183 lower-order concerns 73, 81

macro vs. micro scripts 106 martin, j.r. 166 modelling 55, 59, 61–63 monologic 50, 54, 56, 61, 62, 188, 189 monologue 54 multivoiced 188 multivoicedness 189 MyCompLab 33, 34, 36–38 non-directive

48–50, 53, 54, 61

observational learning 68, 69, 80, 83 online 47, 48, 51–55, 58n7, 61, 62 online collaborative writing 94, 95, 106, 107 online design 155, 156, 172 online learning environment 13–19, 21 online online writing 47, 48n1, 49, 55, 58n7 ontological 189 orchestration 106, 107 overconfident/reluctant students 168 overscripting 107 pedagogical objectives 113 pedagogy 49, 51, 61 pedagogical 47, 53, 55, 58, 62, 63 pedagogically 47, 49, 55, 61 peer feedback 17–21 peer revision 68, 76 public freewriting 114, 115, 120 punctuation 32, 35–38, 40–42 qualitative analysis 141 quantitative analysis 141 resources vii, 189, 191 rubric 138, 139, 142, 144, 181 rubrics 96, 107 saowt(s) 46, 48–50, 52, 54, 57, 61–63 scaffolding 32, 33, 38, 42 scaffolds 96–98, 106, 107 scripts 96–98, 101–107 singular asynchronous online writing tutorial(s) 46, 48 skill-building 32–35, 35n1, 36, 38, 41–43 specific writing courses 130 student assignment(s) 46, 49, 57, 60, 61 student-centred 48–50, 61

199

index of subjects student-tutor interaction 48–50, 53, 55, 58n8, 61 suggestive feedback 21, 24–26 sustainable feedback 15, 16 synthesis writing 68–71, 75, 80, 81 task-based teaching 32 teacher feedback 17–19, 21 technology vii, 186–188, 190, 191 technology-enhanced environment 13 text linguistics 132, 134, 136, 143, 144 text(s) 50, 54–56, 57n6, 58, 60, 62, 63 text-bound dialogue 61 textual 46, 49, 55, 56, 58n8, 59 textual juxtaposition 56, 58, 58n8, 59–61 tool 186–191 transfer 181, 182 transfer of learning 129, 143, 144 tutor(s) 47–63 tutorial(s) 47–54, 55n4, 56, 59, 60, 62 tutoring 46, 47, 49–52, 54, 56, 58n7, 60–62

unfocused freewriting university vii, 191

123

WRiSE (Write reports in Science and Engineering) 151, 155–165, 168–171 writing 14–23, 25, 26 writing across the curriculum (wac) 129 writing as epistemic tool 94 writing assignment 22, 25 writing centers 181, 182 writing pedagogy 47, 49, 50, 55, 60 writing problems 136, 143, 144 writing process 33, 35n1, 36, 42 writing tutor(s) 46, 48, 51, 53, 55, 61, 62 writing tutorial(s) 47, 55, 57, 59 writing tutoring 48 writing-across-the-curriculum (wac) 114 writing-to-learn activities 114, 117, 119, 125 zone of proximal development (zpd) 95