A Collaborative Longitudinal Design for Supporting Writing Pedagogies of STEM Faculty

Gallagher, John; Turnipseed, Nicole; Yoritomo, John Y.; Elliott, Celia Mathews; Cooper, S. Lance; Popovics, John S.; Prior, Paul A; Zilles, Julie L.

doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1713405

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Together, we then identified a model that appeared viable for our context. The WAES program developed by our transdisciplinary team includes semester-long faculty learning communities and individualized mentoring for STEM faculty (Gallagher et al, 2020; Ware et al, 2019). The faculty learning communities discuss topics and engage in activities around developing writing pedagogical practices.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The resulting program (Writing Across Engineering and Science or WAES) provides longitudinal support for STEM faculty through a semester-long faculty learning community followed by individualized mentoring (Gallagher et al, 2020; Ware et al, 2019). Through these interventions and via integrated research into their effectiveness, we have been able to observe faculty as they are implementing and adapting new pedagogies and to engage more collaboratively with them.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Tracing Discursive Turbulence as Intra-active Pedagogical Change and Becoming

Ware,

Zilles

2023

Written Communication

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This article reports on a mentoring case from a transdisciplinary, longitudinal writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) initiative in which the situated complexities of integrating new writing pedagogies were observed and supported. Considering this case through an agential realist lens, we introduce the concept of “discursive turbulence”: an emergent quality of situated semiotic activity produced from the continual mixing of discourses. Discursive turbulence can emerge in myriad and complex ways, including fits-and-starts of pedagogical development, mismatched discursive alignments, affective signs of struggle and intensity, and nonlinear patterns of change. Through a series of four vignettes, we illustrate discursive turbulence as it emerged while pedagogical changes around writing were being implemented by an environmental sciences professor. We suggest that discursive turbulence is to be expected in heterodisciplinary spaces, and we argue that attention to discursive turbulence will lead to more robust accounts of learning, becoming, and literate activity, as well as new ways of supporting pedagogical becoming.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Tracing Discursive Turbulence as Intra-active Pedagogical Change and Becoming

Ware,

Zilles

2023

Written Communication

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“…Our second example comes from a multi-pronged, large-scale mentoring project in an undergraduate physics course on nuclear weapons and arms control that we have also described elsewhere [4], [29], [30]. The course, Physics 280: Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control, was led by Matthias Grosse Perdekamp and a group of graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants.…”

Section: Example 2: Writer's Memosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Physics department technical research writer Kelly Searsmith also provided instructional support. Through an extended series of mentoring interactions centered on the weekly meetings of the instructors, the course enhanced and added several process elements related to assignment design, feedback and assessment mechanisms, and scaffolding of writing in TA discussion sections [4], [29], [30].…”

Section: Example 2: Writer's Memosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To assist STEM educators in implementing writing-as-process approaches in their curriculum, we review some key research from writing studies and science and technology studies that points to the tangible pedagogical benefits (Section II). We then offer examples from a faculty development program called Writing Across Engineering [4], [28]- [30] to show how STEM faculty have incorporated writing-as-process into their courses (Section III). We conclude by discussing the critical role that STEM faculty play in socializing their students into their disciplines and how a process orientation to writing instruction can help faculty achieve that goal (Section IV).…”

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Implementing Writing-as-Process in Engineering Education

Kovanen

Ware

Mericle

et al.

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

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Although professional boards and engineering employers have emphasized written communication as a key feature of engineering education and practice, a range of challengesfrom lack of pedagogical training in writing to large class sizes and heavy content requirements-often prevent science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faculty from incorporating writing instruction into classes. This paper focuses on a key theoretical concept from the field of writing studies, writing-as-process, and explores how it has been included by STEM faculty in their teaching. We first review theoretical and empirical work that supports writing-as-process as an effective tool for facilitating student learning. We then illustrate how writing-as-process has been incorporated into varied types of courses, drawing on a multi-year intervention project designed to enhance writing in engineering and STEM. The examples describe reflective, writing-to-learn activities for first-year orientation courses; scaffolded approaches for laboratory and problem-based-learning classes; and directed peer review and response to reviewer comments in middle-and upper-level courses. The paper concludes by addressing the vital role STEM faculty play in socializing their students into ways of thinking, being, and writing in their disciplines and demonstrates how a process orientation to writing instruction can help faculty achieve that goal. Section I: IntroductionThe Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has identified effective communication as a key criterion of engineering competency, and engineering schools across North America have noted the specific importance of writing instruction [1], [2]. However, STEM faculty have faced persistent obstacles in designing and delivering writing instruction.Common challenges include the time constraints of grading and responding to student writing, particularly for large enrollment classes, and lack of training in writing instruction, response, and

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