From Corrector to Collaborator: The Range of Instructor Roles in Writing-Based Natural and Applied Science Classes

Abstract

This study of writing-intensive (WI) undergraduate natural and applied science courses examined the relationships among instructors' course goals, instructional activities, and students' assessment of their learning of content and writing. Using multiple sources of data, investigators found that instructors held common goals but varied greatly in their instructional activities. Findings suggest that science instructors can be described along a continuum anchored by instructor as corrector on one end and instructor as collaborator on the other. Instructors who were the sole audience for a single writing assignment were correctors. Collaborators varied writing tasks, encouraged collaboration, and emphasized professional contexts for writing; they generally received highest student satisfaction ratings. Peer editing assignments that simulated critical, anonymous journal reviews affected female and male students differently. The findings support the National Academy of Science's teaching standards and assumptions concerning the crucial roles of instructors in socializing students into science communities. We discuss instructional strategies that may be more inclusive to traditionally underrepresented groups such as females and minorities. Clearly, a writing-intensive class requires that I as professor give a lot of thought about what kind of assignments I give. When I was an undergraduate, none of the classes I took in science had an opportunity for interaction except in the laboratory portions where you got paired with somebody, and that was more to get the work done. We almost never did sit down together to discuss calculations or the results we had obtained. Sometimes I feel it's too bad it took me so long to get where I am. It's kind of like growing up, an evolutionary process. When you don't have any mentors to teach you how to teach, to show what good teaching is, then I guess it has to be an evolutionary process. (Agronomy professor)Writing gives us a chance to use the terminology that we've learned so that we become comfortable with it. We learn new words every day, new terms. How to describe a rock or a mineral. And if you don't use the terms in your writing or your speech, you're never going to become comfortable with those words. So it helps a lot. It's going to help me when I go to grad school. I know I'm going to have to do a lot of writing. It's-I don't This study explored the instructional contexts and teacher roles associated with students' development of professional communication skills in a set of undergraduate science classrooms. It was intended to take advantage of a relatively new graduation requirement at the sponsoring university: Students must complete several courses that make extensive use of writing, courses officially designated as writing intensive. Our basic approach was to view the science classroom-and the many activities associated with science writing assignments-as a particular context for learning to use the language of science. The idea that science classrooms can be se...

Exploring students' responses to conceptual questions when engaged with planned writing experiences: A study with year 10 science students

“…The students' comments also confirm other research findings (Chinn & Hilgers, 2000;Keys, 1999;Kelly & Chen, 1999;Prain & Hand, 1996) that claim certain aspects of task design and particular classroom conditions are likely to promote learning through writing. The writing tasks should entail meaningful audiences for whom student writers recognize task demands and have strategies to address these demands.…”

“…As their responses indicated, students perceived that this task required them to clarify concepts for themselves to explain them to others, and that this process focused and enhanced their learning. The students' comments also confirm Chinn and Hilgers' (2000) claim that students learn from writing when there are frequent verbal and written interaction between student and teacher, participation in a collaborative learning community, clear guidelines for writing, and opportunities to write for other audiences. In other words, as noted by Lave and Wenger (1991), classroom conditions serve learning when there is a range of meaningful communicative practices that support students in all stages of writing, including feedback on their initial and advanced efforts.…”

Examining the literacy component of science literacy: 25 years of language arts and science research

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In their Own Words: Understanding Student Conceptions of Writing Through their Spontaneous Metaphors in the Science Classroom

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