Education Commons^™

Making The Most Of Existing Resources: An Online Rubric Database In University-Wide Writing Program Assessment, Jennifer M. Good, Kevin Osborne

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

When creating an assessment plan to measure writing outcomes for a university-wide writing across the curriculum (WAC) program, administrators considered multi-layered evaluation methods for benchmarking and measuring internal growth of students. Although assessment plans must address these needs, the actual assessment practices must be flexible, accessible to faculty, and feasible--based on existing technological structures and data systems at an institution. The writing assessment that is provided addresses all of these elements and is offered as a model for other programs.

For this particular study, the internal aspect of the assessment plan that tracks growth of students over time is the …

Does Completion Of Quantitative Courses Predict Better Quantitative Reasoning-In-Writing Proficiency?, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

Using data from Carleton College, this study explores the connection between students’ completion of a range of quantitative courses and the quality of their quantitative reasoning in writing (QRW) as exhibited in courses throughout the undergraduate curriculum during the first two years of college. Because the assessment takes place in the context of a campus-wide initiative which has improved QRW on the whole, the study identifies course-taking patterns which predict stronger than average improvement. Results suggest QRW is not exceptionally improved by taking courses in statistics, principles of economics, or in the social sciences more broadly. QRW performance is, on …

Writing Awareness, Gwen Gorzelsky

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The author argues that, by practicing embodied, metaphoric ethnography, educators can revise their roles in classroom social systems and so pursue the goals of critical pedagogy.

Promoting Positive Academic Dispositions Using A Web-Based Pbl Environment: The Globaled 2 Project, Scott W. Brown, Kimberly A. Lawless, Mark A. Boyer

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional design approach for promoting student learning, understanding and knowledge development in context rich settings. Previous PBL research has primarily focused on face-to-face learning environments, but current technologies afford PBL designers the opportunities to create online, virtual, PBL environments. The GlobalEd 2 Project is an example of a PBL environment that combines the positive characteristics of both face-to-face and online environments in a 14-week simulation of international negotiations of science advisors on global water resource issues. The GlobalEd 2 PBL environment is described examining the impact it has had on middle school students’ interest in …