Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Postcolonial Critique: A Threshold Concept In Organizational Communication Studies, James Fortney

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

In 2014, I attended the Backwards By Design professional development retreat as a way to enhance my writing instruction in the field of communication studies. The retreat workshops provided an opportunity for me to create and transform one of my courses by envisioning where I wanted to end up and working backwards on how to get there. By giving attention to design, enactment, and result, I was able to re-consider the overall learning goals of the course, with particular attention to the core concepts that potentially hold the power to transform student perception of communication studies. Below, I provide a …

Writing Instruction Report Regarding Activities Stemming From Summer 2014 Backwards By Design Retreat, Catherine Riordan

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

In the retreat I sought assistance as I developed a new course, a senior seminar in industrial/ organizational (I/O) psychology, a writing intensive course. The field is an applied one with many practitioners working as consultants. During the workshop I decided to use the consultancy relationship as the foundation for the writing assignments.

Students selected one case of many I shared with them as their focus. After doing research and interviewing professionals with knowledge of this content area, students proceeded through a series of writing assignments (Table 1), focusing on ‘business writing’ and switching back and forth between two audiences, …