Strategies for responding to student laboratory writing assignments

 

Kristen Miller & Cara Gormally

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2009, Volume 30

Abstract

It is well documented that writing is an effective means of both engaging students in active learning as well as assessing student knowledge. However, instructors often approach writing assignments with intense dread because of the extensive time anticipated to grade them. This mentality only reinforces the lack of writing practiced inside and outside the classroom. In fact, an instructor can assign a variety of writing assignments that assess different levels of learning and that do not require extensive time to grade. Biology laboratories are no exception to this notion; writing is an excellent component of active learning laboratory exercises. This includes not only learning to write (i.e. in the discipline of biology) but also writing to learn (i.e. to express how to do and think about biology). Recently, the Biology Division at the University of Georgia (UGA) adopted the guidelines of the Writing Intensive Program (WIP) in two introductory biology laboratory courses (one non-majors course and one majors course). Created by the Franklin College of Arts of Sciences (UGA), WIP guidelines are designed to be adopted by any discipline and aim to help improve 1) students’ abilities to compose text, evaluate peers’ writing and critically think about writing styles; 2) teachers’ abilities to grade and give feedback to student writing; and 3) teachers’ own writing. Our goals for this mini-workshop were to give ABLE participants strategies to approach grading and responding to student writing with less dread and in an efficient, yet more substantial way. By learning and practicing WIP responding strategies, we expect that lab instructors can incorporate improved and/or additional writing opportunities into their biology lab classes. We planned for our mini-workshop to be comprised of 1) a 15-minute overview of the WIP program and WIP guidelines as they pertain to responding to student work; and 2) 30 minutes for participants to a) compare TA responses to student work and b) practice responding to student work.

Keywords:  writing, introductory biology, teaching, assessment

University of Toronto, Mississauga (2008)