Adding a collaborative element to a writing-focused course is often a challenge, but can have excellent outcomes. Consider Professor George Hoffmann’s innovative use of student-created WordPress sites to showcase student writing over a semester. The course, HONORS 241: What does Westworld Teach us about Being Human?, serves LSA’s First-Year Writing Requirement (FYWR) by including both individual and team writing activities. His particular learning goals were to engage students in “slow reading and slow writing.” This led him to focus on a recursive series of writing activities in which students create pieces and then revisited them to add to and revise throughout the semester. As part of that sequence, each team published a portfolio of their written work for the term on WordPress. This cyclical structure helped reduce student anxiety about the process, and allowed several built-in stages of feedback, and using the blog format helped frame the writing activities as ongoing, creative efforts.
Each team site included members' individual writing. Each student wrote a personal evocation; a compare and contrast piece; a close reading piece with an evidence-based argument, rebuttal and an open-ended reflective conclusion; and a reflection on their writing during the course. Each team also created a joint introduction to these individual pieces, where they articulated how Westworld related to their team reading assignments. Finally, each team created a joint conclusion that outlined their key take away points. This put a collaborative "wrapper" around their individual writing, and prompted the teams to think about their individual efforts as a coherent group collection. Teams also worked together to design the site layout and other aesthetic elements, and to create its graphic elements. This reinforced the framing of the blog as a creative effort that everyone could contribute something to. At the same time, individual aptitudes were taken into account, when creating the teams.
One of the most important elements of planning this assignment was deciding how to create the teams in the first place. Professor Hoffmann used software tool called CATME, which offers several useful components for managing teams. Team Maker enables instructors to create student surveys and use the results of those surveys to automatically form groups based on student responses. Peer Evaluation tools enable students to evaluate their teammates’ performance and their own as group members. Creation of evaluation rubrics, and articulation of what makes an effective team member, is an important part of helping students think critically about groups and group work. Finally, Rater Practice and Teamwork Training materials help students recognize effective team behaviors.
Certain survey questions, such as indicating an interest in visual design, moderation skills, and time keeping, were tied to potential team roles. Assignments and in-class activities utilized these roles to better distribute the workload among team members. Students had frequent opportunities to provide and receive anonymous feedback from their team members and their contributions are a part of their grade for the course. This emphasized the importance of collaboration as a learned skill, and encouraged students to think critically about how collaboration works. Professor Hoffmann attributed the high level of student engagement in the course, in part, to these techniques and is looking for ways to further enhance his students’ experiences with collaborative activities.
Visit our Faculty Spotlight on Professor Hoffman, to learn more and view an in-depth interview.
If you think you’d like to use more collaborative activities in your course, contact [email protected] to speak with an instructional consultant about it!
