Workshop/Seminar Review Form s1

Graduate Teaching Certificate Program

Workshop/Seminar Review Form

Workshop/Seminar Title: Two strategies for writing integration: write to communicate and write to learn (Professional Development Institute Seminar 2008)

Presenter/Facilitator: Ms. Sue Doe

Date: January 9, 2008

1.  Explain the central topic and purpose of the workshop/seminar. What are the presenter/facilitator’s goals for this workshop?

The central topic of the workshop focused on incorporating ‘write to learn’ in a classroom setting to enhance active learning and critical thinking of students. The goals of the workshop are to: a) define the two threads of writing integration; b) discuss strategies and challenges associated with using ‘write to learn’ to increase classroom engagement.

2.  What information in the workshop/seminar was most valuable to you? I became aware of the difference between ‘write to learn’ and ‘write communicate’. ‘Write to communicate’ (WTC) focuses on academic writing (i.e. papers, written projects, multigenre portfolios) that is graded with teacher response. ‘Write to learn’ (WTL) may enhance classroom engagement and facilitate quick classroom assessment to know if students could follow our pace of teaching the course material. This is usually not graded with reader response and may include in class or online forums, exploratory writing, reflective writing, preparatory writing, and intervention writing. The presenter provided some WTL strategies that can serve as critical thinking tasks to students. One of these strategies is the five-minute workshop. Five minutes before the class ends, we could give students a time to summarize the lessons and key concepts that they have learned. Another strategy that I have learned from Ms. Doe is to use a problem-based approach wherein problems can be presented as thought provokers for exploratory writing or as starters for inquiry-based class discussion.

3.  How will you connect that information to your own pedagogical endeavors?

I like the idea of incorporating WTL strategies in the classroom since it will be very helpful for me to monitor the students’ understanding of the course material. Students can enhance their critical thinking skills and increase their retention of the lessons by writing answers to short questions without the pressure of being graded for what they have written. I will use five minute of each class session to give students the time to reflect and integrate the concepts that they have learned by answering some review questions. They could write their answers on a piece of paper that I will collect at the end of the class. In addition, I will give them the opportunity to write down any concepts that they did not understand very well and I will try to address/clarify their concerns in the next class session. I could also use the first five minutes at the start of each class as a review time or introduce a new topic by asking them to answer a particular problem. Moreover, I will use the discussion board to encourage them to write and interact with other students. I will post a question or a situation related to the lessons learned in the classroom and they could post their answers as well as respond to other student’s answers. I may give extra credit for students who actively participated in on-line discussion.

4.  After attending this workshop/seminar, what additional information would you like to seek about this subject? I will be interested on learning some WTL strategies in large lecture classes. The suggestions provided by the presented seemed to be more appropriate in small classes.

Teaching Certificate Workshop/Seminar Review Form Page 1