“I Really Don't Know What He Meant by That”: How Well Do Engineering Students Understand Teachers' Comments on Their Writing?

Taylor, Summer Smith

doi:10.1080/10572252.2011.548762

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Yet, Maria Treglia (2008Treglia ( , 2009 found that although the type or form of comments determined students' affective response and preferences, it was the focus of comments that tended to predict the extent of revision. Furthermore, through interviews with students about the comments on their drafts, Summer Smith Taylor (2011) found that students' feelings about teachers' comments did not always depend on understanding them. She interviewed students and their teachers to compare their interpretations of the comments on a recently returned student paper.…”

Section: Student Understanding Of Written Commentsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Literary Discipline in the Margins

Schreibersdorf¹

2014

Pedagogy

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When literature instructors respond to student writing in introductory courses -the courses that set expectations of our discipline -what might our written comments suggest about the values of literary study? Written comments can be used in a variety of ways. They give us an opportunity to provide individualized instruction on the sentence-level problems that vary from student to student, and they can let us communicate how we understand students' logic or ideas. They give us a space to reinforce concepts introduced in the classroom, as well as an opportunity to correct misreadings. Comments might inspire a student's imagination or encourage a student's own process of discovery. With this wide range of possible purposes, our marginalia send messages beyond a simple assessment; what we choose to focus our comments on conveys information about the values of the course, as well as about the value of writing and the nature of our discipline.This article explores what students in introductory literature courses pick up from written comments regarding the concepts that teacher-scholars in the field identify as foundational for writing in the field of literature. Much recent scholarship on teaching and learning has focused on the importance of identifying and making explicit the ways of thinking and communicating that are specific to particular academic disciplines. Yet, most of the work on response to student writing has focused on writing for composition courses. And while attention has been turning more recently to writing assessment in the disciplines or in so-called content courses, very little scholarship has Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture

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Section: Student Understanding Of Written Commentsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Literary Discipline in the Margins

Schreibersdorf¹

2014

Pedagogy

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“…However, the criterion that was significantly different between the groups, mean number of readerly comments, is noted in the literature as being particularly important for helping students make revisions [20]. Moreover, the direction of differences in means in other categories, especially when taken as whole,…”

Section: Figure 1: Perceptions Of Peer Vs Instructor Feedbackmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Straub & Lunsford [19] distinguished between negative evaluations and praise; similarly, Smith Taylor [20] coded authoritative evaluations as either positive or negative. Smith Taylor and Patton [22] acknowledged that authoritative evaluations can be negative or positive but did not make the distinction in their analysis.…”

Section: Tonementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Student comments were coded using a typology based on Smith Taylor [20], [21] Table 2 the categories used in each study along with an example of a comment in that category. Table 5 describes the operationalized definitions of focus codes used in our analysis, along with representative examples of actual student comments for each code.…”

Section: Analytical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Peer Review of Writing in a Large First-year Electrical and Computer Engineering Class: A Comparison of Two Methods

Ekoniak¹,

Scanlon²,

Mohammadi-Aragh³

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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Despite recognition of the importance of communication skills in electrical and computer engineering curricula, instructors are often reluctant or unwilling to include writing assignments in their courses. Furthermore, when these assignments are included they often do not allow for formative assessment through feedback and revision, key components of contemporary writing pedagogies. Engineering instructors often feel they lack adequate expertise to provide feedback; in large classes there simply may not be enough time due to the faculty to student ratio. One way to address these constraints while providing meaningful writing assignments to students is to use peer review in place of instructor review. Still, the question of how to teach effective peer review to students remains. This study uses an experimental approach to compare use of a handout based on the assignment developed collaboratively by course instructors and an expert writing teacher with the addition of an in-class workshop conducted by the writing teacher. Both methods allow for inclusion of formative assessment in the writing process in a large class where instructor feedback would not be possible. The handout-only method benefits from less required class time and institutional support. Student peer review comments were qualitatively categorized using characteristics identified from the composition literature and the mean numbers of comments in each category were compared between groups. Drafts in the in-class instruction group averaged slightly more comments in categories identified from the literature as higher quality comments and fewer in the less important categories. However, in all but one category, the differences between groups were not statistically significant. A follow-up survey was used to gauge student perceptions on various dimensions related to the peer review process.Perceptions were generally more positive in the in-class instruction group, but again the differences were not statistically significant. These results indicate that the handout-only method may be adequate for teaching peer review to first-year electrical and computer engineering students and indicate the need for further research in this area.

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“…The feedback provided to students on their technical reports has also been shown to play an important role in their writing skills development 9 . Taylor 9 found out that engineering professors emphasize writing content (61%) more than its form (38%), as opposed to the writing teachers who are more focused on the form (50%) and less on content (36%).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing Writing Assignments in Engineering Technology Courses to Enhance Technical Writing Skills and Critical Thinking

Popescu¹,

Jovanović²

2016 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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This study was prompted by the university wide initiative to improve students' technical writing skills across-the-curriculum by introducing low stakes writing assignments as early as in their freshman year. Effective written communication skills are important for engineering education, with critical thinking being one of the most important aspects of the learning process at the college level. However, the efforts in required core curriculum English and communication courses are not always further integrated into engineering curriculum. Introducing a technical paper writing assignment in lower division engineering courses had the purpose of helping students to be better prepared for major writing assignments in their upper division courses as well as for their capstone project. For this study a writing assignment was introduced in an Electrical Circuits course, for electrical engineering technology students at Old Dominion University in fall 2015. At the end of the semester a survey was distributed to the students to evaluate their opinion on the effectiveness of introducing a writing assignment early in their college education. The research also evaluates the students' opinion on how such assignment can help them better understand the concepts studied in class, improve their studying methodology and enhance their critical thinking.

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“I Really Don't Know What He Meant by That”: How Well Do Engineering Students Understand Teachers' Comments on Their Writing?

Cited by 20 publications

References 15 publications

Literary Discipline in the Margins

Literary Discipline in the Margins

Teaching Peer Review of Writing in a Large First-year Electrical and Computer Engineering Class: A Comparison of Two Methods

Introducing Writing Assignments in Engineering Technology Courses to Enhance Technical Writing Skills and Critical Thinking

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