Encouraging students to 'believe that they can achieve' is a central element to teaching. The belief that it is one's efforts and techniques, rather than one's innate abilities which lead to success has a positive impact on learning behaviours. As such, Yvonne Skipper strives to promote this malleable view of intelligence (or growth mindset) in…

This article introduces an innovative model of social work course development, teaching, and implementation. Using the principles of antioppressive education and community-engaged learning, the authors (a former student and faculty member) codeveloped and subsequently taught a course that explored writing, voice, social justice, and the…

The writing conference, an opportunity for composition instructors to exchange class time for individual or small-group meetings with students, is a popular tool among writing teachers. However, students who come unprepared for their scheduled meetings--or miss them altogether-- will miss as much as a week's worth of instruction and receive little…

In order to explore ways to integrate new pedagogical practices, five faculty members created an informal faculty learning community focused on writing-to-learn practices, an inquiry and process-based writing pedagogy. The faculty members learned the writing-to-learn practices together, periodically met to discuss how they implemented the…

The Faculty Writing Fellows Seminar was designed to develop university instructors' skill in writing instruction: The 2015-16 professional development project offered faculty at Southern Oregon University a chance to read writing-pedagogy research, collaboratively develop their teaching practices, and--most importantly--put themselves in the shoes…

An essay's motive or research problem consists of the rhetorical moves illuminating why that essay matters--what puzzling elements of a primary source it resolves, which contradictions in the data it explains, or what gaps in the literature it fills. This article invites college instructors to dedicate some of their classroom time to teaching…

Teaching technical writing without formal training can be daunting. However, there are many resources available that can provide background and materials for teaching. My approach involved reading textbooks and articles not only on approaches to technical writing but also on what students can expect once they complete their education and are…

Despite widespread calls for reform in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, effecting lasting change in instructor practice is challenging to achieve. This article describes the results of a 2-yr research study that involved efforts to develop the pedagogical expertise of a group of anatomy and physiology…

On their way to a state English board meeting, Susan Kelly, a curriculum director, and Louisa Kramer-Vida, a university professor, used their travel time as an opportunity to converse about pedagogy (McAdamis 2010). Specifically, they reflected about enhancing K-12 writing in a suburban, middle class school district. "We need to introduce a…

Creative writing workshops typically feature a gag rule and emphasize purported flaws. This structure limits students' meaningful engagement with each other's work; positions the author as inherently flawed; and positions other participants as authority figures, passing judgment without articulating their aesthetic standards. I propose an…

In the year 2000, what started as an isolated pedagogical gambit at Glendale Community College (GCC) in Southern California has evolved into a program-wide initiative to revise the developmental composition curriculum and boost student learning outcomes. One instructor, frustrated with poor student motivation and success in his precollegiate…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to assess whether faculty writing workshops could facilitate writing in heterogeneous disciplines by linking specific, workaday writing activities (Tschudi, 1986) with Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (1974). Multi-disciplinary faculty participating in writing-across-the-curriculum workshops…

As a university instructor and a language arts middle school teacher, the authors have been working collaboratively for the last three years. This article describes their collaborative efforts, including what they have learned about their students and about the process of learning through the work they have done together. To introduce their…