Primary Audiences

Faculty who teach first-year courses, especially Instructors of COM 100; other Communication faculty

School of Communication faculty; faculty using writing to enhance the professional value of project/problem-based learning

Open to all faculty and staff

Two Communications faculty team up to describe the results of their research projects, each that could have broad application for many faculty across the university. Much synergy will erupt from this dual presentation. 

Derek Lackaff

I will will report the results of a new writing-centered curriculum for Communications in a Global Age (COM100) that was developed in Summer 2014 and piloted in Fall 2014, and invite further discussion on writing in conceptual courses. COM100 is a first-year survey course designed to introduce students to both the scholarly and professional fields of mass communication, as well as inform students about the department’s majors and associated programs. The learning outcomes that guided this project included: Students should be able to compellingly describe “communications” as it is approached by this department, and by the broader academic and professional community; students should be able to describe – with specific and detailed examples – the ways in which convergence is occurring, and the impacts of convergence on industry and the public; and students should develop an increasing sophistication in their skillset and methods that enable them to “write to think” about communications topics.

Phillip Motley’s presentation

Can writing be used to enhance the professional learning in the capstone course of a 1-year professional master’s degree program in interactive Media? This project explores this question by assigning a variety of writing assignments to iMedia graduate students in the final semester of their graduate studies at Elon. Students in this course typically create a self-guided project that spans the entire semester and that leverages what they have learned about graphic design, interactive technology, media studies, and mass communication theories.

This project is focused on ways to enhance the role that writing plays in the Interactive Media program, specifically in the capstone course. Currently, beyond the creation of a written project proposal, students focus primarily on the creation of a semester-long project artifact in a 6-credit thesis development course (all other iMedia courses are 3-credit). While writing is initially a companion component of the students’ capstone projects—mostly during the proposal phase—the projects themselves are primarily visual, interactive, digital media artifacts.

My presentation will address the impact that introducing an array of writing assignments into this course has on students during the development of their capstone projects. Specifically, this presentation will discuss findings relative to students’ understanding of their own creative processes with the goal of making their thinking and decision making more explicit and of how to create relevant professional documents such as design specifications, content strategy plans, or design documentation reports.

Primary Audiences

Humanities and Social Sciences faculty

Open to all faculty and staff

In the humanities disciplines particularly, but also beyond, we want our students to relate to course skills and ideas in ways that extend beyond a concern for “whether it will be on the test”; we want them to draw on those skills and ideas to help clarify their own values and to help make sense of the world and their roles within it. In this interactive workshop I will share my work in developing and putting into practice a minimally directive, semester-long free writing project with my introductory ethics students. I will present a range of resultant student writing, as well as feedback gathered from 90 students concerning the project. Cross-disciplinary issues we will discuss together include (1) the specific forms of instructor guidance that seem called for to support students in their free writing and the appreciation thereof; (2) what should distinguish a philosophical free writing project from similar projects created for other disciplines; and (3) how such a project should be graded

Bring your lunch if you would like. Dessert and beverages provided.

Primary Audiences

Faculty and students in Cinema and Television; faculty in the School of Communications; fans of “Mad Men”

Open to all faculty and staff

Based on extensive interviews by adjunct communications faculty member Douglas “Doom” Kass, this talk will reveal the thought and writing processes of Matt Weiner, creator of “Mad Men.”

Primary Audiences

Writing faculty; students who own a smartphone or tablet; faculty interested in mobile writing assignments; Faculty interested in social media, particularly blogging; TLT staff

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

iPads are mindless consumption devices that exist to check Facebook and email. At least they were for a little while. Apps now exist that provide almost limitless potential, especially for mobile writing that’s supported by multimedia. Five Elon students have spent the past school year writing and learning with an iPad, critically evaluating apps for students and faculty. These reviews are written on their iPads, and then published to our Technology Blog. Come hear the students share their experiences, then ask them any questions you have about the apps they use, their writing process, or how you could incorporate mobile writing assignments into your courses. The student writers and the project leaders can also talk about the behind-the-scenes process we collectively used to manage the writing project, track and self-assign writings, find apps, and collaborate within the group. Learn more about the Writing with Thumbs project at blogs.elon.edu/technology/writing-with-thumbs.

Bring your lunch if you would like. Dessert and beverages provided.

Primary Audiences

All Academic Programs [Leadership; Fellows; Service]; Residence Life; Service Learning

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

Coordinating the teaching of writing across any program can be a difficult task. What kinds of projects should be offered in what year? What kinds of writing are developmentally appropriate for which semester? How should faculty scaffold writing instruction and experiences across the length of the program? These questions, and more, apply to the Periclean Scholars Program.

A further complication? A rotating group of faculty mentors who progress through the program with the students. Unlike typical major sequences, where faculty may teach one course multiple times in order to develop their expertise, faculty design and teach each course one time, adapting their goals and objectives to their given cohort the best they can. No surprise that designing and teaching effective writing assignments consistently trouble Periclean faculty mentors.

This session will explore how the current group of faculty mentors worked to develop effective writing structures for the Periclean program. We will discuss the importance of writing to the program, and why faculty have found it so frustrating. Then we will share how we worked to develop systematic expectations for writing across all six semesters, using Dee Fink’s Integrated Course Design, and writing research on developing “expert” writers. We will share writing outcomes we developed for the 2014-15 year for each cohort and, finally, discuss how we access our work so far.

Primary Audience

Mathematics and Education Faculty

Open to all faculty and staff

Students in MTH 208: Number and Algebra for K-8 Teachers were asked to write to a colleague to show mastery of a certain area of mathematics content. They were also asked to prepare a writing assignment for their own K-8 pupils. This session will share the type of instruction the students received in the MTH 208 class, the writing prompts for these two assignments, and some examples of student work. Professors attending this session will then help us examine ways to improve the task as we move to broader implementation in both MTH 208 and 209 and prepare to collect more data for an Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators presentation and publication.

Primary Audiences

Love School of Business faculty; faculty interested in using case studies to teach writing and disciplinary skills

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

Interested in using case studies in your classroom? Hear how two original cases were developed to enhance the writing skills of students enrolled in two upper-level accounting classes. Engage in a conversation about the case study assignments and their assessments as well as the pedagogical opportunities and challenges of using a writing-intensive assignment for business students.

Please feel free to bring a bag lunch. Drinks and dessert will be provided.

Primary Audiences

COR 110 faculty; faculty interested in incorporating sustainability into courses

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

A common model of writing projects is for students to examine their own past experiences as a means of exploring or contextualizing their understanding of a novel concept. In this project, we apply this model to the theme of sustainability by having students research and reflect upon environmental health risks in their hometowns. We identify inter-related modules of ecological, social, economic, and ethical considerations that can be customized to each instructor’s pedagogical interests. This presentation will focus on how this model can be used in COR 110 sections, but the project is also applicable to upper-level courses and science courses.

Bring your lunch if you would like. Dessert and beverages provided. 

Primary Audiences

Social Sciences and Humanities faculty

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

Although contemplative practices have always existed, there has been a newfound interest in the idea of contemplative pedagogy in recent years. Writing is a critical form of contemplative pedagogy; individuals working in this area have addressed both ways to integrate contemplative practices into writing practices as well as ways to use contemplative practices as preparation for writing. This workshop will offer the following: first, an overview of the state of the science and state of the art of scholarship on contemplative writing, second, sample contemplative writing practices and insights gained from incorporating these practices, and finally, workshop time in which participants can consider ways to integrate these insights into a current and/or upcoming course.

Primary Audiences

Love School of Business faculty; leaders and coordinators of multi-section courses; department chairs

Open to all faculty, staff, and students

Come hear – and engage with us in a dialogue about – our process for aligning course goals, workload, and assessment across multiple sections of a course. Faculty from the Love School of Business will describe their efforts to align the 12 to 16 sections of Business Communications taught each semester.

Bring your lunch if you would like. Dessert and beverages provided.