Integration of Writing Center Support in a Doctoral Level Course: Student Success In and Outside the Classroom

Integration of Writing Center support for doctoral level learners into the classroom environment promotes academic success while increasing student motivation and confidence. This presentation will provide an overview of the Writing Center Project developed for a first-year writing and research heavy doctoral course in a fully online environment. The session will include results from three terms of the initiative, observations by Writing Center Coaches, and success points as shared by students in health profession and education programs. Participants will be engaged in the session through discussion and activities to foster application of support services in their academic programs.

During the session, the presenters will provide background on why and how the initiative was developed; the stakeholders involved; support from strategic leadership; development of a communication plan for in and outside the classroom with students; integration of support services and resources into the curriculum and grading feedback; direct support to learners focused on academic efficacy, motivation, self-confidence, while humanizing the experience; follow up with individual learners; and partnership and collaboration in student success.

Considerations for medium and mode of delivery for online student support will be discussed during the session. The course is taught using a fully online, asynchronous medium with opportunities for optional live sessions between individual students and the instructor. The Writing Center offers synchronous and asynchronous coaching sessions as well as on-demand resources. For the Writing Center Referral Project, coaching sessions were provided live while requested additional follow up coaching was offered both synchronously and asynchronously.

Throughout the session, the presenters will engage session participants in thought activities to determine transferability and application for student achievement at their institution.

Participants will be provided collaborative documents to engage in during the session. Resources will be offered to participants as artifacts for replication or modification.

Information on the Writing Center Referral Project

The Writing Center Referral Project for EDF7175 was launched in Fall of 2020 with the goals to:

1. Make students aware of Writing Center services,
2. further develop student writing and APA formatting skills to foster success in a writing intensive doctoral level course, and
3. create support connections outside of the classroom for fully asynchronous students.

EDF7175, Foundational Theories in Education, is typically a first year, second term or third term course for doctoral level students at the university. Students in the Doctor of Education program are required to take this core course. Students from other programs are also required to take the class as part of their program of study. As that students may be in a first year of a doctoral program or taking an education course for the first time, and as students come from a variety of programs, including Nurse Educator Specialty, Occupational Therapy, Athletic Training, Executive Leadership, Teaching and Learning, and Transitional Doctor of Physical Therapy, support of academic writing and style is critical to success.

Students will comment to their advisor or their instructor that they are not used to the level of expectations for research, analysis, creating evidence of the literature, academic scholarly style writing, and using APA style formatting. In order to build confidence, self-efficacy, motivation, and further foster skill development, in addition to detailed feedback on written assignments, a connection to the Writing Center was developed. This initiative, The Writing Center Referral Project, was developed in conjunction between the course instructor, a Contributing (part-time) Faculty, and the Director of the Writing Center at the institution.

A structure was created to provide communication with the students early and sustained through the course from both the course instructor and the Writing Center Director. Additionally, content was developed to support the reasoning behind the initiative to share with learners which is critical with an adult learner population.

For the initial project term, the process and requirements were as such:

1. After grading and feedback on the Unit 1 Assignment, the course’s first writing assignment outside of the discussion, students were reminded of the Writing Center requirement as discussed in the Live Orientation session and described in the guide document in the classroom and in the syllabus.
2. On day three of Week 2, all students received an email directly from the Writing Center Director, and received an invitation to make an initial orientation appointment with a Writing Center Coach.
3. All students scheduled and met with a Writing Center Coach for an overview and orientation to the Writing Center during Week 3.
4. All students were encouraged to create subsequent appointments or follow up at any time in the future.
5. Students who earned below a 90 grade (out of 100 points) on their Unit 1 Assignment, created a follow up appointment to occur in Week 7, prior to the Unit 6 assignment.
6. This group of students were to bring a draft document of their Unit 6 assignment, a heavy research, writing, and APA style formatting, to review with the coach.
7. Students were encouraged to create subsequent appointments or follow up at any time in the future.

At the end of the Fall 2020 term, through review of the data, including student grades, coaches’ notes, and anecdotal information, it was concluded that the initiative was a success in meeting the intended objectives. All students in the term met and received an orientation with a Writing Center Coach; all students received a tour of the Writing Center, an orientation and overview of resources (e.g. Grammarly, Academic Writer, scheduling); and connections were made with the support service as evidenced by student voluntary follow up and further sessions requested with Coaches as well as new and additional use of Writing Center resources. In direct emails to the instructor and end of course reflection, students indicated the usefulness of visiting and working with the Writing Center Coaches, how good it was to connect with the Coaches, and how knowledgeable and helpful they were.

As a result of the initial term of the project:

1. The Doctor of Education Program Director added a question about the Writing Center to the Doctor of Education end of program Exit Survey
2. It was determined that the project would be carried over to the Spring 2021 term

The same requirements were in place for the Spring 2021 Writing Center project. Based on curriculum review and end of course surveys, some modifications were made to the course content which slightly impacted the project. In particular, a grading rubric for Writing Assignments was updated to provide clearer descriptions of criteria and a tempered rating scale including the areas of evidence analysis, writing mechanics, and APA style formatting. It was hypothesized that the rubric update would impact the number of students scoring above or below 90% on the Unit 1 Assignment.

At the end of the Spring 2021 term, through review of the data, including student grades, Coaches’ notes, and anecdotal information, it was concluded that the same outcomes were met as with the first term. One area which remained a sticking point was student preparation of a draft document prior to the Unit 6 assignment coaching meeting.

As a result of the initial term of the project:

1. It was determined that the project would be carried over to the Summer 2021 term.
2. Based on the two terms and review of data and alignment with stated goals for the project, it was determined that changes would be made to the requirements for the EDF7175 students.

Updates for Summer 2021 term includes only requiring one meeting for students with the Writing Center, which would occur in Week 3. However, there is more communication follow up from the Director of the Writing Center including partnering in communication to strongly encourage students to set up a coaching session in preparation of a heavy research, analysis, writing, and formatting assignment in Unit 6. Another addition is that the Director of the Writing Center will follow up with any student identified by a cumulative grade of 88% or below or a combined score of 14 or less for the writing mechanics and APA style criteria from the rubric for Unit 6. Further, there will be additional follow up with students meeting these criteria to invite them to Writing Center at least two times in term, then a third time at the beginning of the next term.

By the time of the conference, if accepted for presentation, the presenters will be able to share results of the Summer term and start of Fall 2021 term action items.