As many visitors to our website know, we are running the WAC Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Project, for the second time this year. The purpose of the program is to design and implement a discipline-specific research project related to the teaching and learning of writing in the participants’ field or profession. During sessions led by the WAC Program, participants learn best practices of writing studies research, data collection and analysis strategies, etc. This year’s participants are three faculty members from Rosen College of Hospitality Management and two faculty members with joint appointments at the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Technology Center.
These teams are working on two projects. The Rosen College faculty are looking at effectiveness of sequenced writing assignments in three undergraduate courses and those assignments’ impact on student learning. The NanoScience/Chemistry faculty are investigating the role of writing in the acquisition by students of discipline-specific knowledge and language in a graduate courses in Agricultural NanoScience. Both projects are in the data-collection stage, and we expect both teams to have drafts for peer-review by April. Then, they plan to finish writing up their research and send it to journals/conferences over the summer. If you have completed the WAC Fellows program with us and are interested in participating in the SOTL project next academic year, please contact us.