Best Practices: Key Factors for Integrated Reading and Writing Courses

By Mitchel T. Burchfield, Ed.D.

Best Practices for an IRW Course

A Team Up/THECB IRW Workshop

Austin, TX October 18, 2013

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Overview

Opening Remarks Purpose of Handout Mirror Neurons/Semantic Network

Key Factors for IRW Courses Underlying Principles

Synergy Affective Domain Learning Continuum

The Instructor Course Content and Instructional Design

Overview

Example of How to Combine Instruction Journal Assignments Reading and Writing Assignments Internet Resources

The Students

Motivation

Closing Thoughts and Questions

Rationale

Similar student learning outcomes

Time savings for students

Better utilization of resources

Frequency, intensity, and duration

Whole language approach

Should lead to better completion and retention rates in “gatekeeper” courses.

Key Factor: Underlying Principles

Definition of “Synergy”

The term “synergy” is derived from the Greek word “syn-ergos” or working together.

For today let us say “synergy” happens when two or more things function together to produce a result which cannot be produced

independently.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Synergy

Synergistic phenomena can be found in many different disciplines.

Business

Mergers (operational, financial, & managerial)

Biology

Emperor Penguins (thermoregulation)

Honey Bees

Synergy

Architecture

Geodesic Domes

Chemistry

Bronze (Copper and Tin)

Education

Reading and Writing Courses????

Affective Domain

Affective Domain Definition - This domain includes the

manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.

When this domain is purposefully addressed in the instructional design, the phenomenon of “synergy” is facilitated.

Group Activity

During the next five minutes list the names of the three domains of learning (Bloom’s Taxonomy) and any levels of learning associated with each domain.

http://www.stedwards.edu/cte/content/category/13/27/51/#levels

Cognitive Domain

Evaluation

Synthesis

Analysis

Application

Comprehension or Understanding

Knowledge

Affective Domain

The five major categories list the simplest behavior to the most complex:

Receiving Phenomena: Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.

Responding to Phenomena: Active participation on the part of the learners.

Valuing: The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior.

Affective Domain

Organization: Organizes values into priorities by contrasting different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an unique value system.

Internalizing values (characterization): Has a value system that controls their behavior.

Learning Curve

Learning Continuum

Students are individually located along a “learning continuum” which ranges from low ability to average ability to high ability.

Instructors must address the Affective Domain as well as the Cognitive Domain to allow for individual differences in students.

Key Factor: The Instructor

Pygmalion Effect Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968)

Hawthorne Effect Mayo, Roethlisberger, & Dickson (1927-32)

Professional Development Opportunities Best Practices CRLA & NADE

Best Practices THECB, CASP, TADE, & TxCRLA

Graduate Programs (TSU & SHSU)

Pygmalion Effect

In 1965 the authors conducted an experiment in a public elementary school, telling teachers that certain children could be expected to be “growth spurters,” based on the students' results on the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition. Actually, the test was nonexistent and those children designated as “spurters” were chosen at random.

What Rosenthal and Jacobson hoped to determine by this experiment was the degree (if any) to which changes in teacher expectation produce changes in student achievement.

Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect — an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important.

Individual behaviors may be altered by the study itself, rather than the effects the study is researching. This effect was demonstrated in a research project (1927 - 1932) at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois. This series of research activities, was first led by Harvard Business School professor Elton Mayo along with associates F. J. Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson.

Professional Development

The instructor is arguably the single most important factor in the success of an Integrated Reading and Writing Course.

Many opportunities (like today) exist for instructors to enhance their knowledge and skills. Help is available at local, state, and national levels.

Key Factor: Course Content and Instructional Design

Textbooks

Novels

Readings

Software

Stand alone

Non Course Based Option (NCBO)

Non Semester Length Option (NSLO)

Example: Catalog Description from Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

From Academic Course Guide Manual of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board - 2012

Developmental Integrated Reading and Writing (New Developmental Education Course) This is a combined lecture/lab, performance-based course

designed to develop students’ critical reading and academic writing skills. The focus of the course will be on applying critical reading skills for organizing, analyzing, and retaining material and developing written work appropriate to the audience, purpose, situation, and length of the assignment. The course integrates preparation in basic academic reading skills with basic skills in writing a variety of academic essays. This is a course with a required lab.

Example: Catalog Description from Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of this course, students will:

1. Compose a variety of essays that demonstrate clear focus, the logical development of ideas in well-organized paragraph and essay formats, and the use of appropriate language that advances the author’s purpose.

2. Locate explicit textual information, draw complex inferences, and analyze and evaluate the information within.

3. Define new vocabulary and concepts and use them accurately in reading, speaking, and writing.

Example: Catalog Description from Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

4. Describe, analyze, and evaluate information across literary, expository, and persuasive readings.

5. Explain how literary and other texts evoke personal experience and reveal character in narrative and expository texts.

6. Edit and submit multiple drafts that reflect judicious use of self, peer, and instructor assessment.

7. Identify and evaluate source documentation

Example of How to Combine Reading and Writing

Fluency to Clarity to Correctness

Select readings that will address the affective domain

Move from inward to outward with thematic units Self

Family

Groups outside the family

Regional, national and world wide concerns

Example of How to Combine Reading and Writing

The readings we choose for students, especially early in the semester, provide information about a subject or serve as models of effective essays. We provide readings that help students reinforce within themselves a sense of integrity, both personally and as part of a family.

Journal Assignments

Reflect on your own life and write about some turning points or watersheds, that is, times when you have done one or more of the following with positive results:

1) Assume responsibility for yourself. 2) Make tough choices. 3) Seek relationships that enrich your life. 4) Affirm self-worth. Now write about the times when you have not done

these things when you probably should have. (Note: In this and all writing and discussion activities for this class, you should never feel pressured to reveal anything about yourself that you would prefer to keep private.)

Journal Assignments

Here is an example of a journal writing assignment based on a quote (Chapter 2 Insightful Writing) .

“There is an Indian belief that everyone is a house of four rooms: a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual room. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete.”

Rumer Godden, House of Four Rooms

Journal Writing

Journal Writing Activity In the quotation at the beginning of this chapter,

Godden mentions four “rooms” that make up the “house” of one’s personality.

Write a few sentences describing the four rooms of your personality: the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual. In which “room” do you spend most time? Why? What people and experiences have influenced you in each of these four rooms? How have you changed over the years in terms of spending time in each room? In other words, do you spend less or more time in one or more rooms now than you used to? Why?

Reading Assignment and Activities

Pre-reading Activity (key words and concepts)

Reading (choose one or more):

Dianne Hales, "Getting Yourself Back on Track“

Ben Fong-Torres, “He Wails fo the World”

Student Essay: Michael Verderber “An alienated Asian

Post-reading Activity

Optional quiz and vocabulary

Critical thinking opportunities

Writing Assignment

Write an essay in which you discuss two or three major turning points in your life. What were they? When did they happen? How did you go about making any decisions that had to be made? In what positive or negative ways did these turning points affect you? Your audience or readers are your classmates and instructor, who would like to know more about you as a person. Your purpose is to give your readers some idea of the kinds of experiences that have helped to shape you into who you are. A secondary purpose may also be to help you understand yourself better.

Group Activity

During the next five minutes list some of the best journal assignments or Internet video clips you have used with students.

Discuss how you would pair the journal topic or video with a writing assignment (paragraph, summary, paraphrase, or essay).

Key Factor: The Students

The students who enroll in your IRW class need a predictable environment with structure and frequent feedback from the instructor. They constitute a key factor which all of the other factors previously mentioned are directed toward helping.

Motivation

Student Motivation (Extrinsic and Intrinsic)

Student Success Leads to Motivation

Even a small success will help motivate a student.

A series of successes (even small ones) leads to self-efficacy and competency.

Motivation

Your students don’t care what you know, but they need to know that you care.

Belief in oneself coupled with ability generates intrinsic motivation.

When do students need you to help motivate them (extrinsic)? When they are low on learning continuum.

Motivation

Use stories to motivate students

I have former developmental education students who are very successful. This includes students who have earned advanced degrees and are now professors, doctors, and lawyers.

Conclusion

You, as instructors, do not have total control over what happens on your campus or at the state level.

You do have a tremendous opportunity.

You do have control of your classroom and what type of experience your students have every time you meet.

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!

Questions and Discussion

Please contact me if you would like a copy of this presentation or if you have any questions.

Thank you…. Mitchel Burchfield

mtburchfield@swtjc.edu

Southwest Texas Junior College

Uvalde, Texas 78801

References and Websites

Burchfield, M. & Sabrio D. (2007) Research in Developmental Writing Courses and Implications for Practice. NADE Digest spring 2007

Cohen, Geoffrey L., et al. (2006). Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention. Science (1 September 2006): Vol. 313. no. 5791, pp. 1307 – 1310.

Franke, R. H. & Kaul, J. D. (1978). The Hawthorne experiments: First statistical interpretation. American Sociological Review, 1978, 43, 623-643.

Olson,R., Verley,J., Santos,L. & Salas, C. (1994) "What we teach students about the Hawthorne studies: A review of content within a sample of introductory I-O and OB textbooks" The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist vol.41 no.3 pp.23-39

Rizzolatti, Giacomo, et al. 1992 paper in Experimental Brain Research (Vol. 91, No. 1, pages 176-180).

Rizzolatti, Giacomo, et al. 1996 paper in Brain (Vol. 119, No. 2, pages 593-609).

Rosenthal, Robert & Jacobson, Lenore. “Pygmalion in the classroom.” The Urban Review. September 1968, Volume 3, Issue 1, pp 16-20.

Sabrio D. & Burchfield M. (2009). Insightful Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Wilson, Timothy D. (2006). BEHAVIOR: The Power of Social Psychological Interventions. Science (1 September 2006) 313 (5791), p. 1251.

References and Websites

Hawthorne Effect

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/hawthorne.html

http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/hawth.html#Hawthorne overall

Bloom’s Taxonomy

http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm

https://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/affectiv.htm

http://www.stedwards.edu/cte/content/category/13/27/51/#levels

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

Brain Research

http://www.brainresearch.us (Excellent site by Janet Zadina)

http://www.digital-scrapbook-kits.com/ (starfish story)