FACILITATING INDEPENDENT LEARNING IN AND BEYOND THE WRITING CENTER

Ryan Burt, Johnson Deng, Caitlin Lowe, Olivia Michaels, Gail Parsons, Sushen Tu (slides designed by Olivia and Johnson)

Academic Support Programs (ASP) ■  Unit in Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) ■  Supports students in transition through academic

achievement courses. ■  Classes offered:

–  General Studies 101 (High-challenge, high support) –  Education 401: Tutoring and Mentoring in Higher

Education (one-on-one, holistic mentoring) ■  Runs the Center for Learning and Undergraduate

Enrichment (CLUE)

The Center for Learning and Undergraduate Enrichment (CLUE) ■  Free late-night multidisciplinary study center located

in Mary Gates Hall ■  Offers drop in tutoring for a variety of subjects (math,

chemistry, computer science, languages, etc.) ■  CLUE Writing Center: the second largest writing

center on campus –  An important year for us: a wonderful new Writing

Center cohort!

Overview 5min 10min 10min 10min 10min 5min

Introduction Hypothesis Metacognition

Question 1: Present

Question 2: Future

Question 3: Implications

Take-away Practical strategies

Conclusion Questions Contact

QUESTION: How do students learn beyond the writing centers? •  How can we nurture their independent writing skills?

HYPOTHESIS: METACOGNITION—

“the awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes”

We conducted both academic research and personal interviews with multiple other campus writing centers, dividing our overall investigation into 3 sub-questions:

Question 3:

What are the implications of our findings from 1 and 2 relating to our work in the writing center?

Question 1:

What did our research and interviews tell us about metacognition?

Question 2:

What did our research and interviews reveal about how we can encourage metacognition?

1a) What did our research tell us about metacognition?

Motivational Interviewing: §  Client-centered counseling

style §  Focus on resolving

ambivalence §  Support the student through

the process; §  validation, reflection §  Non-directive style

(SAMHSA, 2007)

“Critical thinking has to be something more than just plain good thinking. And here it should be acknowledged that just plain good thinking is itself difficult.” (Johnson & Hamby, 423)

1b) What did our interviews reveal about metacognition?

Most tutors are at least indirectly aware of the concept •  Reading materials were

helpful to a certain extent •  However, most writing

centers’ training seems to take place on-the-job, between tutors.

Was meta-cognition ever addressed?

§  Surprisingly, it was addressed very little.

§  Current practices border on including metacognition—but not explicitly.

2a) What did our research reveal about how we can encourage metacognition? Motivational Scaffolding:

the feedback tutors use to build rapport and solidarity with students and consistently engage them in sessions. §  Positive politeness strategies

§  Praise, encouragement, concern, sympathy, empathy, reinforcement of student control

“Tutors in writing center conferences can use motivational scaffolding … as “a kind of social accelerator” where the speaker indicates he or she wants to strengthen the connection he or she has with the hearer (103).”

both left and above: (Mackiewicz and Thompson, 2013)

2b) What did our interviews reveal about how we can encourage metacognition? §  Many students who visit writing

centers are English Language Learners (ELLs)

§  Interviewees noted their difficulty in overcoming language barriers

§  Due to these barriers, structural concerns sometimes take a backseat in sessions with ELLs

§  Most common tutoring approach described: asking neutral questions to open up discussion about a paper’s structural elements.

§  Students have generally been capable of addressing structural concerns—when they are pointed out.

§  Whether they continue by asking themselves helpful questions for later papers remains to be seen.

§  Tutors don’t see the same students enough to track if they substantially improved their writing skills.

2b) What did our interviews reveal about how we can encourage metacognition? §  For Native speakers, over-confidence

in their own compositional quality occasionally blinds them to the structural critiques tutors proffered.

§  Some arrive with an understanding that the tutor’s role was not that of a peer educator but that of a subordinate.

§  If anything, breaking through these mental barriers in unreceptive students is key to helping them on their way to better writing.

§  ELLs prioritize seeking grammar help without recognizing or addressing the underlying linguistic causes for their mistakes.

§  Interestingly, interviewees cited the students least receptive to tutoring as being usually native English speakers. Why?

3a) What are the implications of 1a) and 2a) regarding our work in the writing center?

OA R S

Open Questions: invite others to “tell their story” in their own words without leading them in a specific direction.

Affirmations: genuine statements of client strengths which acknowledge and promote behaviors that enable positive change. Reflective Listening: method of building trusting relationships and fostering motivation to change. (repeating, rephrasing/paraphrasing, reflection of feeling) Summaries: special applications of reflective listening. They can be used throughout a conversation, but are particularly helpful at transition points.

(SAMHSA.gov, 2007)

3a) What are the implications of 1a) and 2a) regarding our work in the writing center?

Philosophy: “Wittgenstein (1980, p. 74e) said ‘‘denken ist schewer,’’ thinking is hard: there is a tendency to float on the surface and not to take a real effort to dive down below it.” (Johnson & Hamby, 423)

“The problem, as we conceive it, [with defining critical thinking] is not that there are no good definitions, but that there are an overabundance of problematic definitions.” (Johnson & Hamby, 417)

3b) What are the implications of 1b) and 2b) regarding our work in the writing center?

§  Current process-oriented methods are effective at helping students adjust their writing to the specific requirements their coursework expects.

§  However, a consistent focus on encouraging students to engage in continuous meta-cogitation when approaching a paper is not always present.

§  Some students are more receptive to discussion-based approaches than others

§  However, a tutor’s structural approach to a paper is insufficient for handling less-receptive students.

§  Stressing ‘metacognition’ means heightening and reinforcing the already established ideologies of a ‘process oriented’ writing critique into a more potent set of real methods.

TAKE-AWAY POINTS

Gail: “Tutors can improve their tutoring

by being better counselors.”

Sushen: “Explicitly discussing metacognition with

students encourages them to connect what they already know with what they're learning

and writing about.”

Johnson: “Openly talk about metacognition with students.

Get them to understand their own writing process by questioning how and if their methods achieve

their intended purpose.”

Olivia: “Encouraging metacognition in students

is crucial--but we must also remind ourselves to step back and re-evaluate

our own thoughts and methods.”

QUESTIONS?

Thank you for listening!

Contact Information: Caitlin Lowe – Writing Center Lead lowe.caitlin@gmail.com Ryan Burt - Program Manager/ELL Resources rburt@uw.edu Olivia Michaels – CLUE Writing Tutor oliviafi@uw.edu Johnson Deng – CLUE Writing Tutor johnson.jy.deng@gmail.com Sushen Tu – CLUE Writing Tutor sushentu@gmail.com Gail Parsons – CLUE Writing Tutor gmpprofessional@gmail.com Writing Center Email: wcclue@uw.edu

Bibliography: Homelessness Resource Center. "Motivational Interviewing: Open Questions, Affirmation, Reflective Listening, and Summary Reflections (OARS)." SAMHSA, 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2016. Johnson, Ralph H., and Benjamin Hamby. "A Meta-Level Approach to the Problem of Defining ‘Critical Thinking’." UW Libraries Database. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. Mackiewicz, Jo, and Isabelle Thompson. "Motivational Scaffolding, Politeness, and Writing Center Tutoring." The Writing Center Journal 33.1 (n.d.): 38-73. Web. 19 Feb. 2016. Rao, Zhenhui. "Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing Skills." UW Libraries Database. Oxford University Press, 2 Apr. 2007. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. Sheldon, Lisa. "Using Motivational Interviewing to Help Your Students." The National Education Association Higher Education Journal (2010): 153-158. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.