WAC PROFILE:
Cindy Herbert, Computer Science
What is your best or favorite writing assignment/activity/course project that you have issued in your time at Longview?
My favorite writing assignment is one I am currently using with my online CSIS 115, Introduction to Microcomputer Applications course. The blog exercise focuses around the topic of social networking. Students are asked to read the article "Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy" by Marco R. della Cava. Students are to respond to questions such as "What positive and negative impacts have social networks, like Facebook, had on our culture? On your communication?" Students are also required to provide a reaction response to other students’ postings. This gives them a hands-on experience with blogging and commenting.
What do you like about using writing in your courses?
I like using writing in my online computer courses because it allows me to explore discussion of additional topics related to computing, besides the software applications being taught.
When and how did you become involved in WAC?
I became involved in WAC in the late 1990s…..it just made sense to weave writing into the learning process in computer courses.
Why did you want to teach Computer Science at the college level?
I taught short-term computer courses in business industry for nearly 10 years before entering higher education. I began teaching college courses as a part-time instructor. Once I realized the benefit of spending more than one day with a student and watching them learn over a longer period of time, I knew this was the teaching format I wanted to move into.
Which education issues do you find most interesting or compelling in 2010-11?
The varieties of delivery options being used in teaching today are very compelling. During my previous studies as an online student, courses were delivered in a text-based format. It is exciting now to see emerging technologies available which provide instructors expanded opportunities to engage students in new ways and support a variety of learning styles.
WAC PROFILE: Melissa Eaton, Anthropology
What is your best or favorite writing assignment/activity/course project that you have issued in your time at Longview?
My favorite writing activity designed while at Longview involves the learning community I am team teaching with Terri Lowry this spring. We combined cultural anthropology and creative writing in an effort to create a collaborative fiction novel informed by cultural studies. Terri and I look forward to see the myths, characters, and stories the students create together.
What do you like about using writing in your courses?
I enjoy using writing in my courses because it requires a different kind of thinking and a more involved response. I feel that, in many cases, writing is one of the only ways to determine if students grasp the meaning of terminology or concepts beyond repeating the textbook definitions. One of the challenges to creating thought-provoking writing assignments is to design the prompts in a way that cannot be found in an online essay bank or a Wikipedia page. I find that well designed and creative assignments help students learn more from the course material and grow as writers and communicators.
My introduction to WAC occurred through new faculty orientation visits when I joined Longview back in 2008. I immediately knew that I wanted to become more involved. With further and more formal training, I could see proven techniques I already used, techniques that I could incorporate in the future, and great advice about how to improve the quality of my feedback to students’ writing.
Why did you want to teach Anthropology in a community college?
Anthropology is an underappreciated discipline at many community colleges and many students who enroll in my classes have absolutely no idea what the class will be about on the first day. As a field that holistically studies humans, every student finds something relevant in the material to their lives, their health, and their understanding of the world. This is a topic that I am passionate about and I can bring my fieldwork experiences into the classroom.
Which education issues do you find most interesting or compelling in 2010-11?
I am tuned into the discussions about how higher education will continue to change in the face of technological change and decreasing budgets. I support online teaching and alternative formats and schedules, but I am also concerned about higher education in an “on demand” world. Learning takes time and effort on the part of the student as well as the instructor, which continue to cause growing pains in the changing scope of distance education.
WAC PROFILE: Keet Kopecky, Biology
In his own words...I first began incorporating a semester-long writing assignment into my Biology classes 28 years ago while teaching part-time at MCC-Penn Valley. In fall of 1982 those pioneering students were guided through an original scientific research project of their own design and spent the semester gathering library resources, creating the technical proposal, collecting data, analyzing the data, and synthesizing the final paper. They were given credit for helping revise one another’s papers and received opportunities for rewrites of all five “phases” of the writing assignment.
I brought the writing assignment with me when I moved to MCC-Longview 21 years ago, worked closely with Diana Grahn [WAC Coordinator, 1990-1992] and other early organizers of the Longview WAC program, eventually joined the LV WAC Cadre, and have offered some of my classes with the Writing Intensive (WI) enhancement every year since it became a college graduation requirement. I remain grateful to my colleagues for tolerating nearly three decades of germinating beans and reproducing guppies along the window sills of our shared lab spaces.
What is your best or favorite writing assignment/activity/course project that you have issued in your time at Longview?
Apart from the five-phase original science project described above, I enjoy incorporating writing into my International Field Biology courses to Costa Rica and elsewhere. Students are required to journal every day they are out of the country. They can dog-ear any pages they don’t want me to read, but through frequent feedback from reading pages they share with me I help them develop skills at describing both their academic experiences and their intellectual and emotional responses to those experiences. It is joyfully refreshing for me to get to read about my students’ first encounters with life in distant countries. It makes every international studies course feel like the first visit for me all over again.
What do you like about using writing in your courses?
I can know in much greater detail the degree to which my students are, or aren’t, understanding the course information. More notably, I like how my students come to know what they do---or don’t---understand based on how effectively they are able to put their comprehension into words. By semester’s end, they are much better at using writing as a tool to critique and revise their knowledge of science. I love observing independent student study groups using informal writing outside of class to put one another to the test to see if they are really ready for an upcoming exam.
Which courses have you taught as WI and what do you like about teaching them as WI?
I use writing in all of my classes, but I have only taught Botany and International Field Biology as WI courses. Students are expected to learn the scientific method in any science course they take, but I’ve found that they gain a much deeper understanding if they have to do science for themselves and then write about it. Virtually everyone finds some component of the scientific method surprisingly annoying and another part unexpectedly exciting. It varies from person to person, but my students come to know the fun and the frustration of science much more intimately by the experience of immersion. I encourage them to share their irritations and joys in their writing assignments. In the end, they have a record of memories from the course that they come to cherish after just a couple years.
Why did you want to teach Biology at the college level?
I love nature, and I want my students to love it, too. When I was still in high school, I knew that I wanted to do the most that I could to preserve the beauty of the living world. I could have worked for the EPA or run for public office, but I decided that the best way to help nature would be to share my passion with generations of students. Teaching college Biology allows me to do that every day, and I have to say I love my job.
Which education issues do you find most interesting or compelling in 2010?
There is a growing tendency in higher education to treat students like customers who are willing to pay money to receive training for a job that they can apply for when they graduate. I think there is more need now than ever to instead treat students like clients who may not realize that what they really need is education that can prepare them for jobs that they can’t even imagine yet, and that don’t even exist yet. As professionals we need to be willing to do whatever we know is best for our clients, rather than doing whatever we think the customer is asking.
WAC PROFILE: Anne Nienhueser, Physics
In her own words...
I teach Physics and Astronomy. Along with many other science and math majors, I am not necessarily fond of writing. However, I still have to communicate and make my meaning clear when I write or talk. This is extremely important for all of us. It doesn’t happen overnight; it is a learned skill and needs to be practiced.
We cannot live in this society without writing. It would be a disservice to our students if we didn’t give them several opportunities to practice and have useful feedback in an educational setting before they need the skill elsewhere.
Math and physics can almost be treated as a different language. When I taught high school, I worked at teaching my students how to take notes in a math or science class. I even graded them. For their physics labs, students have to write reports. So, I suppose I have been interested in the reasoning behind WAC for a long time even though I never had a name for it.
What is your best or favorite writing assignment/activity/course project that you have issued in your time at Longview?
I ask students to research and find ecological and economical sources for a new housing project and to discuss these throughout the semester. At the end, students take this information and write a paper about a house they would build.
What do you like about using writing in your courses?
When students have to write, they synthesize information more. A student may think he/she knows an answer or how to do something. But sometimes when he/she tries to tell someone else that information, the student realizes exactly where the gaps are in understanding. Writing gives them the opportunity to go back and look at it again.
Which courses have you taught as Writing Intensive?
I teach a physical science lab class online as WI.
Why did you want to teach physics at the college level?
I enjoy my students and I like the opportunity to get them excited about something they might think they never use but, in reality, is all around them.
Which education issues do you find most interesting in 2010?
I think the lack of funding everywhere is making higher ed institutions look harder at how things have always been done to see if there is a better system out there. I think all of us get comfortable with how we do things and don’t want to change. Change can be scary but sometimes it can also be good.
WAC PROFILE: Casey Reid, English
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| Casey Reid |
Casey Reid, Longview English instructor, became actively involved in the WAC Program even before she began teaching here full-time. Here are her responses to the questions we posed:
What is your best or favorite writing assignment/activity/course project issued in your time at Longview?
I love my Field Trip Essay in World Literature I: It asks students to choose one of several activities in the community, and the students have to relate the given activity to our readings. For example, students can attend KC’s Renaissance Festival to assess the historical accuracy of the festival.
Which courses have you taught as Writing Intensive(WI)?
English 254: World Literature I
What do you like best about teaching WI courses?
The students always seem more engaged!
Why did you want to teach writing at the college level?
Solid literacy skills are essential for participating in our society on multiple levels, and I can help students develop their literacy skills through writing instruction.
What education issues do you find most interesting in 2010?
I’m interested in how technology is changing the way we think and respond to the world.
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| Casey (far left) with students in her Service Learning course who organized a walk to promote awareness of autism. |
