The medium of instruction is English in all universities in Singapore. Typically, in engineering, science, and technology degree programmes, academic writing is taught through one or two distinct or 'stand-alone' modules delivered in the first year of students' undergraduate programmes to help them cope with the writing needs of assignments in…

How better can we prepare students for the roles awaiting them as citizens than by engaging them in addressing challenging issues of the day? We describe our experience as a researcher--practitioner partnership with this objective in a yearlong program involving academically low-performing urban middle schoolers and a student-centered…

Writing from sources is an important academic skill but students find it a difficult skill to learn. The lesson study method was used to design and evaluate learning and teaching strategies aimed at improving students' writing from sources skills. The team developed a seven-part lesson plan and associated learning activities and practice…

This article relates the efforts of faculty at one community college to define standards for achievement of two SLOs (critical thinking and effective communication) and to gather and analyze evidence of how well students meet those standards. Faculty from 13 disciplines assessed writing samples from 265 students. We found that, in general,…

Because communication skills, especially writing, are such an integral part of managerial work, it may be postulated that these skills are associated with managerial success. Yet evidence of writing competency is not universally considered for admission to MBA programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible correlation between…

Although service learning provides unparalleled real world experiential student learning opportunities and benefits to four major constituencies--student, faculty, community and institution, it takes place in an uncontrolled environment introducing uncertainty into the instructional process. Faculty might avoid this valuable approach to…

Students live in an information and knowledge management economy in which the dissemination and analysis of information requires intellectual, technical and interpersonal skills. As a direct response to higher education's challenge to produce more engineers, scientists, and business professionals, universities have increased the numbers of…

The Department of Accounting at California State University Northridge (CSUN) has developed a unique sequence of courses designed to ensure that accounting students are trained not only in technical accounting, but also acquire critical thinking, research and communication skills. The courses have proven effective and have embedded assessment…

In 2006-2007, we established a writing exercise in two large first-year biology courses. Overall, our exercise, which consisted of multiple drafts of a 500-word essay, offered students a good introduction to how editorial feedback can improve content and style in scientific writing. We discuss our goals, procedures, outcome, and students'…

Emphasizing real-life communication skills, this book offers cooperative activities to help teachers supplement their writing programs with easy-to-use critical thinking activities. The 16 activities in the book are suitable for grades 4 through 8, for gifted younger students, or as a remediation tool for older students. The activities expose…