Describes learning log assignments for college students in a developmental studies program. Notes that the assignments call for students to reflect on specific cognitive aspects of learning giving them the opportunity to explore their own thinking, evaluate their own progress, and promote metacognitive awareness. Describes learning log assignments…

At the end of the fifth year of a successful, ever expanding freshman seminar program, students in selected sections of the course, who were also enrolled in developmental reading/writing, were asked to evaluate the worthiness of the goals in terms of their own freshman year experience. The fifth year was a new pilot year for the program. Some…

Academic Development Program students face a special challenge. Within a few short weeks, they must hone their reading, writing, and speaking skills while scrambling to adjust to life in college. Usually, pre-freshmen enrolled in the Academic Development Program are not familiar with the demands of academic reading, writing, and oral response. For…

Examines the effectiveness of two writing-to-learn formats in helping developmental students master biological information and in decreasing writing anxiety. Objective measures showed a small but significant decrease in writing anxiety over the quarter, unrelated to writing format. Writing format also had little effect on content knowledge, based…

Presents results from a study of eight college freshman to determine differences between revising essays on-screen and on-paper. Eighty-one percent of on-screen changes were above the mechanical or word level, often related to meaning and content. Students working on-screen tended to add more information and recreate paragraphs, but sometimes…