Universities across Canada and elsewhere have a longstanding focus on improving students' writing skills, including for the purpose of fostering better learning. In this paper, we present findings from two sources of data--a discursive analysis and student survey--exploring the impact of writing instruction and support in the context of a required…

Belonging, or the feeling of being a valued member of a community, has been linked to numerous positive outcomes in higher education. Although creating a sense of belonging at the campus level is important, equally important is fostering belonging in the classroom. Research has shown that belonging is more likely to occur in classes where students…

Background: The abrupt transition to virtual language learning environments due to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought considerable challenges to educational practices. In the context of foreign/second language learning and teaching, it has become more difficult to ensure that learners have the necessary engagement and motivation levels along with…

Organic reaction mechanisms are often represented by the electron-pushing formalism and reaction coordinate diagrams. These representations pose a challenge to students because valuable information is encoded within each representation, and students must know how to reason about mechanisms using both. Hence, it is important to understand whether…

This research study of a WAC learning community focuses on instructors' behind-the-scenes decision making about assignment design. Specifically, we show how instructors use direct personal experience--as students, teachers and scholars--to approach writing assignment design, invoking these experiences to discuss the origin of their assignments and…

In recent decades, there has been an increase in literacy education research attending to curriculum inclusive of sexual and gender diversity in secondary classrooms. Although valuable, most of this research has focused on the ideational and representational qualities of curriculum and thus has overlooked the significance of composition and genre.…

Drawing on critical literacy as a theoretical framework, this paper explores how a children's book writing assignment designed to center the experiences of underrepresented communities in children's literature contributed to shifts in awareness among predominantly White teacher candidates. The study occurred at a large urban university in…

Students in the sciences learn to engage with primary research articles as a fundamental part of their discipline, essential to both writing and research. These sources are difficult to navigate, leading students to use (and misuse) these sources in a variety of complex ways. As instructors and researchers, we are aware of these challenges, but…

While automated feedback is becoming readily accessible to student writers, how students employ resources and strategies to use such feedback remains largely unexplored. Informed by activity theory and the construct of appropriation, this study conceptualizes students' use of automated feedback as social appropriation mediated by resources and…

Understanding how to make the world a better place requires interdisciplinary knowledge. Public policy analysis helps policymakers arrive at informed policy decisions. The policy analysis process involves public problem definition and data collection, stakeholder identification, a rationale for government involvement, evaluation criteria,…

National calls to improve science education include focusing on scientific practices coupled with learning disciplinary core ideas. Among the practices is constructing explanations. In the field of cellular and molecular biology, explanations typically include a mechanism and can be used to make predictions about phenomena. In this work, we…

Background: Learners' writing skills are critical to their academic and professional development. Previous studies have shown that learners' self-assessment during writing is essential for assessing their writing products and monitoring their writing processes. However, conducting practical self-assessments of writing remains challenging for…

Effective communication and academic writing in English hinge on a solid grasp of grammar, with pronouns representing a pivotal aspect. However, non-native, particularly English as a second language (ESL) students, often find difficulties in employing pronouns effectively, especially in reference to their antecedents within sentences. The current…

Graduate students face writing anxiety and low self-efficacy regarding writing research papers. Holladay (1981) addressed the negative characteristics of anxiety in graduate students by writing: "They are frightened by a demand for writing competency, they fear evaluation of their writing because they think they will be rated negatively, they…

Newspaper op-eds, dedicated to commentary essays from outside of a newspaper, function as a platform for the public to exchange opinions. We designed an op-ed writing assignment as part of a semester-long course project in global supply chain management (SCM). Student teams conducted research on a SCM topic, presented their findings in the…