Acknowledging AI

When they imagine students using AI, faculty might picture a student plugging an assignment prompt wholesale into ChatGPT and submitting the output with minimal or no editing. But students—who are far more prolific users of AI than faculty—report that this approach to AI use is relatively uncommon. AI tools are more often leveraged as collaborators that enhance students’ writing, rather than replacing their efforts wholesale.

Refining GenAI Policies: Three Questions to Initiate Conversations

The Provost’s Office and the Senate Committee on Educational Policy at the University of Minnesota provided strong early guidance for instructors on student use of ChatGPT and other GenAI technologies in classrooms (Embrace, allow, and prohibit). Since the publication of those original policies, the landscape of GenAI tools and the quality of GenAI outputs has changed dramatically.

Providing Pathways for Student Writers

With the start of the fall semester, campus sidewalks and bike lanes are flowing, once more, with humanity—welcome back! In these early weeks of the term, there is plenty to navigate, and not just physically. For students entering new courses and new fields of study, there will be plenty of questions about location, schedules, course policies and procedures. Amidst the effort to get oriented to new terrain, students might not be thinking yet about other questions they have about writing or about writing processes and practices that will support their learning.

How's it going so far?: Students react to writing assignments and activities

Last month’s Teaching with Writing blog focused on strategies instructors can use when providing students with feedback on their writing. This month’s blog turns the tables by describing tools students can use when providing instructors with feedback on their writing instruction. Yes, this sort of feedback is routinely gathered at the end of the semester, but getting it at a semester’s midpoint is even better.

Conceptual Ladders: Steps to Understanding through Writing

When students recall the definition of a concept or apply a formula or principle to a problem, we are presented with a challenge. While their answers may be correct, how do we know whether they have a developed sense of the concept or can simply provide solutions in clearly defined contexts? Similarly, while students may recall learning about a concept, method, or tool in a prior course, is remembering a topic the same as conceptual understanding?

Rubrics 2.0: Descriptive Criteria Enable Student Success

Faculty and instructors tend to be divided over the use of rubrics and scoring sheets to assess writing. Some instructors appreciate the sense of consistency that rubrics provide and how they simplify grading. Others find scoring rubrics artificial and confining, and worry that splitting hairs between categories increases assessment challenges. In this blog post, we’ll look at the question of scoring rubrics from the perspective of student performance and recent research on how scoring rubrics can help students learn.