Dana Driscoll (English, Writing Center) offered a series of five half-day workshops on teaching writing for universities in the Czech Republic. In partnership with VSB Technical University of Ostrava, the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Charles University, she offered workshops to support teaching writing in the disciplines and offered support for dissertation writers.
These workshops are the result of a multi-year collaboration with multiple universities in the Czech Republic to strengthen the teaching of writing in higher education, particularly in the scientific and technical fields. Here are descriptions of the series of five workshops.
Charles University, Prague - Methods for Offering Feedback for Dissertation Writers and other Advanced students
This professional development opportunity targeted dissertation supervisors in a wide range of disciplines, offering them opportunities to learn how to give scaffolded feedback, feedback that supports professional identity formation, and feedback that strengthens scientific merit and inquiry. The second half of the workshop will include a professional issues roundtable discussion.
VSB Technical University of Ostrava: Professional Development Day for PhD Supervisors in the Sciences
Driscoll developed and hosted a Professional Development Day targeting supervisors of PhD students and other academics/lecturers who are dedicated to supporting PhD students/early-career researchers in the area of publishing/professional writing. This included offering best practices for supporting students in the sciences so that they learn the principles of scientific work and professional writing in English, explorations of our own teaching practices supporting advanced writers in a range of disciplines and in writing for publication, and discussion of how emerging technologies such as ChatGPT and other AI-Assisted text generation are shaping teaching and professional writing
VSB Technical University of Ostrava: Supporting Writing to Learn in the Disciplines
This half-day workshop explored why teaching writing in the disciplines is critical for professional identity formation, learning key processes and methods, and developing professional communication skills. Participants left the workshop with an understanding of how students learn to write and a variety of strategies to teach writing effectively in their disciplinary courses.
Day 2: Developing and Supporting Meaningful Writing Assignments in the Disciplines
This workshop built upon the “Writing to Learn in the Disciplines” and offered information in two areas: designing high-quality writing assignments and 2) supporting and scaffolding these assignments within disciplinary courses. We also explored AI-assisted writing and choices for using these technologies in your course.
Day 3: Teaching Disciplinary Writing: Offering Feedback, Supporting Revision, and Engaging in Effective Assessment
Building on the first two workshops, the workshop explored how to support student writing through offering various forms of feedback (written, oral/conference, video), using peer feedback strategies, and supporting revision through targeted writing workshops. We also covered effective writing assessment and workshopped common challenges with teaching writing.