Teaching Tips from our Faculty Advocates

Jan Anderson, Central Texas College
Chuck Gonzalez, Central Florida Community College
Pat Leverentz, Pima Community College
Teri Maddox, Jackson State Community College
Bev Neiderman, Kent State University
Sharon Rinkiewicz, Broward Community College-Central
Anna Schmidt, North Harris Montgomery Community College
Ona Seaney, Southern Methodist University
Susan Taylor, North Florida Community College

Jan Anderson, Central Texas College

Direct students to print items that they don't understand and bring them to class. Use those items as teaching points for the class.
Encourage students to work heavily in the lab at the front of the course so that application of knowledge can take root earlier in the course.
Address assessment requirements by using the Diagnostic Test and Posttest as a pre- and posttest measure of the course.
Peruse MWL before teaching, so you can adopt the same language in your instruction and avoid confusion for students.
Don't hesitate to contact your Longman rep if you run into problems. If they don't have the answer, they will provide you with a contact who does.

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Chuck Gonzalez, Central Florida Community College

Hold a regular supervised lab where students complete MyWritingLab assignments in your presence. Should a student show mastery of a topic by completing it online off campus with outside help, you can require additional sets be done in your presence where you can assist in the student actually mastering the topic. The mastery percentage should conform to the school's minimum percentage to pass the course. Students should also complete some writing in your presence within MyWritingLab . They should be required to type and maintain electronic documents for their graded writing assignments.
Students should have to complete MyWritingLab activities as a reasonable percentage of the grade for the course.
Deadlines for completion of MyWritingLab activities should be set to keep students on track and prevent last minute cramming.
Create an assignment handout or document with all the MyWritingLab assignments that students can refer to daily.
Align your daily semester class activities with MyWritingLab topics so students get the needed reinforcement and practice.

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Pat Leverentz, Pima Community College

Use the Watch feature in class so that students know how it works and are reminded to refer back to it when they encounter problems doing the exercises.
Incorporate MyWritingLab into all in-class grammar and editing work to create a seamless grammar program. It's important that students see MyWritingLab as a part of the whole writing course and not something “outside.”
Open MyWritingLab and project it during whole-class work so that you can explain, clarify, and illustrate while students ask questions.
Limit the number of exercises students can do on a particular topic without more studying. This is important because some students will go in and complete all of the practices for a particular topic without reviewing the rules and fail to master the topic or even markedly improve. Here is an example of how to limit exercises: Do Fragments (Recall) to 80% or above but no more than 4.
Keep track of the grammar areas students are not mastering so that you can re-visit them. This seems intuitive, but it's important to mention because though students really enjoy doing the exercises, they are sometimes satisfied just to do the exercises without recognizing the need to master the skill.

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Teri Maddox, Jackson State Community College

In preparing for my classes, I usually select particular topics from three sections that I want students to work through: Grammar for Writers, Writing a Paragraph, and Writing an Essay.
The first week of class my students write a diagnostic essay and we go over the syllabus. By the second week, students have had time to buy their textbook and their access code. I spend class time for students to register because that has been one of the hardest parts of using the software. I assign some of the Writing chapters for students to begin working in such as The Writing Process, Prewriting, The Topic Sentence, Developing and Organizing a Paragraph.
By the third week, most students have gotten used to the software and we take the Pre-Test. Students now have their Study Plan in place so that they know what they have to do the rest of the semester. They must complete all of the Grammar for Writers sections that I have pre-selected. I give students time in class to work on MyWritingLab, but most do not have enough time to complete all their Study Plan in class. The most successful students are the ones who work on MyWritingLab outside of class.
I like using the Student View so that I can understand what kinds of questions are asked, especially on the Apply questions. Although the Apply questions are more difficult than the Recall questions and take some getting used to, I like students to experience them since those questions more closely reflect real reading and writing than the Recall questions do.
We work as a class on some of the textbook chapters, but MyWritingLab is always individualized. Students like to be able to work at their own pace—more quickly if they can, or more slowly if they need to.
Students who are experiencing difficulty with a chapter are either sent to a tutor for individualized instruction, or we go over that particular topic as a class. For example, some students have difficulty with the Misplaced Modifiers, Combining Sentences, Varying Sentence Structure, or Parallelism topics. I usually put those topics way down on the list so that they are not working on them until they have done more recognizable topics like Subjects and Verbs, Run-ons, or Fragments. I usually go over all these chapters in class because students are not familiar with them

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Bev Neiderman, Kent State University

Present the class with clear guidelines for their work to get the desired teacher results (completed work, an understanding of the material, practice using the material, etc.) and student writing improvement (students won't open the program and question what they are supposed to do.)
Set a minimum level of competency as a standard for student work
Allow students to work at their own pace within set grading guidelines
Be prepared for technological glitches
Incorporate the online work with your classroom assignments for maximum benefits

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Sharon Rinkiewicz, Broward Community College-Central

I really use it for homework and rough drafts for the first paper or so, depending on how classtime goes. With the drafts of the papers, students choose a topic and submit through MWL. I initially check it for topic sentences and the like. I also correct them because the tend to convert to email shorthand, so students learn slowly that they must conform to standard English even on the computer. The final copy is done on Word. For the later papers, they mostly write in class. Other times, I just assign a topic and make them correct their own rough drafts. This way I wean them off the idea as the instructor as the editor.

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Anna Schmidt, North Harris Montgomery Community College

Make sure you learn the program before you start using it in the classroom. For example, I always have all my students sign up for the first time in class all together. I already know some potential problem areas and give my students very thorough instructions anticipating the problems.
Some of the problems my students encounter when signing in are: incorrectly entered access code, user name already in use (I have to advise them to come up with an alternative which is easy to remember), students forget user name and password by the next meeting session. The last one gets even more complicated if a student entered incorrect e-mail address or forgot the e-mail address he/she entered. I always tell my students to WRITE DOWN their user name and password inside the access code card. Interestingly, access code cards are pretty difficult to lose.
When I create a course, I go through every module and hide those topics that I am not planning to use during the semester. So that when my students log in, they will only see the modules we will be studying in class – it is a shorter list and helps them stay focused.
I leave some of the modules for my students to see even though they are not on the syllabus. I tell my students that I left those on purpose – they are very important and those students who want to work on their writing and grammar skills independently, are welcome to work through those modules.
Keep an open mind. No matter how wonderful a computer program is, it is only a computer program created by other people who sometimes make mistakes. Throughout the years of using the program, I have seen quite a few errors and malfunctioning situations. Therefore, I never use MWL for testing purposes. I primarily view it as a wonderful tool for additional practice for my students.

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Ona Seaney, Southern Methodist University

Don't expect the technology to go smoothly all the time! Prepare for difficulties with login, computer incompatibility and other issues.
Use visuals as often as possible. The MWL videos are very helpful. Today's students are more visually oriented than ever before.
If you feel comfortable with it, try integrating MWL with Blackboard for an all-around package.
Use the diagnostic pre-tests and post-tests! They're a great way for the students to have an “objective” view of their progress (or lack thereof).
If you are teaching in a computer classroom, MWL is a great way for students to workshop on their papers with guiding and your help.

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Susan Taylor, North Florida Community College

At the beginning of the semester (by week 2), I schedule a class period in a computer lab and we all log on together. I ask for a student volunteer to register on MWL as I direct him. This process is projected onto a large screen using an LCD projector, and the class follows along registering themselves on their computers. It has saved many headaches when it comes to answering technical questions, and it sets up students to begin using MWL immediately. They begin the diagnostic testing after log-in.
Use the short video clips in your class presentations. I found that many of my students who have dial up had never seen these clips. Once they see how short they are and they learn how to pause the clip and take notes, they tell me they use the video clips as often as possible when they are working in a campus computer lab.
Be aware of how many sets of activities are available in each skill and limit your students to one or two sets. Some of my students quickly rushed through all sets without mastering the skill; unfortunately, there were no more activities to assign. Assign one or two, check progress, assign some students additional practice as needed.
As the instructor, you have the ability to hide and show various topics. I use this feature most of the time; it helps students to CLEARLY know what sections they should be working on at the required time. (They do not always write down their MWL homework in class.)
Learn how to monitor time on task. I like to check the time on task against the scores; students are often amazed that I know exactly how much time they put into their on-line assignments. Scores do improve once they know I am watching.

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