Online groupwork across the curriculum: Using shared spaces online to support inter-class conversations

Below is the abstract of my proposal to the Writing Across the Curriculum conference this coming May.

Writing centers should play an active role in writing across the curriculum, especially online. This presentation explores recent research on supporting groupwork across the curriculum with an inter-class blogging application supported by the Writing Center at Michigan State University (WC MSU).

Many educational institutions maintain writing centers that provide students with assistance on writing in one-to-one consultations. These centers already work with students and instructors throughout the university. However, this important work remains bound by physical limitations. Rather than duplicating this face-to-face model online, the WC MSU has explored new ways to engage students and instructors in their classrooms and outside of the physical space of the writing center.

WC MSU developed an inter-class blogging tool to connect multiple courses in a shared space. This tool builds on existing course tools (Blackboard, Angel, Moodle), but emphasizes cross-course conversations in a shared space. This research explores attitudes of instructors and students who used this software over the course of one semester in 2009. My presentation will discuss the implications for writing across curriculum pedagogy, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of this type of work, specifically, issues of implementation and sustainability.

This conversation seeks to challenge expectations and practices both about writing centers and writing across the curriculum online. Online tools like the WC MSU inter-class blogging application is not meant to replace sound practices of instructors or pedagogy, rather expand and supplement already existing norms and practices in ways not before possible in physical spaces.