Overview:
I believe that it is very important for students to learn how to write in the standards of their discipline. My students in PHY 201 and PHY 202 start this practice by writing lab reports with an introduction, supporting body paragraphs and analysis, and a concluding statement. I require my students to write their reports by hand, in part to discourage plagiarism, and also because I believe that it is important to have presentable handwriting skills. In my PHY 420 class, which was offered as half Writing Intensive, I took these requirements a step further and had students develop professional-quality technical reports, including an abstract, cited references, and internally referenced equations and figures.
I was selected as a 2019-2020 Fellow for the Writing in the Disciplines Program, hosted by SUNY Cortland’s Institute for College Teaching. In addition to participating in the workshops throughout the year, I co-led two workshops. In the first (Rubrics and Contract Grading) I presented and sought feedback on my writing assignments and supporting documents for my PHY 420 class. In the second workshop (Scientists as Writers) I presented a discussion geared toward helping people outside of the discipline, such as the mentors in SUNY Cortland’s Writing Center and instructors of the CPN 100/101 classes, better understand the particularities of technical writing so that they can better support our students.
Workshops:
1. Scientists as Writers: commonalities and distinctions of writing across different disciplines (March 10, 2020). Co-presenter with Professor Karen Downey (Chemistry, SUNY Cortland).
2. Rubrics and Contract Grading (January 30, 2020). Co-presenter with Professor Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth (Economics, SUNY Cortland).
Products:
Overview of WID artifact
Contract grading rubric for technical reports
Technical report template
Guidelines for developing an abstract