Engineering Students` Writing Performance in a College-Level Writing Class: An Appraisal Investigation

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Eunhee Seo
2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-78
Author(s):  
Nor Ashikin Ab Manan ◽  
Ambigapathy Pandian

This study was conducted to explore the benefits of formula instruction in an academic writing class. Its main objective is to determine whether the students’ knowledge of the target formulas can be enhanced through direct instruction of the target academic formulas (DIAF) chosen from the academic formula list (AFL).In this study, twenty  five formulas were selected from the Academic Formula List (Simpson-Valch & Ellis, 2010) as target formulas and were directly taught to a group of students attending an academic writing class. After five weeks of instruction, their knowledge of the target formulas was tested using an objective test and an academic essay writing test. This paper discusses the result of the study by addressing four research questions:  (1) What are the effects of formula instruction on the students’ knowledge of the target formulas? (2)  What are the effects of formula instruction on the students’ academic writing performance? (3) What are the effects of formula instruction on the use of the formulas in the academic essay? (4) What is the effect of target academic formula use on the scores of the academic essay writing test?


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wathiq Abdul-Razzaq

One of the problems we face in teaching introductory physics courses at the college level is that about 2/3 of students never had physics prior coming to college.  Thus, many students find it very difficult to learn physics for the first time at the relatively fast-paced teaching of college physics courses.  Sometimes the drop/failure/withdrawal rate at West Virginia University is as high as 65% (~2/3) for the introductory physics courses taken mostly by pre-engineering students.  Obviously, there is a strong connection between the students’ physics backgrounds and the success rate of passing physics.  With the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, we created an intervention course for a small group of students who did poorly in the first test in one of the physics courses. This intervention course ran concurrently with the regular physics course, but started at the fourth week of class after the first test. Students who received our intervention showed significant improvement in the subsequent physics tests.1 The recruitment of the students and the supervision of the course were the result of a unique collaboration between the College of Engineering and the Physics Department.  After the expiration of the NSF grant, the intervention course was cancelled due to the lack of funds.  The labs associated with physics classes, however, give us the opportunity to continue the advancement of physics learning after the ending of the NSF grant.


Author(s):  
Silvia Elizabeth Cárdenas Sánchez ◽  
◽  
Ximena Elizabeth Naranjo Lozada ◽  

Today, people are learning more and more languages for different reasons. To learn a language includes the development of all the skills in order to comprehend oral and written material. English, which is a universal language, is one of those languages, and it is used in different fields to promote communication. Thus, this paper focuses on one of the most important skills, which is writing. In a setting where English is taught as a Foreign Language (EFL), it is essential to learn how to write correctly following the language standards. With this in mind, the following research is framed in a context where college students developed the writing skill through paragraphs and peer correction. Students were instructed in different writing topics and peer correction.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-226
Author(s):  
Anggri Muhtia ◽  
Suparno Suparno ◽  
Sumardi Sumardi

The emergence of online learning offers the opportunities that are not possessed by the traditional face-to-face learning environment. Combining the strengths of the online learning and face-to-face learning, known as blended learning, is believed to enhance the quality of learning. Different subjects may have different designs of blended learning because there is no specific formula for the best practices of blended learning. This paper reports a study investigating the implementation of blended learning in a paragraph writing course. The purposes were to investigate the blended learning activities carried out in the paragraph writing course and to find out the extent to which it affected students’ writing paragraph performance. The participants of this case study, who were selected purposively, involved one lecturer and six students of a paragraph writing class. The techniques for collecting data included interviews, observations, and document analysis, and the data were analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s interactive model. Ten blended learning activities, including five activities in face-to-face settings and five activities online, were identified in the course. The students’ paragraph writing performance seen from the result of final test was satisfying, indicating that the use of blended learning had a positive effect on students’ writing performance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stan Owocki

This concise textbook, designed specifically for a one-semester course in astrophysics, introduces astrophysical concepts to undergraduate science and engineering students with a background in college-level, calculus-based physics. The text is organized into five parts covering: stellar properties; stellar structure and evolution; the interstellar medium and star/planet formation; the Milky Way and other galaxies; and cosmology. Structured around short easily digestible chapters, instructors have flexibility to adjust their course's emphasis as it suits them. Exposition drawn from the author's decade of teaching his course guides students toward a basic but quantitative understanding, with 'quick questions' to spur practice in basic computations, together with more challenging multi-part exercises at the end of each chapter. Advanced concepts like the quantum nature of energy and radiation are developed as needed. The text's approach and level bridge the wide gap between introductory astronomy texts for non-science majors and advanced undergraduate texts for astrophysics majors.


Author(s):  
Teguh Sulistyo ◽  
Nur Mukminatien ◽  
Bambang Yudi Cahyono ◽  
Ali Saukah

ABSTRACT-The present study aims at investigating how Blog-Assisted Language Learning (BALL) can enhance EFL tertiary learners’ writing performance covering complexity, accuracy, and fluency through collaborative action research while at the same time it seeks to discover new knowledge that can inform the implementation of BALL in a writing class. This study employed Collaborative Classroom Action Research conducted in one cycle in one consecutive semester intended to make improvement in the teaching and learning of writing using BALL. There were 30 students of a university level majoring in English Education Department who joined Advanced Essay Writing Class in this study. The data were collected through interview, open-ended questionnaire followed by in-depth interview, and writing test. The findings showed that EFL learners improve their writing performance and they become more active in online class condition with two atmospheres: collaboration and competition among the learners. Keywords: BALL, EFL Learners, writing performance, action research.


1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Piirto

Engineering students, faculty, and administration all agree that instruction in writing is an important component of engineering education. And since engineering students will take up technical matters in their careers, it seems only natural that a writing class will require them to write papers about technology, that is, to practice technical writing. While this approach may indeed be of value, the following article presents an alternative to the teaching of technical writing per se. The author suggests that if students learn how to approach an issue they care about, form an arguable idea from this issue, then logically prove it in subsequent paragraphs, that this deep level of writing and thinking comprehension can then be used to enhance any piece of writing, especially the technical document.


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