Promoting Student Success Online Tutoring from SMARTHINKING

The Keiser University QEP  A major component of Keiser’s accreditation, and a high priority for the Office of the Chancellor  Main feature: KeiserWrites! – Direct, one-on-one tutoring in writing skills. – The use of Smarthinking for composition students – those who need the highest frequency and intensity of support. – Writing Studios at each campus (and the OWL) will allow other students to work with highly-qualified writing consultants.  Composition instructors are asked to integrate Smarthinking into their ENC 1101 English Composition I and ENC 2102 English Composition II courses.

Why Smarthinking?  Aligned with the curricular philosophy that governs KU CCDs, textbook choices, and pre/posttests. – Promotes process-oriented writing instruction – Emphasizes purpose, audience, and topic – Encourages meaningful revision – Situates writing instruction within a community of learners These aspects of our philosophy of teaching writing make Smarthinking’s feedback a natural fit for Keiser University.

What Can Instructors Do?  Provide active, hands-on instruction in how to create an account, upload a draft, and retrieve the feedback  Include at least one lesson in your course that addresses how writers negotiate feedback from other writers  Author lesson plans that mention Smarthinking in timelines of activities  Establish publishing deadlines by which students would need to upload a manuscript to Smarthinking in order to meet the final deadline for an assignment

What Can Instructors Do? (cont.)  Discuss the differences between higher-order concerns and lower-order concerns with students  Provide frequent reminders to students about the value of incorporating SmarThinking’s feedback into their drafts as part of the process of preparing a paper for submission to the instructor  Strongly discourage the purchase of used textbooks that deprive students of the full custom bundle of curricular materials specified by the CCD

Ongoing Activities  Full-time instructors, Writing Studio Consultants, and academic leaders should keep the use of this product in mind throughout the length of its implementation.  Newly-hired instructors or anyone else teaching a composition class for the first time must be oriented to the instructor’s role in promoting the use of Smarthinking.  Instructors should contact Keiser University’s Director of the Writing Program in case of any problem with student or instructor access to Smarthinking.

Assessment QEP Activities  One semester each year, your campus contributes to the data collection that enables the QEP study to move forward.  This study measures the differences between students who used SmarThinking and those who didn’t use SmarThinking. Specifically, we’re comparing growth between entry and exit samples for users to growth between entry and exit samples for non-users.  Study Guidelines established by the Director of Quality Assurance and the Director of the Writing Program – Smarthinking use should be strongly encouraged, but not required – Purchasing used texts should be discouraged, but not prohibited – Instructors should assist students with their access of the service to maximize its use The role of the instructor in creating conditions that lead to a valid study is critical; however, the value of this product is in its capacity to help improve students’ writing skills. The main concern of all instructors should be helping students make as many improvements in their writing abilities as possible—SmarThinking is a valuable tool to help them achieve that aim.

Study guidelines established by the Director of Quality Assurance and the Director of the Writing Program, approved by the Vice Chancellor: – The use of Smarthinking should be strongly encouraged, but not required – Purchasing used texts should be discouraged, but cannot be prohibited – Instructors should assist students with their access of the service to maximize its use

Accessing SmarThinking Slides that follow illustrate what students see from opening their new textbook bundle to creating and using a SmarThinking account.

This is a scan of the instructions that come packaged in all custom bundles sold for ENC 1101 and ENC 2102 at Keiser University. This part is really important! Please help by calling students’ attention to it!

 This is what SmarThinking’s main page looks like.  The code bundled with the textbooks provides access to a customized KU page on SmarThinking’s web site that guides students through the process of creating an account.  The account entitles them to upload five manuscripts during the course.

This is the registration screen students have to fill out. …fairly straightforward.

Upon creation of the account, students are taken to a screen that looks like this. Here is where they submit their writing.

This is top half of the screen students use to submit a manuscript...

...here’s the rest of it.  This part’s kind of cool.

After submission, students are taken back to their home screen, shown here. The file cabinet is where the retrieve completed drafts in hours.

Questions?