Dr. Cydney McGuire teaches health policy for the O’Neill School of Environmental and Public Affairs. I’ve learned a lot from her approach to using writing to advance her students’ learning in an undergraduate course with 60 students; I asked her to share her insights.
Why do you assign your students to write and speak, rather than solely assessing their learning through exams?
I like to give students opportunities to develop their own ideas. I like to see that they can demonstrate their knowledge and use language to talk about important policy issues. My students learn a lot of healthcare jargon, but they need to translate what they know into stories and presentations to communicate to a lay audience.
Why do you have students work on their writing in groups?
In the health policy world, you often work with colleagues. For example, a policy brief will typically have multiple authors. I set the class up so that students see that they can do these projects with a group, as well as alone.
The grading load is a big reason to use groups, too. If I can get students in groups of three to four, that’s 20 papers instead of 60.
How do you arrange the groups?
I try to organize them based on students’ health policy interests. After a few weeks of talking about the project in class, I have students complete a short assignment where they write down three ideas for their project. Then, I compile a list of interests and put it in a survey. They select their top three interests. Sometimes students will select topics that intersect; sometimes I create groups with overlapping interests. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually not much–they’re steps that are already part of the policy brief assignment.
How do you coach groups on project management?
The groups have opportunities to work on their projects during class. For example, in one class session, they’re supposed to divide up their tasks using a schema I provide. If I didn’t give them a list of tasks and milestones, not all students would have the skills to do it on their own. The project charters create a sense of accountability. If someone isn’t participating, I can contact them and say, you were supposed to do this exact thing—when will you have it done? It’s also a way to show them how I go about dividing work within my own writing teams—we divvy up sections, but each person still reviews every part and signs off.
How do you help students manage the interpersonal challenges of teamwork?
Being in groups does bring up group management challenges, like when one member doesn’t participate. They’ll miss out on group points in class, but after the group members have reached out to them, I’ll also reach out by email. Usually, that gets them communicating, but it raises a big challenge. At the same time, that situation does happen in life and at work.
How do you evaluate students’ work within the groups?
The groups get single grades. They have analytic rubrics for both their papers and presentations; for example, for the paper, there’s a certain number of points per section. For the presentation, it’s about preparation, confidence, and design of the visuals, as well as responding to a question. I’ve considered doing a peer review (evaluating teammates), but students have mentioned they don’t want to feel like tattletales.
What kinds of results do you see from the projects?
I’ve been impressed with the new ideas they generated for how to address old policy issues. I was also really impressed by their presentations.
I’ve seen some groups who really enjoy it and seem to thrive. In groups where it seems less enjoyable, they can still manage the group dynamic. It’s interesting to me that despite sharing a major, many students come to class not knowing each other, so this project provides an opportunity to meet new people and potentially click. I do explain that this is what teamwork looks like beyond school; sometimes we have to do projects with people we don’t know.
Any parting thoughts for other educators?
This group writing project helps them learn how to use their mind to think innovatively. I know they understand the content I’m teaching them, but I also see that they can develop and communicate their own ideas.
Consider signing up for the next workshop from the Campus Writing Program, “Managing the Grading Load by Streamlining Your Feedback” (Tuesday, October 14, 11:00 a.m., Zoom and Wells Library), which will feature Julia Calderón and Roberto Garcia.
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