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VOLUME XIV, NUMBER 21

4% INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

  

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DE VELOPMENT (NISOD), COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN + WITH SUPPORT FROM:THE W. K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION.AND THE. SID.W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

  
 

Collaborative Writing: English and Math

Students often take courses without ever recognizing
how they may be related. They may move from English
to math courses, for example, and never see connections
between the two. Instructors, too, for a variety of
reasons, may fail to make these connections for them-
selves or for their students. Math instructors may feel
as uncomfortable with writing as English teachers may
feel with statistics.

We, a math instructor and an English instructor,
prior to our collaboration, had exchanged pleasantries
between classes, but never engaged in conversation.
However, last fall we heard an interesting account of an
unintended collaborative teaching situation. A student
sought the advice of her statistics teacher from the
previous semester after listening to her report writing
instructor (in the English department) describe a term
project which required, in part, collecting and analyzing
Statistical data. The student, surprised at the writing
requirement, asked how one could set up the question-
naire in order to analyze the results and present them
graphically. English and statistics seemed like an
unlikely mix, she felt. The statistics teacher was not
familiar with the requirements for the English course,
but became acutely interested since her department had
recently instituted a similar mandatory paper for her
class. Thus, urged by this student’s questions, we

sought each other out to discuss how to help students
enrolled concurrently in these courses, and we devised
this collaborative strategy.
The Collaboration

We assigned reports for our students that required a
collaborative English/statistics effort. We both ex-
plained the tools to be used for the project and dis-
cussed the types of surveys, and the students developed
a hypothesis which could be used for both classes.
Statistics placed heavy emphasis on learning sampling
techniques and designing the questions to facilitate
numcrical analysis. English emphasized designing the
survey format and the use of tone, grammatical struc-
ture, and readability. When the students’ surveys were
completed and the data tallied, each question was
analyzed using appropriate statistical tools.

The Results

This collaborative approach improved the quality of
the reports significantly. The six students enrolled
concurrently in the two classes offered their assistance
to the other students more readily than did the students
who were not enrolled in both. Statistics students who
were in the English class helped their peers analyze and
graph data, and English students who were in the
statistics course helped their fellow students design
their report and create the survey questions. Asa
result, students produced reports that were written and
analyzed with greater detail and precision.

As well, when students were asked to critique
another student's report on the English final exam,
more were able to comment effectively about writing
style and statistical analysis. Statistics students pointed
out that they had developed an increased ability to
recognize a well-written report, as well as appropriate
graphs and valid statistical analysis.

Although we conceived the collaboration as a means
of producing better papers, we discovered additional
benefits: Students became more aware of how disci-
plines can be related, and instructors from different
disciplines learned to collaborate.

Conclusions

Admittedly, we each still feel more at home in our
respective fields, but we have gained insight into the
other’s area of expertise. We plan to include the com-
puter instructor and the computer lab in next semester's
project. The more proof we provide that one discipline
supports another, the more relevant each becomes.

Barbara Murray, Instructor, English
Jennifer Walsh, Instructor, Mathematics
For further information, contact Barbara Murray at

Daytona Beach Community College, West Campus,
1155 County Road 4139, De Land, FL 32724.

 

 

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
Community College Leadership Program, Department of Educational Administration
College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712