"What happened in my course was..." A W Course Showcase

Some SFU faculty have been teaching W classes over several semesters, and this part of the web site features the tips and successes, in their own words.

On paper logistics...

"With a large class, it is really helpful if students have to submit their work electronically as of a certain deadline. You have to ensure everyone has the ability to do this, but if they do, then setting the deadline at midnight Sunday, for example, means there are no arguments, no papers under your door, no pressure on your TAs, or you. You don't have to print them all out, in order to respond, and it also sets up a record, an electronic portfolio, of how students' work is improving over the semester."

On grading issues...

"I've learned to be careful with my revision grading. Once I share criteria with my students, and they follow it, lo and behold they do better work. But my chair warned me not to turn in too many higher grades. This seems unfair for the students. So what I do now is I give them explicit criteria on the draft and comment according to each of the criteria, but I either don't grade the draft, or I tell them the draft grade is relatively less rigorous than the final grade. this prods students who do well on a draft to actually engage with the feedback we give them, and do the work of rewriting, and it also reinforces the idea that final work is expected to be more polished than earlier work. For the record, once I exempted a student from re-writing; his draft so excelled even graduate work (he was an undergraduate) that is was warranted. So you always have that option as the professor!"

Your turn!

Let us know what your experience has been with a W course or with using a W approach in your teaching. Any tips to pass on? We want those too!