ASC Webinar Transcripts

Presented on Wednesday August 29, 2018

View the Recording

Last updated 9/05/2018

 

Audio: Instrumental music

Visual: Title slide with “How to Complete Your Doctoral Writing Assessment Requirement- Semester Students”

Visual: Slide changes to “Doctoral Writing Assessment: Purpose & goal”- and lists the purpose and the goals.

Audio: Stephanie: So our first question or topic is what are the purpose and goals of the writing assessment?  So the purpose of the writing assessment was created to make sure when you come to Walden, to meet the expectation of your writing course web.

So you may be coming from a graduate program or master's program, and. So you may not have been in school for a while, you may be coming from the workforce or home life.  So there's people looking for support for their writing. So that is our purpose of the writing assessment, to make sure we can provide you with additional resources for your writing. 

And those will be free for you through our writing assessment.  That is our purpose. So that is the goal.  So once you write your essay, we want you to be able to utilize the skills you've learned, complete any required or recommended writing support, and that will help you apply those writing skills in your courses as well as leading up to your Capstone research.  Because that's why you're here, to write your dissertation or Capstone project. 

So we want to make sure you have a solid foundation and that's what the doc writing assessment is going to help you prepare for. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Doctoral Writing Assessment: Benefits” and includes a graphic that lists benefits like strengthening writing, applying and practice strategies, develop stronger writing skills and habits.

Audio: Stephanie: So benefits of writing assessments.  First and foremost, we want to identify any writing needs and help you strengthen those along the way.  So that will be through this assessment and through the essay that you will submit in the classroom.  That's going to help you identify and provide resources and requirements that we can help strengthen your writing needs. 

So you can practice those writing strategies and that's going to give you a strong foundation and develop stronger writing skills if habits along the way.  And that final benefit is that's going to help you build confidence in your own writing skills throughout your coursework, so when your submitting a discussion course or peer reviews with your classmates, you're confident what you're putting out there and your writing is the best of your ability.  Especially leading up to the Capstone, because again, that's why you're here and you want to put your best foot forward when you get to the Capstone and you can focus on the research dissertation and not worry about too much about the foundation and those writing skills. 

Visual: Slide changes to “How to Complete Your Doctoral Writing Assessment Requirement” and lists 3 steps.

Audio: Stephanie: So how do you complete your doctoral writing assessments?  These are the three steps.  First is exploring the DRWA 8001G classroom.  And most of you will take that in your second term or the beginning of your program.  It's zero credits and it's free for you.  And the second step, you're going want to write your essay in Microsoft Word and upload it in the same time area of your DRWA course and once you complete your recommended writing support, now beginning on start date after you receive your assessment essay score. 

So write your required or recommended writing support if then you'll start that at the end of your semester. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Step 1: Explore your DRWA-8000G/8001G Doctoral Writing Assessment course” and includes images of Blackboard classroom including where announcements are located.

Audio: Stephanie: Step 1, explaining your DRWA 8001G classroom.  And always read your announcement on the he homepage.  So you might want to see the screenshot here, my announcement.  And it might look like you may not have had recent announcements.  So make sure you click on the announcement and make sure you're not missing anything your instructor has posted.  So always click on more announcements and when you log-in and click on the more announcements, you're going to have this welcome down here and that's going to explain about the doctoral assessment, how to access the assignment and how to submit.  And first tip we encourage students to do is read the announcement on the course homepage. 

Second step of this step 1 exploring your classroom.  So when you log-in on your left-hand side, you'll want to click on the assignment area.  That's pretty common throughout any of your Walden classes and what that's going to do is bring you to the essay prompt.  You're going to want to respond to the essay prompt and compare that to the rubric to make sure you're following all the guidelines.  That assignment is also going to explain the instructions of the essay.  It's going to explain formatting.  And as well as organizing and what those rubric areas are going to follow. 

So make sure you read the prompt and submission and instruction.  Because that's going to be really important.  Because there's only one assignment in this course.  There's no discussion pros, no reading or external resources that are required.  So you just have one page assignment.  It's going to be double stays 12-point font.  And you might want a lot of information on this one page, so it's important to read through the instructions carefully. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Step 2: Write & submit your assessment essay in Assignment area of DRWA-8000G/8001G” and includes images of Blackboard classroom including assignment guidelines.

Audio: Stephanie: So next we're going to actually talk about submission and grading information.  So how to complete or how to submit your assignment.  So first and foremost with any writing, you should always draft and revise your essay before the due date.  You have about two weeks to submit this assessment essay.  So sometimes it's good.  You go in and write your draft.  You may be wait a day or two and step away from it and review it as well. 

You're not going to be able to utilize the Writing Center to review your draft.  But that doesn't mean you can't ask a colleague or co-worker or classmate to read over your essay.  It's always good to have a second set of eyes whether it's for the assessment essay or the class work. 

So to submit your essay, you want to write your paper in Microsoft Word.  Now, we don't want your name on the essay.  We want this to be anonymous grading. 

So instead, you're going to save your assignment using the naming convention located in the classroom.  That's going to look like assessment plus your student I.D. number.  So make sure that you use that format so that you don't have your name on your essay. 

I also do want to note the classroom is going to allow you to upload multiple essay attempts.  So maybe you upload an essay and you realize you made a few mistakes or add something to it.  That's okay.  You can go back and kind of revise your essay and then upload again.  So just be aware that the essay that's going to be assessed will be the last one submitted.  So the last attempt you submit before the deadline, that's the one that our assessors are going to read.  They won't read others that you submit before.  And also with multiple assesses, they won't be reviewed ahead of time. 

So we won't go into the classroom and give you feedback.  We're requiring you to do it on your own without feedback.  You can upload multiple essays but it's the last one spitted.  So it's also important to look at the rubric.  Under the grading criteria, it will have the assessment of rubric.  And it will show the scores of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  And you want to make sure you look at the assessment rubric because you want to target for the 4 and 5 range. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Step 2: Write & submit your assessment essay in Assignment area of DRWA-8000G/8001G” and includes images of Blackboard classroom including assignment guidelines.

Audio: Stephanie:  So, tip.  Use the "submit your assignment" area.  So that's where you're going to submit your essay.  Again, it's very similar to your first course you have taken with Walden.  You go into the material assignment by day 7 of Week 2 and you're going to submit your assignment essay.  We are not able to accept late assessments.  So make sure you are in there ahead of time or submit your essay ahead of time.  We all know technology issues happen.  So for whatever reason it happens, make sure you contact technical support or email the writing assessment team.  Because that's the only way that we can verify if you're having issues in the classroom.  And, so, just really get your assignment in ahead of time is the best practice for any of your courses. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Step 2: Write & submit your assessment essay in Assignment area of DRWA-8000/8001G" and includes images of the Blackboard classroom and how to submit your essay.  

Audio: Stephanie: So, uploading your draft.  So to write and submit your essay, you want to click on submit after you've written your essay.  And then you'll upload your final draft.  Make sure that you save it in that format.  Assessment plus your student I.D..  That's going to be important and make sure if you're writing other drafts and revision and this is the final one, maybe you but draft or edited on your other version so you know you're uploading your final draft.  You don't want to have a half written easy submitted.  You want to make sure it's that final draft you're putting forward.  So you'll be able to go into your classroom.  You'll click on the view submission and then you'll be able to browse my computer and that will be how you can submit your essay draft. 

We're also not able to delete your submission.  So only the last essay you upload will be scored.  So although we can't delete your submissions, don't worry, because you can upload another submission on top of it.  So if you upload the wrong one, that's okay.  Just go back in and upload the correct draft.  And then make sure you hit the Submit button.  That's really important, because there's a save your draft option and that does not submit it.  That just saves it there. 

So you make sure you hit Submit to make sure your submission is actually going through. Some of you might have the submission turned on where you get an email.  I highly recommend that to make sure you get that email confirmation from your classroom.  Because that will make sure you know your assignment was submitted on time. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Step 3: Complete required or recommended writing support" and includes flow charts on assessment scores. 

Audio: Stephanie: So we talked a lot about how to submit your essay and a little bit about the essay instructions.  But what does the score mean?  So this is our step 3.  How to complete a required or recommended writing support. 

So, assessments, as I've mentioned, are scored on range of 0 to 5.  So 5 or 4 score means there are no additional courses required.  Instead, we're recommending that you utilize the writing centers website and Writing Center webinar.  Again, that's not required courses, but it is highly recommended. 

If you get a score of 3 on your essay, that's still a great score.  So you're going to be put in graduate writing 2.  So you'll get your score via email after the course has officially ended.  The course is 4 weeks long.  You'll submit your essay by Week 2.  And then our assessor will go into the classroom and assess grade Week 3 and 4. 

After the DRWA 8001G course ends, that's when you'll get your score via Walden email.  That's where you're able to find your score or recommended or required writing support. 

So, again, 5 or 4, you don't have any required courses, so essay score of 3 is a graduate writing 2 course. 

And then if you get a score of 2, 1, 0 or 99, that means you will take graduate writing 1 and graduate writing 2.  That's how our assessors determine if we can provide any free writing support for our students.  I do also want to know -- so feedback for essays.  That's provided in the format of your score and the rubric. So like some of your

professors might put in track changes or comments on your document you won't find that for this assessment then we'll be specifically your score email and then the rubric

Visual: Slide changes to “Doctoral writing assessment: Required writing courses” and includes information about the courses. 

Audio: Stephanie: So what are these required writing courses so if you take 6051g that's our graduate writing one basic composition we're focusing on the writing process critical reading and summary. And for graduate writing 2, you are looking at the graduate writing 2 that's paraphrased, synthesis, and evaluation.  Sorry about that for the closed-captioning, I didn't realize we covered that.  So I apologize for those utilizing that.  So, again, the graduate writing 2 is focusing on that intermediate composition.  Paraphrasing correctly, synthesis and any evaluation of your writing. 

So these are 8 week courses.  They're either one-to-one and a half credit and they're free for you.  It's something that Walden is providing as some additional writing support.  Exception to that is if you're unable to successfully pass the course the first time.  And you receive what's called a U grade, an unsatisfactory grade.  You are still required to retake the course, and you would pay the tuition for it which is $195 for the retake.  Just keeping that in mind.  You really want to pass the course the first time. 

So the first required writing course will begin on the next start date after your DRWA.  And required writing courses cannot be dropped.  So your Student Success Advisor is not going to be able to drop that course for you.  The exception is you can petition one time to defer one required writing course. 

So say, that, you know, fall term is just really busy for you at the end of it and you're ending that Christmas or any sort of holiday.  The winter season, and whatever it might be.  It just might be a bad time for you to take the course.  You can submit a petition to postpone it until spring semester.  So other ways of taking leave of absences are taken into consideration.  That's why we have a one year timeframe where you satisfactorily complete the writing course. 

So we give you a one year timeframe.  But that's really taking into account if you leave your program or take time away from the program and also give you time if you don't pass it successfully the first time. So that one year is in effect.  But you'll take the course right away after the submission.  Most of you won't have to worry about that one year timeline.  All right. 

Visual: Slide changes to “Webinar Recording & Email Support” and includes information regarding when the webinar will be posted, and links to the webinar archive page, the writing assessment email, and a survey.

Audio: Stephanie: l right so again here is some information about webinar the webinar recording and email support so the recording will be posted on the assessment webinars pages you can also email us anytime we'll also send you a recording of the webinar and we do also have a for questions survey that we would love your feedback on about the webinar things that you really enjoyed things that could be improved that's the best way that we can help future students as well so I thank you all for attending today and again we'll stick around for a little while if you have questions feel free to type them in the chat box others might have those same questions as well or you can always send us an email any time at writingassessment@mail.waldenu.edu and thank you all for attending

Audio: Instrumental Music

Visual: Closing credits