Hartford Conference SIGs

The NEWCA SIGS met on April 5th to share and discuss ideas for the future. Here are brief reports from the SIGs:

The Tutoring Strategies SIG was attended by tutors from Mt. Holyoke, SUNY-Duchess Community College, and University of Maine-Orono. We started by brainstorming questions for one another about strategies we use in a variety of tutoring situations and settings. Our topics of choice included: greeting students, working with reticent/uncooperative students, approaching grammar issues with English language learners, reading aloud, and offering commentary on student writing. We shared best practices, and discussed the dilemmas and ethical challenges that arise in our writing centers.The Tutoring Strategies SIG was attended by tutors from Mt. Holyoke, SUNY-Duchess Community College, and University of Maine-Orono. We started by brainstorming questions for one another about strategies we use in a variety of tutoring situations and settings. Our topics of choice included: greeting students, working with reticent/uncooperative students, approaching grammar issues with English language learners, reading aloud, and offering commentary on student writing. We shared best practices, and discussed the dilemmas and ethical challenges that arise in our writing centers.
- Stephanie Carter, Tutoring Strategies SIG Chair.

My technology SIG ended up being pretty illuminating. I was lucky enough
to get such luminaries as Harvey Kail, Jennifer Jefferson, Tom Denton,
Nick Carbone, and some Uconn undergrads at the technology roundtables I
hosted. One of the main conversations we landed on was whether and how
WC’s work with students who show up with new media projects or websites
that they want to work on. Not that we answered those question in our
short time together, but we left with some new perspectives. One of the
undergrads in the second session mentioned that he’ll work with students
on coding (html and otherwise) from time to time in the Writing Center.
As a final note, there was some agreement that a SIG entirely devoted to
scheduling tools (WCOnline, TutorTrac) would be welcome in Boston.
- Christopher Leary, Technology SIG Chair

If you attended a SIG meeting, please share your thoughts with us!

NEWCA Conference on the Horizon!

The NEWCA steering committee is hard at work putting the finishing touches on this year’s conference.   Interactive panels, NEWCA history, and the return of the popular Special Interest Groups (SIGs) make NEWCA’s 2009 conference a fine 25-year celebration.   Featuring keynote Dr. Harvey Kail and NEWCA co-founder, Dr. Neal Lerner, NEWCA @ 25 – Revisit, Reflect, Renew looks back while looking to the future of the writing center.

Download the conference flyer for complete information.

Download the printable registration form.

NEWCA 2009 Call for Proposals

NEWCA announces its 2009 conference theme:

NEWCA @ 25: Revisit, Reflect, Renew

NEWCA comes back to its roots, returning to the institution where it all began, the University of Hartford.   Come help us celebrate this milestone as we examine the past and look to the future of writing centers.

University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT
Saturday, April 4, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm and
Sunday, April 5, 8:30 am to 11:00 am

Proposals due by December 31, 2008

Click here for the full CFP (PDF)

Featured site: Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project

 

“What do peer tutors take with them after graduation?”

http://www.marquette.edu/writingcenter/PeerTutorAlumniPage.htm

WCOnline user group SIG?

Would anyone else be interested in having one of the SIGs at NEWCA 2009 be a WCOnline user group?  Or is that too commercial sounding?  I’d personally find it useful.

Reporting in from NYC’s Writing Center Association meeting at Pace

I attended the New York City Writing Center’s Association at Pace University recently. We had about ten people show up from writing centers around the city. The snacks were shockingly delicious.

We talked mostly about using web tools to increase learning opportunities and student access. We had a long conversation about tutoring sessions occurring through internet chat and how this method seems to achieve our goals much better than through asynchronous email. Unfortunately, WCOnline, the platform that many of us use to schedule and archive, does not have a reliable chat function (although they are working on it) so we embed other chat systems into WCOnline.

Our Pace host Rebekah Johnson showed us their version of WCOnline and how they use chat within it. This was for me a rare opportunity to look at a different writing center’s WCOnline customizations. Unless I am just out of the loop, it does not seem that users of WCOnline are collaborating and sharing their customizations. If so, then every center has to kind of reinvent the wheel each time they want to accomplish something. It would be nice if there were a forum/site where WCOnline users could update each other using photos and screencasts on the customizations and features they’re developing. Who knows? Perhaps the customization made by a different center would be perfect, or close to perfect, for what I’m trying to do.

In other words, it would be nice if everyone’s modifications to their platform were all aggregating together and complementing and contradicting each other, as opposed to each version moving off in its own direction. As it stands, we’re sort of like writers in a writing classroom who don’t share their work with one another. Or, as I said, I might just be out of the loop.

A 2008 Conference review

Found this review of the 2008 NEWCA conference on the PeerCentered blog:

http://bessie.englab.slcc.edu/pc/2008/04/newca-report.html#links

Must say, I agree about the fabulousness of the keynote.

 

Multiple approaches to online WC resources

All this year as I’ve been building up and revising our center’s website resources, I have been looking across the web at other centers’ sites for models.  

Here are some observations.

Featured Site: SUNY Dutchess WC Alumni Page

I’ve been looking for good ways to keep in touch with writing center alumni and to make their stories visible to current tutors and other alumni.  At the NEWCA conference this year, Tom Denton mentioned his center’s alumni webpage.  So I looked it up.  It’s wonderful!  Check it out.   I start us here at the page where Tom invites alumni to send material and join a discussion board, but be sure to go to the Alumni News page, too, to see how he arranges the news and images that former tutors send in. 

 

 

WAC and Writing Centers: Free DVD

Are you interested in ways writing centers can facilitate faculty development, enhancing writing pedagogy in many disciplines? 

Keene State College’s Center for Writing Director, Phyllis Benay, brought a number of Shaped By Writing, Too DVDs to the Burlington conference to distribute.  The stack was gone by Saturday afternoon, but if you’d like a free copy, follow the link above for contact information.