Facilitating Faculty Development Through Writing-to-Learn Workshops

Writing is part of learning, and nurses graduating from doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and doctor of philosophy (PhD) programs need to know ways to write in a context and framework that support their profession and the education of future nurses.1 While developing and piloting writing support services for graduate students, the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSA) School of Nursing's Student Success team recognized that the faculty needed support, resources, and additional training to be better prepared for effectively teaching writing skills to graduate nursing students. Without formal teaching instruction, faculty may lack knowledge and experience in grading and providing constructive feedback, focusing on writing mechanics rather than emphasizing ideas and content.2 This overemphasis on grammar, coupled with unclear expectations and over-editing, diminishes the unique voices and thoughts of students, leading some to question whether writing has any tangible correlation to clinical practice,2 a question that fails to note the relevance of communication and inquiry central to nursing practices. In collaboration with expert writing consultants, the Student Success team piloted a workshop to help nursing faculty develop skills in creating written assignments and providing constructive student feedback that facilitates growth and success. The workshop, entitled Writing to Learn, Learning to Write: Process and Product, focused on the intricate connection between learning and writing in processing ideas that become foundational for well-researched and thoughtfully written articles. The workshop started by asking faculty to write about their writing process. Seeing themselves as writers became the first point in discussing the workshop's learning objectives, which included: (1) writing as a tool for learning, (2) low stakes ungraded writing to scaffold larger graded writing, and (3) students' awareness of their personal, multifaceted, metacognitive writing process. Writing-to-learn is a pedagogical concept that uses writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Writing-to-learn prompts students to interact with course materials, explore understanding and misunderstanding, connect materials from class to larger contexts, integrate funds of knowledge, and share thoughts and ideas with a trusted audience.3 Such exercises include journals, notes, class posts, brainstorms, think-pair-share, and 5-minute lecture reflection. Writing-to-learn assignments create discussion because the goal is to think and capture in writing ways to understand concepts or theories from class within the context of the student's funds of knowledge. Depending on the assignment, writing-to-learn can expose gaps in new and existing knowledge and/or facilitate metacognitive learning. Additionally, it helps students to build confidence in their knowledge within the context of understanding the audience because writing-to-learn assumes a trusted audience of learners. Some writing-to-learn assignments are shared only with the faculty while others are shared only with classmates. Because writing-to-learn captures thinking processes, creates context, and draws on academic knowledge, it facilitates students' learning through the writing process. Most faculty understand the writing process as researching, outlining, drafting, and editing. Initiating the workshop by asking the faculty questions about their writing processes prompted faculty to consider themselves outside of the role of grader and in the role of writer. The faculty revealed that they find writing laborious and often leave their writing tasks to the last minute. When considering why they succeed when writing under pressure, they noted that their grasp of the field helps them. Their experience and knowledge build confidence. Students, however, have not yet built that professional confidence and need a greater metacognitive awareness of their writing process. Writing-to-learn serves as an important steppingstone for cultivating professional writing and communication skills, as it represents the foundational phase in the writing process – a phase that is often overlooked in nurturing students' growth as writers and critical thinkers. Writing-to-learn cultivates students' capacities for critical thinking in nursing. It fosters critical engagement by encouraging the exploration of ideas rather than assuming definitive answers. While the initial output may lack clarity and polish, the process facilitates understanding and contextualization of meaning, drawing from professional knowledge and personal experience. The learner takes writing and thinking risks in understanding concepts and theories with an audience who allows them to learn from mistakes and revise their meaning. The workshop emphasized the writing process as a learning tool to transition students from the first stage of writing-to-learn to the final stage of writing-to-communicate. Through writing-to-learn students start to succeed in communicating with clarity to a professional community. In discussing the writing process as a transition for developing more professional writing, the faculty examined types of writing assignments and their roles as mentors rather than evaluators. The workshop integrated a close review of Bloom's Taxonomy to reiterate its use in leading students to apply and synthesize information creatively. Writing assignments, such as reading posts and reader responses, classroom blogs, group writing, or rough drafts, help students close the knowledge gap and develop a more professional voice within a supportive learning environment. These low stakes writing-to-learn assignments allow students to share ideas and converse within their trusted community and allow faculty to facilitate students' discovery of connections among varied resources – course content, personal and professional experiences, ideas, and research. Many graduate faculty incorporate drafts and discussion boards yet do not realize that early writing exercises in thinking guide students into cultivating meaning and voice for formal communications that are evaluated. Writing-to-learn encourages discovery thinking and scaffolds ideas for research because the intimate audience is a community of friends and faculty as mentor. In contrast, writing-to-communicate requires formal language, addresses a wider audience of professionals, such as nurse scholars or educators, and includes genres such as essays, proposals, reports, and research papers. The transition from writing-to-learn to writing-to-communicate shifts the role of the faculty member from mentor who offers guided insight to evaluator who questions and assesses. The shift, however, is not abrupt because the writing-to-learn assignments, Bloom's Taxonomy, and feedback through the writing process cultivate the writer's voice, preparing to communicate to a wider audience. To close the workshop, the presenter introduced the rhetorical triangle as a visual model for understanding the relationship between the content and its purpose, audience, and tone. When writing, faculty usually have nursing content, purpose, and an audience in mind. All writing starts with a purpose; whether to inform or persuade, the purpose structures the information, determining organization, emphasis, focus. Effective writing identifies an audience; the audience shapes the purpose for understanding and clarity, tailoring format, and research. Tone defines the writer's attitude and cues the reader about purpose; it includes language, sentence structure, and formality. The 3 points of the rhetorical triangle offer writers a tool in the writing process for finishing a written assignment. When the rhetorical triangle is used by faculty as an element of the writing process, they can guide students to a better understanding of the requirements for more formal and professional writing. In the post-workshop surveys, most faculty attendees specifically cited that reviewing Bloom's Taxonomy in conjunction with scaffolded writing-to-learn assignments would enable them to support and develop students' written communication skills. By investing in the teaching confidence and expertise of our faculty, we can better serve the needs of students as they join the professional workforce as researchers and advanced practice nurses. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board provided the grant funding that enabled the faculty to participate in this workshop. The School of Nursing acknowledges the vital importance of strong writing skills within its profession and is actively seeking further funding to expand workshop offerings and graduate programs. In the long term, we hope that this faculty development support will serve as a guide for other schools of nursing as they work to improve the writing skills of their graduate students.