Project Activities
The researchers developed and pilot tested the Writer's Workbench, a technology platform to provide teachers with professional development and ongoing learning, coaching, and web-based tools.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The study took place in seventh- and eighth-grade English Language Arts classrooms in urban and suburban public schools in Washington, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Sample
In each development cycle, the researchers worked with eight teachers (split between seventh and eighth grade) and approximately 150 students in inclusive classes taught by general education teachers. Fifteen seventh- and eighth-grade ELA teachers and 756 students participated in the randomized controlled trial. Approximately 18 percent of the students (about 5 students per teacher) were students with high-incidence disabilities. In the randomized control trial, cohort one had a total of ten teachers, five assigned to each condition. Due to attrition, cohort two ended up with five teachers (three randomly assigned to treatment and two in control condition).
The Writer's Workbench is a technology platform based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that supports teachers in providing effective writing instruction to their students with disabilities. It is intended to improve teachers' ability to support students in writing process and strategies, self-regulation and goal setting, and feedback. Specifically, the focus is on informational and argumentative writing, as the college and career standards at these grade levels include learning how to write logical, coherent, and compelling essays; using text-based sources to form arguments; and using evidence to inform. Following focus group discussions and consultation with other ELA teachers, the research/development team also added a supported “open” writing option in Writer’s Key. In this area students were provided support for composing more narrative styles of writing frequently assigned in 7th and 8th grades, such as reading reactions, journal writing, response to prompts from teachers as “warm up activities, letters, etc. The online platform provided professional learning and coaching using a just-in-time support model (i.e., access to information at the moment the teacher needs it). The supports targeted teacher knowledge of instructional strategies to support students with diverse needs, learning strategies to support content, strategies for setting purposeful and reasonable goals for writing, and strategies to evaluate student writing and use this feedback for modifying instruction. The Writer's Workbench also includes tools to support students including those identified with disabilities, such as text-to-speech, spell check, dictionaries, and automatic transfer of text across phases of the writing process. Treatment teachers received 4 days of live virtual professional development prior to classroom implementation with students. Teachers implemented writing instruction and supports for a minimum of 90-120 minutes per week. During the intervention, teachers participated in professional learning communities in each of the four modules of Writer’s Workbench to share successes, challenges, and student work.
Research design and methods
The project was conducted in two distinct phases. In phase 1, the researchers focused on iterative development and formative research of the Writer's Workbench tools and professional development components with data collected from surveys, observations, interviews, and feedback from two focus groups of teachers and their students per month. In phase 2, the researchers conducted a small randomized controlled trial to test the promise of improving teacher knowledge, skills, and practices; student writing outcomes; and usability and fidelity of the fully developed Writer's Workbench. For the pilot study, conducted across two cohorts, eight classrooms were randomly assigned to the intervention condition and seven classrooms to the control condition.
Control condition
For the randomized controlled trial, teachers in the control condition participated in business-as-usual writing instruction.
Key measures
During phase 1, measures included student and teacher surveys, observation protocols, teacher and student focus groups, and teacher interviews about the tool development. These data collection methods assessed clarity, accessibility, usability, value, and promise of the tool and the training in the use of the tool; teacher planning and instruction; and student perspectives and interactions with the tool. These same measures were used in phase 2 along with researcher-developed measures of teachers' writing knowledge and self-efficacy, student and teacher usage logs, student writing performance (on the Wechsler Individualized Achievement Test—writing assessment), and student written compositions. Three measures were used to collect data on implementation fidelity – a self-report checklist for teachers, self-observation reports, and the Writer's Workbench event usage log. All measures were administered pre- and post-intervention implementation. In the original design, researchers were to collect in-classroom observations; however, due to the pandemic, this procedure was dropped, due to lack of access to classrooms. Instead, teachers completed a self-report on their instruction and perceptions of student performance. Researchers were able to evaluate teacher and student use of Writer’s Key and the Workbench via the event logs captured by the tool.
Data analytic strategy
The researchers conducted qualitative and quantitative descriptive analyses to summarize data collected in phase 1 to guide design and development priorities. In phase 2, the researchers evaluated the promise of the Writer's Workbench for improving student writing outcomes using hierarchical linear modeling, controlling for students' pretest writing scores. Additional analyses were conducted to understand whether there are differential outcomes for students with disabilities. Path models were used to determine the extent to which teachers' self-efficacy and knowledge mediate the effect on student writing outcomes. The researchers used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate relations between implementation (dosage and fidelity of Writer's Workbench) and student writing performance. Researchers conducted mediation analyses to determine whether teacher behavior mediates the impact of Writer's Workbench on students' writing outcomes.
Key outcomes
The main findings of this project, as reported by the principal investigator, are as follows:
- Outcomes from this study show the promise of Writers Workbench for supporting middle school teachers in providing writing instruction for students in writing argumentative, informative, and open (narrative) compositions.
- Teachers in the intervention condition showed greater skill at teaching core writing components in their instruction using the Workbench intervention and expressed that the support increased their teaching skills, improved their confidence in instructing students in different writing genres, and increased opportunities for students to write.
- Despite the positive effect on teachers writing instruction, the study found no substantially significant difference in writing achievement for students in the intervention classes. However, there were meaningful improvements in writing on standardized measures for students in the intervention classes, including students with disabilities.
- The intervention teachers reported that the opportunity to engage with fellow English Language Arts (ELA) teachers specifically around writing was beneficial to their classroom instruction as they shared activities to teach and provide practice more frequently and in meaningful ways for their students.
- The Writer’s Key tool with the Writer’s Workbench resources, materials, and training can be used for improving outcomes for teachers and students.
People and institutions involved
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Project contributors
Products and publications
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ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
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