#CLab15: The IWCA Collaborative @ CCCC 2015

The IWCA Collaborative @ CCCC was held on Wednesday, March 18, in USF Health's CAMLS, in Tampa, Florida. This was my first time at the Collaborative--previously on CCCC Wednesdays, I've gone to RNF or ATTW. The Collaborative was less formal (no talks during breakfast or lunch), which surprised me, but it also allowed more time for conversation with colleagues and friends. Below are my Storifyed tweets from the different sessions--I've included the descriptions from the programs, to make things a little easier to investigate.

• #A3: Writing Center Spaces: Designing Research
  Roberta Kjesrud, Western Washington University
  Despite recent higher education research illuminating the enormous impact of space on learning, writing-centered discussions of ideal spaces often feature recommendations based on personal aesthetic and lore-based groupthink. And despite theoretical challenges to this groupthink (Grutsch McKinney, for example), writing center studies contains little parallel research. In this session, participants will imagine an ideal writing center, consider how findings from higher education research complicate that ideal, and then brainstorm research projects to inform effective writing center space design.
  
  
• #B4: Studying Writing Center Stories: Methods for Qualitative Narrative Inquiry
  Jackie Grutsch McKinney, Ball State University; Michelle Miley, Montana State University; and Andrea Scott, Pitzer College
  Stories are inescapable in writing center work and talk. We tell stories of perseverance and defeat, understanding and indifference. Yet recent scholarship (Journet, 2012; Babcock and Thonus, 2012; Grutsch McKinney 2013) suggests that though we often exchange stories, we rarely study them. In this roundtable, we will begin with our experience of capturing narratives as data in our separate studies: an ethnography, survey, and interview project. Then, facilitators will guide participants through a discussion of analysis and how they might use these qualitative methods and others to study the stories of writing center work.
  
  
• #C5: Works-in-Progress Session 1
  Reviewers: Kerri Jordan, Mississippi College; Sherry Wynn Perdue, Oakland University; and Trixie Smith, Michigan State University
  
  
  1. Mission Statements: Connecting Work in the Writing Center to Stakeholder Expectations (WiP)
     Katherine Bridgman, Texas A&M San Antonio
     
     
  2. Motivators for Writing in College and the Enactment of the Writing Lab as the Bridge in the Motivational Process (WiP)
     Elizabeth Busekrus, Missouri Baptist University
     
     
  3. Tutoring Research in the Writing Center (WiP)
     Talinn Phillips, Ohio University
     
     
  4. Analyzing Directive Student Tutoring Strategies (WiP)
     Kathy Rose, Iowa State University, and Jillian Grauman, Iowa State University
  
  
  
• #D5: Data Dash
  Anne Canavan, Jessica Clements, Karen Johnson, Ariel Slotter, Adrienne Williams, Jessica Weidner
  
  1. Integrating with Existing Assessment, Or How to Avoid Reinventing the Wheel (Data Dash)
     Anne Canavan, Emporia State University
     This presentation will report on a model of using existing assessment protocols in order to generate quantitative data for student support services. By tracking which students attend writing centers, and how often, and correlating that data with wider university assessment protocols, student support centers can attain correlative data about the effectiveness of services.
     
     
  2. SLACs, RAD Research, and WCD Turnover: Using Programmatic Agility to Collaboratively “Pull RAD Research Out of a Hat” (Data Dash)
     Jessica Clements, Whitworth University
     With three WCDs in four years, my SLAC intuition seemed to have fallen prey to the perennial problems of professional status and writing center administration; however, my WPA partner and I actively collaborated to suggest that effective programmatic change, including RAD research, in the context of SLACs can be understood as a function programmatic agility—the capacity of WPAs and WCDs to coordinate and diffuse a shared vision for writing/instruction synchronously viamultiple administrative platforms. This presentation speaks to the WC as case study for effective programmatic agility in action, essentially creating something (data for future RAD research) from nothing.
     
     
  3. Shared Spaces in a Learning Commons: Examining Writers’ Perceptions of Safe Spaces and Ability to Achieve Writing Goals (Data Dash)
     Karen Johnson, Shippensburg University; Ariel Slotter, Shippensburg University, Jessica Weidner, Shppensburg University; andAdrienne Williams, Shippensburg University
     Writing centers should function as safe spaces for students seeking an interested reader. As more writing centers become integrated into a learning commons model, we must examine the impact that these shared spaces may have on writers’ perceptions and experiences in our centers. This session will share our examination of shared spaces in a learning commons. Using surveys and interviews, we will present findings about the impact of a writing center’s spatial design on students’ perceptions and their writing development.

And that's all for the IWCA Collaborative. It was super, super fascinating, and while, by necessity, without the breadth of IWCA/NCPTW, there was a wide range of viewpoints provided. Definitely looking forward to the next IWCA get-together in Pittsburgh, October 8-10!