DESCRIPTION: Professor Susan De La Paz, a faculty member in the University of Maryland College of Education seeks a motivated graduate student who is interested in helping her research team to evaluate the writing of sixth graders with and without disabilities, before and after they learned self-regulated writing (planning and revising) strategies via a virtual platform “The Write Turn” which was developed by her colleague, a practicing speech-language pathologist, Dr. Cindy Sherman.
Mentoring will be provided for the selected UM Scholar to help analyze qualitative and quantitative data from a research study that was designed to examine the effects of Evidence-Based Writing Interventions when taught through technology with students who struggle with writing.
Background: The planning and revising strategies have been effective for teaching writing to culturally, linguistically, and academically diverse learners. In the authors’ previous works, strategy instruction benefitted English learners and children from historically underserved communities (De La Paz & Sherman, 2013). Students wrote with proficiency when provided with explicit instruction and were able to analyze their essays and make revisions. Technology is believed to enhance learning, therefore we hope to determine the extent to which our technology-enhanced writing instruction helps struggling students to write and revise better expository and persuasive essays.
Work on this research project includes attending remote and in person meetings with research team, coding teacher social validity data, and scoring student responses to holistic and analytic rubrics. Students who contribute substantively will be included as contributing authors on conference presentations and academic journal articles.
IDEAL CANDIDATE: Students from the School of Social Work or School of Law and students with a background in academic writing or an interest in learning more about the writing progress of students.
LOCATION: Hybrid: Remote & In-person
PROJECT LEAD/PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Susan De La Paz, PhD, Professor, Special Education, College of Education, University of Maryland
BIO: https://education.umd.edu/directory/susan-de-la-paz
EMAIL: sdelapaz@umd.edu
International Students: F-1 or J-1 students must obtain Office of International Service (OIS) authorization for this activity. If you are interested in applying, please contact OIS at ois-info@umaryland.edu before submitting your application. They will assist you in determining your specific eligibility. When reaching out, be sure to specify the particular project of interest and include a link to description.