Coordinated Consultation Information for Faculty

Coordinated Consultations are a collaboration between Miami faculty and the HWC. Faculty request that we set aside a number of appointments, within a given time frame, for their students to come in for appointments with peer consultants. Faculty also agree to work with HWC staff to ensure that students asked to make consultation appointments understand the nature and purpose of these consultations.

Research shows that these types of visits function best when faculty/instructors are involved in planning the appointments. Once HWC staff have received a request for a coordinating consultation, we will contact instructors to clarify the following:

1. How many students are in the class and will be asked to attend consultations
2. The assignment students are working on (including assignment sheets, rubrics, and other supporting documents, if you have them)
3. The time frame students have for writing and revising
4. The instructional goals for students’ appointments with HWC peer consultants. 

HWC staff will then work with instructors to:

• Determine which type of consultation will work best for students (see below), given the number of students we will accommodate, the assignment, and the timeframe for writing and revising.
• Schedule a brief class visit to introduce students to Coordinated Consultations, where they will help students make appointments and prepare them for their work with peer consultants. 
• Set aside an appropriate number of consultations for students.

The number of students, the assignment being worked on, and the timeframe for writing and revising will all determine which type of consultation will work best for different Coordinated Consultation schedules.

Some options may include:

• Full hour or half-hour consultations,
• In-person, Live Online, or Written Online consultations, 
• Individual, paired or team consultations (in a paired consultation, students come with a classmate to discuss their drafts together with a consultant; this works best with assignments that benefit from a classmate’s perspective. Team consultations involve all authors of a team project or presentation).

If faculty have other ideas for making Coordinated Consultations work well for their students, they are encouraged to let us know when they make their request.

Class visits help HWC staff prepare faculty and their students for HWC consultations. Without a class visit and the information and resources it provides, students may not understand the purpose of their HWC consultations, and, as a result, their appointments may be less effective. 

HWC staff will work with faculty to design a class visit presentation specifically tailored to the faculty member’s intentions for these peer consultations.

The HWC recommends that faculty/instructors spend time outside the required class visit to discuss their goals with their students for upcoming consultations. Research shows that students who lack knowledge of their faculty/instructors’ intentions/goals for their visit often struggle to understand the purpose and effectiveness of their appointments. As a result, students sometimes come to their appointments with little to no understanding of what a writing center appointment is or what its benefits are, and may be reluctant to participate fully. 

To prevent this confusion, consider implementing credit-bearing, short pre- and post-session reflections on their appointments as outlined below:  

Before your students are scheduled for their writing appointments

• Discuss with students the assignment they are to bring to their appointment, and the purpose of the consultation.
  • Students should know that HWC peer consultants are writing experts, but they are not content experts in the subject matter of the class. Students benefit from understanding this distinction ahead of time, and from being given opportunities to specify the kinds of writing-related questions you would like them to address in their consultation. 
  • These writing related issues might entail:
    • Understanding assignment guidelines and brainstorming topics
    • Developing, clarifying, or organizing arguments and ideas
    • Incorporating evidence according to disciplinary conventions
    • Refining tone, style, or register, per assignment guidelines
• Even a five-minute in-class activity can help students get ready for their consultations. Instructors might:
  • Provide a worksheet where students briefly outline, alone or in pairs, their main writing questions and challenges, which they can then bring to their consultation
  • Review your assignment prompt with students with the writing process in mind. You can ask: how should students approach this writing task, and how can a consultant help at their different stages of writing?
  • Have students annotate their copy of the assignment prompt to mark the aspects of this writing task where they could still use support 
  • Discuss with students your own positive experiences with writing feedback from peers, and what made this feedback valuable 

After your students have completed their writing center appointment

Prepare a post-session reflection prompt to help them process the session, and also curate a revision/drafting plan based on the outcome of that appointment (350-400 words).

Questions they might answer in their reflection include:

• When was your session, who was your consultant, and what was its modality? Why did you choose each?
• In your opinion, what was the most difficult/challenging aspect of the session? 
• Was this opportunity helpful to you as a writer, student, or individual? Why or why not? 
• What advice from this session do you want to implement in your writing process for this assignment or even the final draft?
• What advice do you plan not to implement? 
• What would you do differently if you had to go to another appointment for this course? What worked well that you’d do again?
• What, if anything, did you learn about yourself as a writer, student, or person during this appointment?

At the end of all HWC consultations, students receive an email from our online scheduling platform that briefly summarizes what was discussed in their session. Faculty can ask students to forward them this email as evidence of their visit.

But in addition to forwarding you this email, we also recommend that you require students to compose a brief reflection on how their consultation has shaped their revising plans. Research shows that this kind of reflection significantly impacts students’ development and sense of self-efficacy as both writers and learners. In this reflection, you might ask students to consider:

1. What feedback do you plan to use as you continue to write and revise this draft?
2. What feedback do you plan not to use, and why? 
3. What questions about the assignment, if any, did this consultation raise for you?
4. What did you learn about yourself as a writer, student, or person during this appointment?
5. What might you do differently or similarly if you were to make another writing center appointment?