How – and why – do students engage with an increasingly diverse range of learning opportunities in the digitised university? This paper investigates students’ motivations for choosing in-person, online or asynchronous study modes and explores the implications for academic writing provision. I reflect on student and teacher experiences on a non-credit, Masters-level academic writing course at a UK university which was delivered through a ‘hybrid-flexible’ approach (Beatty, 2019). Students could opt to learn through synchronous in-person (on-campus) classes, synchronous online classes or asynchronous activities delivered through a virtual learning environment; all study modes supported the same learning outcomes and students could switch between them as they choose. Course evaluations reveal students have different motivations for choosing in-person, online or asynchronous learning, and suggest that learning preference and practical motivations are not always aligned. I reflect on the opportunities and challenges I encountered as a teacher designing and delivering hybrid-flexible academic writing content. I conclude by exploring how tensions between learning preference and practical motivations might be addressed in the design and delivery of in-person, online and asynchronous learning activities.

This paper centres around the use of Eduflow, a novel online learning management system (LMS) which was introduced in a university-level Academic Writing course in response to the challenges brought about by the mandatory switch from face-to-face to online writing instruction (OWI) over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, Eduflow is piloted with a group of second-year university students of English language and literature at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. These students chose to fulfil their Academic Writing course requirements by compiling a writing portfolio. The rationale behind the use of this platform was the assumption that it would facilitate the online management of all the stages of the essay writing process: Writing a first draft, doing a peer review of essays created by fellow students, considering the comments received from fellow students, reflecting on one’s own writing by doing a self-review, and finally, submitting the final version. The relentlessness of the pandemic led to the continuous application of this learning management system over the course of two entire academic years, each year with a different group of students. An online survey on the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of Eduflow was administered among the second generation of students who used this platform. As this small-scale analysis demonstrates, despite experiencing some easily resolvable minor technical difficulties, these students generally found Eduflow effective and useful as a supplementary tool for online writing instruction and showed particular appreciation for the collaborative peer review experience.

This teaching practice paper discusses the implementation of writing support into subject courses at an early stage of university students’ studies, with a particular focus on the courses’ digital transformation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper presents a pilot project in which the original concept of the German writing fellow-program was adapted to a digital introductory lecture series in winter term 2020/21. 12 subject teachers received support for developing writing tasks for the lecture session they taught asynchronously. Six peer tutors were trained to support the 60 freshmen through text feedback and video consultations. The learning platform Moodle was used to provide all project participants with materials and information. The project results show a reduction of anonymity in this large online course, leading to less loneliness felt among first-year students. Additionally, the lecturers’ workload was reduced, the freshmen felt more secure in mastering their first writing task that took place off-campus and the writing fellows gained expertise for online consultations including respective tools and procedures. Consequently, this paper argues that it is worth implementing writing fellow support not only in smaller groups of advanced learners but also in introductory subject courses.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been touted as alternative approaches to face-to-face teaching and the design of learning spaces. MOOCs allow teachers to rearrange traditional classroom activities and use technologies sometimes in new and different ways to provide new ways of teaching. Recently, they have been implemented for the teaching of writing to provide greater access to these courses. I examine the possibilities and challenges of using these technologically-enhanced spaces for teaching composition. I first discuss the differences in the designs of MOOCs and how these approaches were applied to teaching writing. Based on my own participation in composition MOOCs as well as a variety of other MOOCs since 2008, I introduce three composition MOOCs, which although designed as L1 courses, involved thousands of participants with varying backgrounds from all over the world. I discuss how these MOOCs responded to challenges and how the participants could negotiate their own learning, such as by choosing which assignments they wanted to complete or determining how much peer review they wanted. I conclude that these courses demonstrate how MOOCs have created new learning spaces that can influence face-to-face approaches to teaching writing.

Writing in higher educational settings is regarded as problematic for all but the most dedicated people (Silva, 2007). Many of the problems come from psychological states (internal-censors, fears, perfectionism, procrastination) deeply rooted in writing experiences (Boice, 1990). However, the literature addressing this is generally missing. A survey of writing-books, manuals, and research studies indicate that most approach writing from linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical perspectives (Silva, 2007). This study attempted to fill this gap by examining a group of graduate students attending a writing workshop which specifically addressed psychological barriers to productive writing (Boice, 1990). The eight-week workshop consisted of classroom sessions in the first week and then moved to an online course management platform. The primary aim of the study was to note the changes in the students using data from their weekly writing reflections and discussion board comments in several forums and 8-month follow-up interviews. Findings indicate that the workshop had immediate effects on the writers but as the time passed the effects faded. The study looked to Threshold Concepts Theory (Meyer & Land, 2005) as a possible theoretical explanation for the loss of the temporary positive workshop results.

This action research explored the potential of audio-visual screencasting for assignment feedback on a distance learning (DL) course. A screencast is a combination of voice recording and screen capture, which can be played in any browser, like a video. Here it is used to capture a tutor’s editing and highlighting activities in a document, whilst simultaneously recording spoken feedback. Research suggests that audio-visual feedback may resolve some of the current problems with written feedback. A pilot study is reported which trialled screencasting for essay feedback on a master's level DL module at Sheffield Hallam University. Fourteen students participated and were randomly divided between two groups to receive either written or screencast feedback first. After receiving the first feedback type, students completed a short questionnaire online. The second type of feedback was then distributed to the students, who completed the same questionnaire for the second type of feedback. The results suggest that feedback is received more positively in the richer media of audio-visual screencasting and that this may encourage emotions more conducive to receiving and processing feedback and help to socialise students within the learning context by giving them a sense of belonging to the community. Simultaneous visual cues and explanations appear to help with understanding, and it is quicker to capture screencasts than it is to write feedback. However, preferences for written feedback were related to the holistic overview of a document, which could be scanned and revisited, and which was not confined to a linear delivery, nor time-limited. Audio-visual screencasting will therefore only be adopted for formative feedback during modules, and will be structured with spoken overviews.