Development and Assessment of E-learning for Academic Writing: Learning Support of Writing Centers

This paper is a report on the design of Japanese writing in e-learning, based on the IDEAL model in undergraduate education. Construction of the IDEAL model involves the following steps: Identify problems and opportunities, define goals, explore possible strategies, anticipate outcomes and act, and look back and learn. We identified writing problems by 1) analyzing students' usage history of the writing center and 2) comparing freshmen's report before and after usage of the writing center in the first year. We then defined the problems based on the analyses and explored alternative solutions. To apply the solutions, an e-learning program, comprising 29 lessons, was developed to nurture Japanese writing skills at the undergraduate level. The e-learning program consisted of five categories: 1) "Before writing," 2) "Gathering information," 3) "How to write: sentence structure," 4) "How to write: sentence expressions," 5) "Reflecting on your report." These learning materials were also integrated with tutoring at writing centers and support faculty staff to teach effective writing lessons. Based on these analyses, we developed e-learning materials. This paper follows the process of developing and accessing web-based learning material for Japanese writing. According to the results of the questionnaire, the effectiveness of e-learning was revealed.