Maximum engagement, minimum distraction, and knowledge transference

Abstract

In the Indian academia, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the focus on teaching "writing" is relatively new; traditional focus has been on teaching the English language or Communication Skills.The novelty of academic writing has called for rigorous efforts in its operation in the Indian context.In addition, the virtual learning environment required by the pandemic posed the serious challenge of adopting the academic writing pedagogy to the new format of the virtual classroom. This article showcases successful strategies adopted for graduate and undergraduate foundation writing courses at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, which ensured maximum engagement and minimum istraction, and knowledge transference. The graduate1 and undergraduate courses differed in their goals of writing, including expected learning outcomes and practicality, as well as in terms of the disciplinary backgrounds of the students. The graduate course was concerned with the applicability and transferability of the knowledge and skills acquired in the course to varied discipline-specific and professional writings of the advanced students; the undergraduate course was conducted on the basis of general writing with intensive discussion components. In this article, we first focus on the pedagogical practices adopted in the graduate course to ensure knowledge and skill transfer to discipline-specific scholarly writing and professional writing as a whole. Thereafter, we discuss the undergraduate writing curriculum aimed at laying the foundation for practical academic communication and development of critical thinking.