Teaching and Assessing GenAI-assisted Writing Processes

GenAI can be a powerful tool to help university students at EMI institutions to perform better in their assignments. However, they need guidance into how to effectively leverage GenAI in their writing process. This session details the piloting of integration of GenAI instruction into the teaching and learning in a number of EAP courses tailored for Design students. The approach was innovative not only because such instruction addressed the use of GenAI at every stage of the writing process, but also featured an assessment element, whereby students were graded on how well they applied their learning in the application of GenAI to their writing.
Instruction involved modeling the appropriate use of GenAI in the pre-writing and post-draft writing phases, through highlighting research gaps, summarizing relevant journal articles, suggesting possible outlines, improving academic vocabulary usage, and identifying language issues. At each stage, students could then try to apply these applications to their own project proposals. In addition, teaching of effective prompt writing, including the tailoring of GenAI output to their own language level, was included.
Assessment of their learning of these GenAI-related strategies involved the creation of a separate criterion, Writing Process, in the assignment rubric. This was graded according to an appendix to the final draft submission, in which students detailed, through screenshots and reflective notes, how they used GenAI at the various stages of their writing process. The reflective notes were to include evaluation by students of the GenAI output in terms of relevance and other key factors.
Overall, students were happy with the course, as measured by the end-of-course Student Feedback Questionnaire, and several voiced appreciation for the focus on leveraging GenAI to assist them with their writing. The quality of the final draft submissions was also generally higher than for previous cohorts. There was some feedback from teachers of the piloting courses in terms of making the materials more systematic in the presentation of the various uses of GenAI, and making the descriptors for the Writing Process criterion clearer. Nevertheless, the pilot could be called a success and this approach to teaching students how to effectively use GenAI throughout their process of writing could be a way forward for other writing-based courses in EMI institutions in Hong Kong and elsewhere.