Enhancing the Academic Writing Abilities of First-Year Bachelor of Education Students in a Blended Learning Environment

Funded by a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from a University in western Canada, this paper reports on findings from an educational design research study (McKenney & Reeves, 2012) investigating the ways, and the extent to which, particular technological supports and other interventions impacted the acquisition of academic writing skills for Bachelor of Education students working within a blended learning environment. Among the various findings, students emphasized the importance of integrating writing interventions in coordination with one another, as well as introducing a variety of effective pedagogical practices tailored to meet the needs of specific course assignments. Instructors found that by incorporating student feedback into the design and then redesigning the course, they were able to improve students' academic writing abilities without sacrificing course content.