College of Social Sciences and Communication
Heidi Skurat Harris, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing
- Dr. Skurat Harris is the editor of the Bedford Bibliography of Research in Online Writing Instruction, Bedford/St. Martin & Macmillan.
- In 2019, she and four colleagues published two research articles using national student survey data, which showed that students in online writing classes need more instructor presence and more carefully sequenced assignments to be successful. This research led the team to develop a paradigm called “purposeful pedagogy-driven design” to help students become better writers.
- A forthcoming article in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication connects purposeful pedagogy-driven design and the use of multimedia in online technical writing courses.
- Dr. Harris’s research areas of online instruction and online writing program development allow her to use her research data to improve her teaching and advising, while her experiences in teaching and advising online students drive her research agenda.