Overview

Current Position: Writing Program Director at the Bush School of Government & Public Service, Texas A&M University. Research and Teaching Interests include Technical Communication, Integrative Learning, Assessment, Electronic Portfolios, Reflection Mapping, Collaborative Technologies, Virtual World Simulation Technology, and Curriculum Design

Cindy Raisor

Welcome to my online CV! Here you will find information about my teaching and administrative experience at Texas A&M University as well as my research interests. I bring to my current position at the Bush School valuable experience in teaching, curriculum development, assessment, teacher training, innovative technologies, and educational research. In addition to these experiences, I bring a commitment to researching how new pedagogical methods can be used to foster lifelong learning in the courses I teach and the programs I oversee, preparing students to hone critical-thinking skills and to adapt to the ever-changing workplace environment. My teaching goal: to equip students with essential technical communication skills applied within relevant, contemporary contexts and to inspire students to discover and discern creative solutions to workplace challenges. My Bush School program goal: to provide opportunities across the curriculum for students to acquire strong writing skills. Please feel free to contact me at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

Writing Instruction

Having much experience in writing instruction (over 35 years) and a Texas teaching certificate, I have developed numerous curricula for students at various levels (including honors, capstone courses, research fellows, and freshmen) and have used various platforms for instruction (web-delivered, hybrid, and flipped). I have worked with faculty from many departments, including physics, engineering, international affairs, and public service and administration and have delivered workshops and conference presentations to faculty and administrators from almost every discipline. I have also created materials for advancing QEP initiatives at undergraduate and graduate levels and have trained instructors from first-year TAs to tenured faculty members.

Writing for the Medal of Excellence (2016-2022)

In this Bush School 0-credit graduate-level course, students begin work on their ePortfolios, a required component of the Medal of Excellence. The course focuses on guiding students through the reflective process about what they are learning across interdisciplinary experiences, such as participation in the Leadership Program, capstone courses, internships, and other high-impact experiences. By learning specific writing strategies, students learn to write clear, coherent, well-developed reflective essays—skills vital not only to the ePortfolio, but to classroom assignments and workplace writing.

Technical Communication for Chemical Engineers (2010-2014)

My teaching responsibilities in the Department of Chemical Engineering focused on technical writing instruction to chemical engineering students. The course, CHEN 301: Engineering Workplace Writing, incorporated both general principles of technical writing AND more specific engineering communication competencies. Therefore, the CHEN 301 curricula met many of the ABET Educational Outcomes relating to communication. Please see the CHEN 301 course portfolio for more information about how the course curricula balanced general communication principles and specific ABET outcomes.

Coordinating Writing Programs

The Bush School Writing Program (2014-current)

In my position as the director of the Bush School Writing Program, my goal is to works improve students’ writing skills by providing support in several areas:

  • Course design, assisting faculty with developing writing assignments, instructional materials, and rubrics, and making class visits upon request.

  • Assessment, identifying measures for evaluating student learning outcomes and gathering data, defining benchmarks for achieving learning outcomes, developing action plans for improving student learning, and writing the assessment report for institutional review and accreditation.

  • High-impact experiences, reinforcing learning acquired through capstones, field trips, and internships through briefing and debriefing activities; and supporting the Medal of Excellence by directing students through the steps of creating an integrative learning ePortfolio, by tracking the progress of prospective award recipients, and by providing interim feedback to participants.

  • Writing instruction, teaching students enrolled in a 0-credit course professional writing skills while working toward the Medal of Excellence.

  • Student services, providing writing workshops for capstones, international student writing, and other writing issues; developing print and online resources, including the Bush School Writing website; recruiting prospective students during interview weekends (spring) and training new students during orientation (fall).

  • Scowcroft Army Fellows, supporting the development of both their strategic research papers (fall) and their civilian research papers (spring) through a course designed to teach writing skills and through individual consultations. See the Army Fellows Writing website to learn more about "course."

Honors, Physics, and the Center for Teaching Excellence (2006-2014)

Though my work at the university has focused on writing instruction, not all has been within the Department of English or at the Bush School. My experience includes work in the Department of Physics, coordinating and teaching the technical writing component of a physics course for science and engineering majors, including training graduate students and participating in a detailed program assessment conducted by the Center for Teaching Excellence. I also held a position in the Office of Honors Programs as the coordinator for the University Undergraduate Research Fellows Program. This position required planning and organizing workshops, meetings, and receptions; serving as a point of contact for all student participants and their advisers; reviewing theses for correct format; supervising publication of theses in the TAMU Digital Library; creating and managing online program resources; and teaching an online honors course to Research Fellows enrolled in Technical Writing. I also advised Fellows on the progress of their writing and research with the goal of creating and publishing honors-quality theses. In April 2008 I received the Betty M. Unterberger Distinguished Honors Faculty Award given to an honors adviser for outstanding long-term service to Research Fellows.

Developing Resources and Consulting

Beyond teaching and coordinating writing programs, I have participated in numerous consulting projects in the areas of writing instruction, curriculum development, integrative learning portfolios, and QEP initiatives. These projects range from creating resources for teaching faculty to develop their teaching statements and build their course portfolios to assisting program administrators with curriculum redesigns. Helping to facilitate our TAMU QEP initiatives, I developed resources within the CTE portal that faculty can use to facilitate and assess high-impact practices. See Using Reflection to Assess High-Impact Practices. In addition, my work as an e-portfolio “resident specialist” at TAMU has gained noteworthy attention, with presentations at national conferences including the Association of American Colleges & Universities and several presentations at our own TAMU Assessment Conference and the Wakonse South on College Teaching. I have also received invitations to present my work at other universities, such as BYU, as well as at regional teaching conferences and have co-authored an article on e-portfolios recently published in The Journal of Information Technology Education. Last, I am very comfortable with technology, including moving traditional classroom instruction into virtual environments. Thus, I am excited about change . . . change that includes preparing the next generation of students for the problem-solving and communication challenges their futures will bring and supporting faculty to address these challenges.

Please review the tabs at the top for more details regarding my work experience at Texas A&M University and my commitment to undergraduate and graduate-level writing instruction.