Teachers and Teaching: Basic Writing: Moving the Voices on the Margin to the Center

1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Herrington ◽  
Marcia Curtis

Reacting to what many considered a racially motivated conflict on the UMass/Amherst campus in 1986, Anne J. Herrington and Marcia Curtis felt compelled to reconstruct their Basic Writing course to give voice to minority students usually kept on the fringes — "marginalized" — academically and socially within the university. They aimed to create a curriculum that reflected an accurate image of the university's students, to affirm the diversity of the student body rather than deny it. They changed their reading list to include predominantly non-White authors and encouraged students to engage in a dialogue with those authors while reflecting in writing on their own experience of marginalization. By raising students' consciousness and by encouraging students to speak out through their writings, Herrington and Curtis contributed to the acceptance and respect their students demanded — to validate the voices on the margin — as they accomplished their academic aims for the course.

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Elphick

Digital capabilities are recognized as key skills that students must possess to learn and work in our increasingly digital world and have been the subject of a growing focus over recent years. Similarly, smartphones and, to a lesser degree, tablets are now ubiquitous within the student body, and many academics are beginning to leverage these devices for the purposes of learning and teaching in higher education. To further explore the possibilities of mobile technology, the iPilot project was created to explore the effects that embedded iPad use had on undergraduate students’ creativity, ability to collaborate with their peers and their perception of their digital capabilities. Focusing on the digital capabilities aspect of the project, this paper explores the results gathered. While the results are mixed, when combined with data taken from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Experience Tracker, it does appear that using iPads in the university classroom can have a positive impact on certain digital behaviors and students’ perceptions of their digital skills.


2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Asanda Ngoasheng

Traditional universities are often interrogated on their pedagogic underpinnings, while universities of technology are often left unchallenged on knowledge production. Universities of technology are often assumed to be transformed because they are a post-apartheid creation, with a mainly black, working-class student body. This assumption has led to little interrogation of the university of technology and its relationship with knowledge production. This paper explores the nature of curriculum contestation and reform at a university of technology. It outlines the historical context of a university of technology and its approach to curriculum development, which has implications for current curriculum transformation efforts. Using autoethnographic research methodology, the paper tracks a multi-year journey towards the development of a transformative, socially just curriculum intervention in the extended curriculum programme for the Architecture and Interior Design programme at a university of technology. The paper concludes that curriculum change does not happen in a vacuum, that it is political, difficult and emotionally taxing, and that it is best done in collaboration with different education stakeholders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1209-1226
Author(s):  
Sumit Choemue ◽  
Barli Bram

The ability to use discourse markers (DMs) to create cohesion and coherence of a text is essential for EFL learners at the university level to express ideas and thoughts in various types of writing assignments, such as academic papers and reflections. Hence, this study attempted to shed more light on the use of DMs in academic and non-academic writings of Thai EFL learners. The main objective was to investigate the types, overall frequency, and differences, and similarities of discourse markers in both styles of writing. Sixty essays, consisting of 20 academic essays and 40 non-academic ones, were selected as the primary data. Academic essays were selected from the Critical Reading and Writing course of Xavier Learning Community (XLC), Thailand, while the non-academic ones were selected from the XLC English Newsletter. The data were analyzed based on Fraser’s taxonomy (2009). The results showed that 2.521 DMs distributed in five types, namely contrastive discourse, elaborative discourse, inferential discourse, temporal discourse, and spoken discourse markers, were identified in the 20 academic and 40 non-academic essays.  The most frequently used DM was elaborative discourse markers (EDM), F=1,703. This study concluded that raising awareness of DMs would assist Thai EFL learners in producing an effective and coherent piece of writing. 


1979 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
Mary Epes ◽  
Carolyn Kirkpatrick ◽  
Michael G. Southwwell

Author(s):  
Михаил Викторович Лобачев ◽  
Светлана Григорьевна Антощук ◽  
Вячеслав Сергеевич Харченко

A 3Win strategy for establishing a sustainable model of collaboration between the industry and universities is developed. Primary objectives of the work are outlined and are focused on the establishment of a model of sustainable collaboration between the industry, academic and research societies and student teams. This allows us to resolve the issue of preparing well qualified IT specialists in the necessary fields in collaboration with foreign partners and teams. This also presents the opportunity of development and research, targeted at the end consumer, by creating working prototypes or products. The sustainability of such a collaboration model supplements and is maintained by the long-term integration of mutual interests of the parties participating in the process. The analysis of the viability of this model is carried out on the basis of operation of R&D Start-up School. The definition of the 3Win strategy is established, as an interaction model, based on which each of the participating parties (the university, the company and the student body) receives their own personal benefits and achieves their own goals. In addition, this is a synergic model – where the cooperation of the participants results in a much more effective outcome, than individual efforts of each of the participants separately. The model, which is described as the 3Win strategy, in a way can be classified as a synthetic model, that incorporates the benefits of a number of other models developed previously. A1 – a department within the university as an incubator for developers, A2 – a department within the university as a center for certification support, Model B – a department within the university acting as a center for collaborative research and development and finally Model C – a department within the university as a business incubator. Simultaneously, this is a new class within the models of higher calibre, due to the fact that it facilitates a high degree of stability for the collaboration. The implementation of the model within the scope of international multi-university collaboration is described, along with its benefits. Examples of interaction between various components of the models based on existing cases are provided and the approaches for the 3Win strategy between the industry, universities and student body are described. The road-maps for further development of the aforementioned approaches are established


Author(s):  
Genevieve Jones-Edman ◽  
Karlene Patricia Robinson

Assessing the performance of information literacy (IL) students can be a daunting task for librarians globally. Most IL sessions are taught in 1 to 2 hours where any meaningful assessments are difficult to achieve. This research demonstrated how this feat was achieved in an active learning environment through the use of Google Forms. This mixed method study shows how this was effectively achieved to test both lower and higher order skills in a 2 hour session to one hundred and seventy-two foundation writing course students.The research tested a rarely examined feature of Google Forms which is the tool’s effectiveness in enabling comprehensive assessment, facilitating active learning, and identifying instructional errors in an IL instruction session. The findings show that Google Forms can be used to teach and administer a quiz using both multiple-choice as well as open-ended questions to assess both low and higher order learning skills in IL. Students were able to actively respond to questions while they were being taught, the data gathered and analyzed and used to inform future library instruction. It also showed that Google Forms are useful not simply to administer multiple-choice quizzes at the end of teaching but can be used in executing real-time assessment and support active learning. Because Google Forms support the easy creation of charts and downloading/exporting of statistics, results of assessments can be shared among librarians, faculty, and students to motivate and encourage digital pedagogy. It allows for greater collaboration with faculty in the cooperative teaching of students in single sessions where there is usually difficulty in having dialogue with faculty once a session ends. This case study is based on a limited number of students; thus, the findings of this research may not be generalized but the methodology and some skills in teaching the concepts encountered by librarians may be replicated.


Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson

This chapter describes how the University of Michigan (UM) leaders fought to preserve the new affirmative action policies. In this context, diversity—the idea that a racially heterogeneous student body improved education and prepared students for a multiracial democracy and global economy—became a tool to defend and sustain the new policies. Diversity helped sever the purpose of affirmative action from addressing the inequality rooted in cities, offered ambiguous goals that helped officials avoid accountability, and advanced administrators' interests in introducing a corporate model for the university. The diversity ideal, in other words, did not spark racial retrenchment. Instead, diversity became a tool to sustain the university's policies of retrenchment. Administrators still had to work to retain control over the meaning of diversity and ensure it supported the new policies. When diversity took hold among administrators, black students and their allies tried to employ diversity language to undermine the policies of retrenchment. Administrators ensured that never happened.


Author(s):  
Stephen R. Rodriguez

This chapter considers concepts, planning models, and related processes associated with infrastructure growth at institutions of higher learning. The author offers various definitions of infrastructure, describes an infrastructure maturity model, and discusses strategies and models for related strategic planning. In addition, the chapter provides portions of actual strategic plans related to infrastructure. The chapter closes with a description of how the author’s home institution has grown its technological infrastructure in order to provide required administrative services, communications, and instruction to a growing student body engaged in an expanding curriculum. The impact of infrastructure growth on the university community is also discussed.


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