scholarly journals "MIND THE GAP": THE TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING PROCESS OF SECOND LANGUAGE PRACTITIONERS WHEN BECOMING SCHOLARS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kaplan ◽  
◽  
Maya Wizel ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Academic Socialization ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Introductory Course ◽  
Self Image

This paper is about transformations from knowing to not-knowing and from doing to becoming. The paper’s focus is an ongoing research project on a new Doctorate program in Modern Languages studies (DML) and the process that the students in this program undergo when transitioning from being practitioners to becoming novice scholars. This program is part of a conscious effort to create an academic field whereby scholarly and professional types of knowledge are organically co-produced and this interlaced knowledge is expected to fertilize practitioners’ professional practices. The program’s graduate students are mostly in their mid-career and are motivated to pursue their DML studies for multiple reasons. The necessity of developing a study plan that can foster their transition from practitioners to scholars and help them develop a researcher identity became evident early on. Students were expected to quickly re-adjust their self-image as future theorizers who could carry out independent research and produce original scholarship. While the challenges mentioned above are not unique to this specific doctorate program and are well documented in the extensive scholarship on doctorate students’ education, fewer studies have addressed the particular challenges faculty and students face as part of the latter’s transition from practitioners to graduate students and novice researchers. Therefore, we ask, what accounts for a successful process of supporting language teachers in becoming novice researchers? Our aim is twofold: first, to detail our pedagogical rationale, dilemmas we faced, and the solutions we carved out; and secondly, to contribute to a nascent discussion on doctorate students’ training and academic socialization in applied disciplines. Using Mezirow’s adult learning theory of Transformative Learning, we describe the challenge of designing a process of academic socialization that can support adult learners’ development and shift in perceptions, skills, and actions. During the first four cohorts of the program, in an introductory course, “Research Foundations,” we faced dilemmas regarding reading materials and teaching activities, and collected students' reflections and communications with us, the course professors. Accordingly, the paper explicitly emphasizes our efforts to actively foster a culture of independent learning and a productive learning community by introducing new knowledge and skills. The paper can benefit instructors who design and lead graduate programs for practitioners in any field of practice.

Strategically Using Information

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaushilya G. Weerapura
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
A Performance

Information use is an understudied area within information science thus strategies pertinent to using information remains understudied. However, research implicates strategically using information as a performance booster, especially within academic contexts. This paper reports on an ongoing research on information use strategies of graduate students as they attend to an identified academic task.L’utilisation et les stratégies pertinentes à l’utilisation de l’information demeurent un domaine sous-étudié en science de l’information. Cependant, la recherche implique l’utilisation stratégique de l’information comme stimulant du rendement, particulièrement en contexte scolaire. Cette communication porte sur une recherche en cours sur les stratégies d’utilisation de l’information des étudiants universitaires de 2e et 3e cycle lors d’une tâche scolaire prédéfinie. 

Getting My Feet Wet: A Student Educator's Perspective on a Successful Learning Experience

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Gifford
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Graduate Student ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Holistic Education ◽  
Unexpected Events ◽  
School Buses ◽  
Master Of Science ◽  
Strongly Connected

I am a third-semester graduate student at the Audubon Expedition Institute (AEI), a college based in Belfast, Maine. This is a unique, fascinating, and sometimes crazy educational experience in which we travel around a different bioregion of the country each semester. Our method of transport is two converted school buses; we camp out every night and become strongly connected with the land around us. Our degree will be a master of science in environmental education; we study ecosystems and environmental and social issues through self-directed education. Our program emphasizes experiential and holistic education within a strong learning community, and sometimes we have the opportunity to turn unexpected events to our advantage. As a learning community we are each other's roommates, teachers, students, and peers. We cook and eat together and live in an intense, closely knit environment. This semester our community consists of 27 graduate students and four faculty.

Handling Research Challenges

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Abir El Shaban
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Technology Professional Development ◽  
American University ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Technology Professional

This chapter explores some of the challenging issues that were raised for the author while conducting her first biggest research project as an international doctoral student at one of the United States universities. The main challenge that the author faced was the difficulty of having access to a language center to examine her technology professional development model on language teachers to explore its effectiveness in understanding the teachers' adoption and rejection decision of using education technology and to collect data for her dissertation. After choosing an alternative venue and planning to travel to the United Arab Emirates to conduct the practical part of her research at one of the UAE's universities, an academic networking event changed the course of the latest plans and had a gatekeeper assisting her in experimenting her model and conducting the rest of her study in an American university. The chapter explores some of the challenges and how the author tackled each one of them. The chapter ends with some general recommendations for graduate students and novice researchers.

Identifying the Context of the Presentation

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cigdem Issever ◽  
Ken Peach
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Summer School ◽  
The Other ◽  
Standard Approach ◽  
First Year ◽  
Introductory Course ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Postdoctoral Researchers ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Social Programme

The context of a presentation determines, or should determine, how you approach its preparation. The context includes many things, the audience, the purpose of the presentation, the occasion, what precedes the presentation and what follows from it. It will define what you expect from the audience, and will influence how you prepare yourself for the talk. A simple example. Suppose that you have been invited to give a series of lectures at a summer school. What more do you need to know, other than the topic? Here are a few of the questions that you need to have answered before you can start planning the course. 1. Is it an introductory course aimed at graduate students in their first year, or is it an advanced course more suited to graduates in their final year and young postdoctoral researchers? 2. Are the participants expected to ask questions during the lecture, or wait until the end? 3. Will there be any problem classes or discussion sessions? 4. Will lecture notes be handed out to participants before or after the lecture? 5. Will the proceedings be published, and if so, when? 6. What are the other lecture courses going to cover? 7. Will the basic theory already have been covered, or are they expected to know it already, or should you spend half of the first lecture going over it, just in case some have not seen it before? 8. If it is your job to give the basic introductory lectures, should you follow the standard approach in the usual text books, or should you assume that they have already covered that ground and try to give them more insight into the subject? 9. Will any of the lectures that come later in the school make any assumptions about what they have learned in your lectures? 10. Is there a social programme? If so, are you expected to participate in the activities and discuss the subject informally with the participants (which, from our experience, is always much appreciated), or can you spend most of the time in your room writing the next lecture?

scholarly journals Transitional Writing and "Third Space" Learning: Professional Writing Students and the Work Experience

1969 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Wegner
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Weak Links ◽  
Professional Writing ◽  
Long Term Study ◽  
Writing Students ◽  
Problem Solve

This paper is based on a long-term study of professional writing students in an internship, "work experience" course. Building upon work theorizing the problematic gap between classroom instruction and workplace practice, this study extends analysis to explore the role of transitional pedagogy in the learning dynamics that populate the "space between" the classroom and the workplace. It shows how students use both their acquired strategic resourcefulness and tools such as transitionally located scaffolding structures to facilitate workplace participation. The analysis is framed largely by learning community theory and activity theory, with emphasis on the concepts of developmental transfer and consequential transition, which prove productive for elucidating the nature of transformative learning and for assessing the effects of transitional pedagogy. I examine both conventional on-site work placements and the additional challenges that off-site internships present. The evidence here suggests that an effective transitional writing pedagogy should aim to create a transitional community of practice, a "back region" or "third space" where students and mentors can problem-solve and share resources. Findings support recent elaborations of activity theory in contexts of transitional learning and educational reform, and reinforce the need to strengthen weak links in school-employer work experience collaborations.Key words: internship, learning community, activity theory, developmental transfer

The journey into a New me: Narratives of self-development and community revitalization among first-generation, Latinx, adult graduate students

2020 ◽  
pp. 147797142091391
Author(s):  
Virginia Montero-Hernandez ◽  
Steven Drouin
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Graduate Education ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Community Revitalization ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Life Journey

This study explores the narratives of first-generation, Latinx graduate students whose parents emigrated from Mexico. We aimed to understand the life trajectories of six participants, particularly the ways in which they made sense of graduate education (MA and EdD) as part of their personal journeys, identity and practice as educators. Focus groups and image elicitation techniques allowed us to learn from our participants. Participants’ narratives about their life journey were our unit of analysis. Our results suggest that participants pursued graduate school as a tool to engage in self-actualization and to revitalize their families and communities. Central to our findings is the role that trauma played in the approach they used to engage in graduate education. Trauma worked as a catalyser to seek transformative learning experiences that could help them not only expand their selves but also the community where they serve. Students’ re-framing of personal trauma encouraged them to persist in graduate education and consolidate their service-oriented missions.

scholarly journals Transforming Agency and Structure for Facilitating Pro-Poor Governance in Community Forestry

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mani Ram Banjade ◽  
Netra Prasad Timsina ◽  
Hari Raj Neupane ◽  
Kamal Bhandari ◽  
Tara Bhattarai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Community Forestry ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Community Forest ◽  
User Groups ◽  
Community Forest User Groups ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Agency And Structure ◽  
Forest User

Nepali society is differentiated by hierarchical and discriminatory social structures struggling for transformation. This culture is also reflected in the practices of Community Forestry. Community Forestry is expected to contribute to improved livelihoods within communities through forest management, ensuring social justice through the provision of better spaces and positions to poor and disadvantaged groups. Based on the lessons of nine Community Forest User Groups of seven districts of the hill and Terai regions of Nepal, we propose a more inclusive and interactive process, known as ‘Social and Transformative Learning' or ‘Action and Learning', which has greater ability to transform both agency and structure to ensure deliberative and pro-poor governance. Key words: agency and structure, pro-poor governance, transformative learning, community forestry doi: 10.3126/jfl.v5i1.1978 Journal of Forest and Livelihood 5(1) February, 2006 pp.22-33

scholarly journals Developing multimodal communicative competence in emerging academic and professional genres

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
Noelia Ruiz-Madrid ◽  
Julia Valeiras-Jurado
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Multimodal Literacy ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Analytical Skills ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Genre Awareness ◽  
Salient Characteristic ◽  
Professional Genres

In this paper, we propose a pedagogical approach for teaching and learning multimodal literacy, specifically, the application of multimodal discourse analysis for genre awareness. The mastery of specific oral genres is seen as desirable to help students become competent professionals. This is the case of Product Pitches (PPs) in the business field and Research Pitches (RPs) in the academic field. The former are short presentations that introduce a product to the market, the latter constitute an emerging way of disseminating ongoing research to the general public. A salient characteristic of both is their multimodal nature, which has raised an increasing interest in multimodal approaches to genre pedagogy. Our aim is to develop students’ analytical skills to make them aware of the variety of semiotic modes and the importance of using them coherently. The pedagogical approach is facilitated by specialised software that supports the systematic teaching and learning of multimodal genres.

V. Bondarev: the creative evolution of the writer

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Лилия Шкурат ◽  
Liliya Shkurat
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Multidimensional Analysis ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Creative Evolution ◽  
Great Patriotic War

The monograph presents a multidimensional analysis, periodization and evolution of creative path Yu. V. Bondarev, and clarifies the philosophical foundations of the writer. The book is intended for specialists-linguists, teachers, graduate students, students of humanitarian faculties of universities, for language teachers and for everyone interested in prose about the Great Patriotic war and the problems of national literature.

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