Writing blah, blah, blah: lecturers’ approaches and challenges in supporting international students

The increase in numbers of international students who have English as a second language (ESL) and are studying in English-medium universities has renewed the emphasis of English language development in higher education, particularly concerning academic writing. Much of the discussion has concentrated on developing best practices in providing support via Language and Academic Support (LAS) programs. However, the main challenge in recent years has focused on integrating disciplinary and language learning. What has been largely missing from the discussion are the views of lecturers and students regarding the strategies they use to develop academic writing in the discipline. This paper addresses this issue. The analysis reveals that academic writing within the disciplines is largely an individual endeavour for both lecturers and their students. Lecturers focus on explaining what skills students are required to demonstrate in their assignments, but students are more concerned with understanding how they can develop these skills. The implications are discussed concerning the development of a whole institutional approach for integrating language and disciplinary teaching.

"Kind of, In Kind: The Politics of Circulating Feelings in the Writing of Juliana Spahr"

Through the life-writing of American poet Juliana Spahr, this essay investigates not only how the lyric is being used by contemporary poets to represent compound feelings but also what relationship affect might have to the political. It considers how Spahr constructs a porous subjectivity that circulates through a system that is simultaneously social, biological, and textual in its environment. Spahr demonstrates how the continually changing relation of self to place and other may lead to a confusion and complexity of feeling. In particular, it focuses on the nested or interrelated nature of what Sianne Ngai has termed ‘ugly feelings’, particularly in terms of sexuality, colonialism, and globalisation. It is argued that Spahr’s poetic navigation of such feeling seeks to locate possibilities for cultural adaptation and transformation.

Mentorship in the health disciplines

AbstractLearning outcomes:On completion of this continuing professional development (CPD) activity, participants will be able to:• identify strategies to support undergraduate students and new staff working in a supernumerary role;• define the roles and responsibilities of the mentor and mentee;• identify key attributes of successful mentors;• discuss the stages of the mentor–mentee relationship and the key elements of each;• describe a suitable strategy for engaging mentees and developing a mutually beneficial mentor–mentee partnership;• enable staff to reflect on their current approaches to providing feedback to mentees and identify areas that mayrequire change; and• identify barriers to a successful mentor–mentee relationship;

Journal Writing in Mathematics: Exploring the Connections between Math Journals and the Completion of Homework Assignments

In this action research study of sixth grade mathematics, I investigate how the use of written journals facilitates the learning of mathematics for my students. I explore furthermore whether or not these writing journals support students to complete their homework. My analysis reveals that while students do not access their journals daily, when students have the opportunity to write more about one specific problem--such as finding the relationship between the area of two different sized rectangles – they, are nevertheless, more likely to explain their thoughts in-depth and go beyond the traditional basic steps to arrive at a solution. This suggests the value of integrating journal writing in a math curriculum as it can facilitate classroom discussion from the students’ written work.

Writing In Math Class? Written Communication in the Mathematics Classroom

In this action research study of my seventh grade mathematics classroom, I investigated what written communication within the mathematics classroom would look like. I increased vocabulary instruction of specific mathematical terms for my students to use in their writing. I also looked at what I would have to do differently in my teaching in order for my students to be successful in their writing. Although my students said that using writing to explain mathematics helped them to better understand the math, my research revealed that student writing did not necessarily translate to improved scores. After direct instruction and practice on math vocabulary, my students did use the vocabulary words more often in their writing; however, my students used the words more like they would in spelling sentences rather than to show what it meant and how it can be applied within their written explanation in math. In my teaching, I discovered I tried many different strategies to help my students be successful. I was very deliberate in my language and usage of vocabulary words and also in my explanations of various math concepts. As a result of this research, I plan to continue having my students use writing to communicate within the mathematics classroom. I will keep using some of the strategies I found successful. I also will be very deliberate in using vocabulary words and stress the use of vocabulary words with my students in the future.