Heteroglossic spaces : interrogating academic literacies in teacher education

This paper explores the challenges of implementing critical writing pedagogy in conditions of increasing cultural and textual uniformity of literacy and emphasises the need for a pedagogy that takes into account the heteroglossic nature of writing space and its relation to the multiple textual practices of students. In practical terms, we argue for such literacy practices in teacher education that would require students not only to understand the complexities of language and literacy but to actively engage them in a diverse range of textual practices that would both stretch their repertoires as language users and sensitise them to the cultural-semiotic diversity of contemporary classrooms. This task becomes more urgent in the current era of standards, accountability and classroom pedagogies that are not attuned to the particularities of students’ textual practices and the communication networks in which they participate.

Towards a framework for aligning learning outcomes, academic literacies and assessment criteria

Although Australian students spend three or more years studying they can seem quite unaware of any of the expected learning outcomes of their course. They are often single unit focused, paying most attention to individual assessment items thus not developing a holistic view of their course. This paper presents a theoretical framework to support staff and students to recognise, scaffold and achieve learning outcomes and academic skills at unit level and to recognise how these contribute to course and graduate learning outcomes, within the boundaries of Australian university and professional accreditation requirements. A case study is described that demonstrates the manual implementation of the framework. The complex nature of the implementation suggests that a software solution is required to ease the process and ensure the resulting mapping will have some longevity by being maintainable.

Transforming roles to support student development of academic literacies: a reflection on one team’s experience

Abstract: Social work is a discipline that attracts students from diverse academic backgrounds. Many are first in family to attend university, and come to university through alternative pathways such as vocational education. As a result, there are higher levels of attrition compared to other disciplines, especially in the first year. To address this, and in keeping with a commitment to provide accessible education, one school of social work undertook a project to embed academic literacies into the curriculum. This paper used Gibb’s reflective process to explore how this was experienced by team members. Data were collected via staff focus groups at two different points in time across the project and compared. The reflection unpacked a number of tensions experienced by team members, including concerns about potential loss of resources as a result of academics adopting new roles, and concerns about implementing what was seen as Westernised academic skills which may not fit with students’ ways of thinking and creating knowledge. Overfull curricula and constant change also appeared to be of concern. The reflection highlighted that to achieve effective and sustainable change, action was required at multiple levels.

Transforming educational practice : teachers' perceptions of embedding academic litaracy support within a B.Ed twinning program

An academic literacies approach frames students as active participants in their own learning as they develop their voice and identity. This paper describes teachers’ perceptions of developing and delivering an academic literacies program to TESOL pre-service teachers in a B.Ed twinning program. Data indicates that an academic literacies program is a dynamic process that is ever evolving in order to meet students’ needs. A cornerstone of the program was the continual and open communication between teachers to ensure that students’ needs were met. Additionally, a collaborative approach between twinning partners needs to occur in order for the benefits of the academic literacies program to continue for students.

Reading the map: locating and navigating the academic skills development of pre-service teachers

This article reports on an action research project that was implemented to strengthen preservice teachers’ academic skills and competencies in a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education course. Strategies identified aseffective included mapping assessment tasks to State and National Early Childhood Education Curriculum and Standards Frameworks and Graduate Teacher Standards and against the skills needed to completeassessment tasks. Tools and resources were developed by lecturers to identify students’ existing skill levels and then scaffold the required competencies into course teaching. The critical reflections of lecturers on their professional learning through this process were found to be integral to successful outcomes for students.

From literacy to multiliteracies : diverse learners and pedagogical practice

In this paper, we provide specific examples of the educational promises and problems that arise as multiliteracies pedagogical initiatives encounter conventional institutional beliefs and practices in mainstream schooling. This paper documents and characterizes the ways in which two specific digital learning initiatives were played out in two distinctive traditional schooling contexts, as experienced by two different student groups: one comprising an elite mainstream and the other an excluded minority. By learning from the instructive complications that arose out of attempts by innovative and well-meaning educators to provide students with more relevant learning experiences than currently exist in mainstream schooling, this paper contributes fresh perspectives and more nuanced understandings of how diverse learners and their teachers negotiate the opportunities and challenges of the New London Group's vision of a multiliteracies approach to literacy and learning. We conclude by arguing that, where multiliteracies are understood as “garnish” to the “pedagogical roast” of traditional code-based and print-based academic literacies, they will continue to work on the sidelines of mainstream schooling and be seen only as either useful extensions or helpful interventions for high-performing and at-risk students respectively.

Literacy and numeracy project: Final report 2009

Literacy and numeracy are critical for young people during and after their schooling. The subjects and courses that students undertake during their school years incorporate a range of academic literacy and numeracy practices which students must be able manage if they are to be successful. Pathways beyond schooling also require specific, and changing, understandings of, and proficiencies with, literacy and numeracy as new communication technologies increasingly impact on further study, work, and everyday life. Teaching and learning numeracy is a new emphasis in the SACE and as yet we have little understanding about the ways in which secondary schools handle this area. Students in Years 10 and 11 are at a crucial point in their educational and life pathways as they begin to refine their future aspirations. For those who have difficulty with academic literacies and numeracies – and often a long history of such problems – this period can be fraught unless teachers are able to provide specific support when it is needed, or students are able to access it from care-givers or community members. The School to Work Literacy and Numeracy Project involved teachers from nine schools across the three sectors and university researchers working together to design curriculum interventions for students with a history of low measurable achievement in literacy and/or numeracy. The project started from the premise that working with ‘rich tasks’, an approach to learning and assessment developed in the Productive Pedagogies work undertaken in Queensland (Hayes et al., 2006), would improve students’ motivation, engagement and learning and that this work could best be done by teachers working in school-based, cross-curriculum teams with a school leadership team member and a university researcher as mentor. A key idea in designing rich tasks is that students will have opportunities to demonstrate their learning in assessments which are aligned with the learning expectations (for example a film festival to publicly launch student-produced films, advertising to sell student-made cubby-houses, a household budget based on students’ likely incomes in future work). In other words the assessments should be designed to allow for authentic communication and displays of what the students have learned through serious engagement with the curriculum. The project was conducted from Term 1-4 2009, with follow-up checks with some project teachers in the early weeks of 2010.

Exploring girl power : gender, literacy and the textual practices of young women attending an elite school

Popular discourses concerning the relationship between gender and academic literacies have suggested that boys are lacking in particular, school-based literacy competencies compared with girls. Such discourses construct “gender” according to a binary framework and they obscure the way in which literacy and textual practices operate as a site in which gendered identities are constituted and negotiated by young people in multiple sites including schooling, which academic inquiry has often emphasized. In this paper I consider the school-based textual practices of young women attending an elite school, in order to explore how these practices construct “femininities”. Feminist education researchers have shown how young women negotiate discourses of feminine passivity and heterosexuality through their reading and writing practices. Yet discourses of girlhood and femininity have undergone important transformations in times of ‘girl power’ in which young women are increasingly constructed as successful, autonomous and sexually agentic. Thus young women’s reading and writing practices may well operate as a space in which new discourses around girlhood and femininity are constituted. Throughout the paper, I utilize the notion of “performativity”, understood through the work of Judith Butler, to show how textual practices variously inscribe and negotiate discourses of gender. Thus the importance of textual work in inscribing and challenging notions of gender is asserted. I argue that critical literacy is just as important, but perhaps no more guaranteed, within elite girls’ education as it is within boys’ education.

Discursive representation of international students

The data consists of qualitative interviews regarding international students. It provides insight into the discursive representations of international students in an Australian university setting. This data provides a critique of institutional discourses that are informed by race, culture and identity, learning constraints and particular constructions of English and offers ways of thinking that enable a movement beyond into the arena of multiplicity and complexity. While this data is of the discursive practices at one institution it is nonetheless suggestive for other universities. It points to the benefits of examining through a postcolonial lens the discursive practices of the institution alongside the subjectivities of students. The mismatch that is evident in this data indicates the need for institutional change if the goal of genuine internationalisation is to be achieved.

Letramentos acadêmicos e multimodalidade em contexto de EaD semipresencial

From a theorethical enunciative-discursive perspective, this article aims at discussing the process of the text consistency in digital context, in a particular manner, by means of problematic semiotic modes and resources updated in the academic production of the student who uses internet access computers in the semi-present Distant Learning (DL) process. It’s of interest to investigate how the academic literacies model may be linked to the multimodality study, considering, in theory, that in an electronic environment, the student has “unlimited” access to every and any kind of text, not just the “verbal” (name generally attributed to the graphic component) one. The collected material contains texts which were produced by the semi-present Pedagogy Course students from the Virtual University of São Paulo (UNIVESP), in 2010.

Writing for success:mentoring as a pedagogical tool – a cross- institutional study

The prominent position given to academic writing across contemporary academia is reflected in the substantive literature and debate devoted to the subject over the past 30 years. However, the massification of higher education, manifested by a shift from elite to mass education, has brought the issue into the public arena, with much debate focusing on the need for ‘modern-day' students to be taught how to write academically (Bjork et al., 2003; Ganobcsik-Williams, 2006). Indeed, Russell (2003) argued that academic writing has become a global ‘problem' in Higher Education because it sits between two contradictory pressures (p.V). On one end of the university ‘experience' increasing numbers of students, many from non-traditional backgrounds, enter higher education bringing with them a range of communication abilities. At the other end, many graduates leave university to work in specialised industries where employers expect them to have high level writing skills (Ashton, 2007; Russell, 2003; Torrence et al., 1999). By drawing attention to the issues around peer mentoring within an academic writing setting in three different higher education Institutions, this paper makes an important contribution to current debates. Based upon a critical analysis of the emergent findings of an empirical study into the role of peer writing mentors in promoting student transition to higher education, the paper adopts an academic literacies approach to discuss the role of writing mentoring in promoting transition and retention by developing students' academic writing. Attention is drawn to the manner in which student expectations of writing mentoring actually align with mentoring practices - particularly in terms of the writing process and critical thinking. Other issues such as the approachability of writing mentors, the practicalities of accessing writing mentoring and the wider learning environment are also discussed.

Third space in cyberspace : Indigenous youth, new technologies and literacies

This chapter analyses the affordances and constraints of an online literacy program designed for Indigenous Australian youth through a partnership between the Indigenous community, university staff and local schools. The after-school program sought to build on the cultural resources and experiences of the young people through a dialogic process of planning, negotiating, implementing, reflecting, and renegotiating the program with participants and a range of stakeholders. In the majority of cases, students presented themselves as part of pervasive global popular cultures, often hot-linking their webpages to pop icons and local sports stars. Elders regarded their competency as a potential cultural tool and community resource.

Integrated literacies : every online player wins a prize

QUT Library’s model of learning support brings together academic literacy (study skills) and information literacy (research skills). The blended portfolio enables holistic planning and development, seamless services, connected learning resources and more authentic curriculum-embedded education. The model reinforces the Library’s strategic focus on learning service innovation and active engagement in teaching and learning. ----- ----- ----- The online learning strategy is a critical component of the broader literacies framework. This strategy unifies new and existing online resources (e.g.: Pilot, QUT cite|write and IFN001|AIRS Online) to augment learner capability. Across the suite, prudent application of emerging technologies with visual communications and learning design delivers a wide range of adaptive study tools. Separately and together, these resources meet the learning needs and styles of a diverse cohort providing positive and individual learning opportunities. Deliberate articulation with strategic directions regarding First Year Experience, assessment, retention and curriculum alignment assures that the Library’s initiatives move in step with institutional objectives relating to enhancing the student experience and flexible blended learning. ----- ----- ----- The release of Studywell in 2010 emphasises the continuing commitment to blended literacy education. Targeting undergraduate learners (particularly 1st year/transition), this online environment provides 24/7 access to practical study and research tools. Studywell’s design and application of technology creates a “discovery infrastructure” [1] which facilitates greater self-directed learning and interaction with content. ----- ----- ----- This paper presents QUT Library’s online learning strategy within the context of the parent “integrated literacies” framework. Highlighting the key online learning resources, the paper describes the inter-relationships between those resources to develop complementary literacies. The paper details broad aspects of the overarching learning and study support framework as well as the online strategy, including strategic positioning, quality and evaluation processes, maintenance, development, implementation, and client engagement and satisfaction with the learning resources.