dr. angela ardington :

WDHE, 28-30 June 2010, London Metropolitan University, Sustainable Writing Development: Approaches and Challenges.

Negotiating different approaches to knowledge through interdisciplinary exchange: The way forward for sustainable writing development

Dr. Angela Ardington:Learning Centre


The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that

honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. Albert Einstein

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind

is a faithful servant. We have created a society that

honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Albert Einstein

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Cross-disciplinary approaches to knowledge and inquiry


Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Communication

Establishment integrated WAC Programs (Engineering & Visual Arts)

Questions to address:

What effects do disciplinary epistemologies have on academic discourses?

How do individual perceptions of the relationship between creativity and the formal demands of writing impact academic discourses?

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Presentation focus


Key issues

1. the link between thinking and academic writing (Moon 2007)

2. the proposition that discipline boundaries are becoming more permeable (Armstrong 2006; Henkel 2005; Becher & Trowler 2001; Rowland 2006)

3. dimensions of formality versus creativity in academic writing (Wood 1999).

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Focus and significance


What disciplinary agendas are operating?

How are disciplinary values expressed, e.g. conflicting / shared?

How can we optimise these values to contribute towards richer learning experiences?

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Research Questions


Architecture Design

positioned as opposed in mainstream discourses

(Armstrong 2006)

Disciplinary communities

Engineering Visual Arts


…“No single, monolithic ‘academic English’ ”(Hyland 2004)

we need to investigate how different

varieties of academic writing (English)

can be validated.

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If we agree


represent valued and powerful ways of engaging with the world which exert an effect on student learning

(Barnett 2009; Kreber 2009)

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Disciplinary epistemologies

What counts as knowledge?

Who controls the knowledge?

Who has the right to give voice?


to explore [these] disciplinary communities to discover

how they organise and deliver their teaching in an

attempt to reveal the relationship between academic

writing and the respective disciplinary epistemologies

in terms of commonalities and differences.

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A primary objective


INSTITUTIONAL

DISCIPLINARY

INDIVIDUAL

govern how knowledge is valued and communicated

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Cultures of learning

ACADEMY PROFESSIONS


Guggenheim, Bilbao?

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Work of Art / Feat of Engineering?


Depends on:

disciplinary background perspective

context

audience

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Work of Art / Feat of Engineering?

WDHE, 28-30 June 2010, London Metropolitan University, Sustainable Writing Development: Approaches and Challenges. 13

(Source: shortened from Becher 1989; ref. Becher & Towler 2001)

Disciplinary grouping Nature of knowledge

Pure sciences ('hard-pure') Cumulative; atomistic, concerned with universals; impersonal; value-free; clear criteria for knowledge verification and obsolescence; consensus over significant questions (to address, now and then in the future)

Humanities and pure social sciences ('soft-pure')

Reiterative; holistic; concerned with particulars; personal; value-laden; dispute over criteria for knowledge verification and obsolescence; lack of consensus over significant questions

Technologies ('hard-applied') Purposive; pragmatic; concerned with mastery of physical environment; applies heuristic approaches; uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches

(Source: shortened from Becher 1989; ref. Becher & Towler 2001)

Disciplinary cultures


Engineering curriculum

‘hard’ courses (engineering, math, science) emphasise computations:

solving equations modeling processes product design

‘soft’ emphasise communications:

Some practicing engineers say they spend up to 80% time in oral + written communications


Disciplinary Identity: Engineer

“the type of person who would rather take the telephone apart rather than use it to call his own mother”

Curricular emphasis: problem solving, functionality, technical, product-oriented, project-driven


Disciplinary Identity: Visual Arts

“The most important thing is to be a good artist.

This requires risk taking and is the opposite of the requirements for academic writing. Writing is a different mode parallel to art making and antithetical to it”.Lecturer, SCA (2007)


confusion – re expectations and what is valued (Engineering) allows me to organise my thoughts tangible record (V Arts)

experimental stage enjoyable but then had to force thoughts into a straitjacket (V Arts)

perceptions of writing as peripheral (Engineering)

resistance to conceptual rigours of linear argumentation in formal academic writing (V Arts)

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Individual responses


CREATIVE PROCESS

Experimentation

Risk taking

Ability to go outside guidelines

INSTITUTIONAL DEMANDS

Rationalisation

Convention/ Rigour

Scholastic orthodoxy

Tensions


Links to Assessment tasks

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Cross Disciplinary Similarities:

Graduate attributes

situate their own work in an international context

the ability to demonstrate critical judgement and independent thinking

ability to communicate effectively

function on multidisciplinary teams

broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions within a global, economic, and environmental context


Managing effective language support

Considers student perceptions & concerns:

resistance/reluctance marginalised (remedial) different assessments/standards

Learning Together through Collaborative Practice:

team teaching: content tutor/LA recognition of student uptake (attendance) top down valueconsistency through degree program


Embedding into disciplinary knowledge

Positive student evaluations

Valued by senior faculty academics

Improved performance relative to main cohort

Impact of Integrated Intervention


BEGINNING OF UNIT OF STUDYENGG1803 PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING

WRITING A PERSUASIVE ESSAY

WRITING A FORMAL PROJECT REPORT

END OF UNIT OF STUDYENGG1803 PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING

WORKPLACE: PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING

ORAL PRESENTATIONS (project design) COORDINATED EFFORTS MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAMS PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Beyond Higher Education

MARATHON NOT A SPRINT STRATEGIC, INTEGRATED LITERACY SUPPORT CHALLENGE OF BUILDING AN INTEGRATED PRESENCE IN THE FACULTY AND ACROSS THE CURRICULUM OVER TIME A CONTINUOUS PROCESS OF REVIEW & REVISION

MASUS DIAGNOSTIC

ORAL PRESENTATION


Academic institutions are powerful sites of knowledge generation and identity construction

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Build Bridges

If we are serious in the pursuit of an international curriculum we must build bridges to succeed


Armstrong, P (2006) ‘ Location, relocation and dislocation: learning cultures or cultures of learning?’ Paper presented at 47 th Adult Education research Conference, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, May 18-21.

Carrick Grants Program Report (2008) The Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

Clampitt, P. G. (2005) Communicating for managerial effectiveness. 3rd edition. Sage Publications

Dym, C.L., Agogino, A., Eris, O., Frey, D. & Leifer, L. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103-120. Institution of Engineers Australia (1996). Changing the culture: Engineering education into the future. Accessed http://www.uow.edu.au/pwrsysed/project/review.htm#recommendations

Greene, N. (1996). Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster A NASA Tragedy. Retrieved February 8, 2007, from About: Space / astronomy. Website: http://space.about.com/cs/challenger/a/challenger.htm

Hyland, K. (2009) Academic discourse. London: Continuum

Hyland, K. (2008) As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes 27(1): 4--21.

Hyland, K. (2002) Authority and invisibility: authorial identity in academic writing, Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1091-1112.

Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2007) Is there an “Academic Vocabulary”? TESOL Quarterly 41(2): 235--253.

Hyland, K, & Tse, P. (2004) Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal, Applied Linguistics 25/2: 156-17,7 Oxford University Press.

Johnston, R. (2006) Professional Engineering 1803. 2nd edition .McGraw-Hill. Australia

Jones, C., Turner, J. & Street, B. (eds.) (1999) Students Writing in the University: Cultural ad epistemological Issues. . Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Lea, M. & Street, B.V. (1998) Student writing in Higher education: an academic literacies approach”. Studies in Higher Education 23 (2) , pp. 157-172

References


Ravelli, L. J. & Starfield, S. 2008. ‘Typography and disciplinary identity’, Information Design Journal, 16:2, pp. 133-147.

Swales, J. 2004. Research Genres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Trevelyan, J. P. 2007. Technical Coordination in Engineering Practice. Journal of Engineering Education, 96 (3), 91-204.

Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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