UTS ACADEMIC LITERACY INTEGRATION PROJECT
The ELSSA Centre integrated and collaborative approach
in the provision of teaching and learning support at UTS
A university-wide project endorsed by the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning)
The goals of the project:
- to maintain best practice in the development of academic literacy at UTS
- to provide effective teaching and learning support through the integration of existing services where possible
- to achieve this without the need for additional funding
- to optimise the use of resources by reaching more students and by providing more intensive support for those students who need it most
- to acculturate faculty lecturers to ensure sustainability of teaching and learning support.
The strategies:
- embedding communication, information literacy and staff development within undergraduate and graduate courses and within research processes
- systematising and expanding on current processes of embedding
- gradually replacing generic courses and one-to-ones by embedded services
- providing the means for the more systematic acculturation of faculty lecturers
- combining the development of teaching and learning with a practice based approach to certification for faculty lecturers
- shifting perceptions relating to the identity and the work of the ELSSA Centre by means of a name change
- promoting the new strategies in a series of forums endorsed by the university executive
The benefits:
- reaching more students utilising existing resources (a developmental approach)
- targeting the students most in need of support (a remedial approach)
- promoting staff development in the faculties
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RATIONALE
There are several factors which motivate for the adoption of the proposed approach. The practice oriented approach to education at UTS means that the literacies and forms of communication being promoted are more directly related to workplace practices than those promoted at traditional universities. There is evidence from research and from direct experience of courses at UTS that effective communication is central to workplace practices in the current knowledge economy. It therefore seems important that students be provided with opportunities to develop the appropriate academic and professional literacies through the implementation of a long-term sustainable model. This will be of particular importance in addressing the issue of the acquisition of students’ relevant graduate attributes.
The growth in student numbers, and the potential growth in the number of overseas students, necessitates modes of provision which maintain best practice without a concomitant increase in staffing levels. This is best achieved through the integrated approach to academic literacy development which is already being successfully implemented in certain courses at UTS and at many Australian universities. A more systematic approach would involve faculty lecturers in the promotion of effective communication, and would be best achieved through the collaboration of ELSSA Centre lecturers, the staff developers in IML, the information literacy staff and academics in the Mathematics Study Centre.
There are currently some misperceptions regarding the identity and the work of the ELSSA Centre which need to be addressed in order to show how this work is potentially relevant and valuable to all students entering the university, and not only to students who have English as a second language.
The potential benefits of this move towards a more systematised integrated approach go beyond the obvious benefit of achieving more with fewer resources. A greater number of students would be encouraged to develop the necessary metacognitive awareness of the literacies related to workplace and academic practice. Academic staff, too, would have the opportunity to reflect on and enhance their teaching and assessment practices, and possibly to achieve practice-based certification.
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A MODEL FOR AN INTEGRATED, COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING COMMUNICATION
Making existing processes visible
The ELSSA Centre currently has in place some aspects of the proposed model, e.g. academic reading and writing practices are integrated into the Faculties of DAB, Engineering, HSS, IT, NMH, the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism and spoken communication is offered in the Faculty of NMH. However, these existing processes of integrating literacy tend to be invisible and have had little impact in some faculties. This model makes visible ways in which academic literacy can be integrated and ways in which students in need of intensive support can be identified and offered programs which meet their needs.
Linking processes to other units in the university
The ELSSA Centre model would take the process of integration further, to encourage collaboration between faculty lecturers, ELSSA Centre lecturers, academic staff developers and library staff, in the design of assessment tasks, and in integrating academic literacy and information literacy strategies and skills within subjects.
Linking processes to the process of academic acculturation
Academic staff who undertake to develop subjects explicitly incorporating academic literacy could be offered credit towards the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education.
Systemising and expanding some existing processes and reducing some ELSSA Centre services
The model builds on current best practice of integrating academic literacy in a developmental way. It also offers a systematic method for providing intensive support to students who most need it, by using assessment tasks to identify these students.
In brief the model for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework consists of the following steps:
- Embedding academic literacy: academic literacy is embedded into at least one first-year subject in all degrees so that all students are introduced to the reading, writing and speaking practices required in their degree program and workplaces where relevant (e.g. in those subjects which contain a practicum). The subject in which academic literacy is integrated is collaboratively designed by a team consisting of the subject coordinator, an ELSSA Centre lecturer, library staff and an academic staff developer.
- Lectures explicitly addressing academic literacy requirements: these lectures are integrated into the subject and focus on the reading and writing practices required in the first assessment and ongoing assessments.
- Early identification of students in need of more intensive literacy development: the first assessment is marked by faculty lecturers who then collaborate with an ELSSA Centre lecturer to identify those students in need of intensive communication development.
- Intensive literacy development: a series of intensive workshops specifically designed for these students by ELSSA Centre lecturers is offered after the first assessment task. Following the workshops ELSSA Centre lecturers may recommend individual appointments for some of the students who have attended the workshops.
These steps of the ELSSA Centre model could be repeated within the same subject as the complexity of assessment tasks increases. The model could also be applied within other subjects in the same degree course when introducing and assessing different types of communication, e.g. speaking in a professional environment, writing a research proposal.
The model is flexible so it can be adopted in ways that suit the needs of the faculty.
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EVALUATING & REPORTING PROCESSES
An integral component of the model is reporting and evaluating allowing for an iterative cycle of subject design and evaluation, e.g. reports detailing areas of weakness in the first assessment would be prepared by ELSSA Centre academics for faculties, with recommendations on how these weaknesses might be addressed in the subject the following year.
The embedding processes and intensive workshops would also be evaluated in systematic ways, by means of student satisfaction surveys, amongst other methods.
For postgraduate research students the model is based on similar principles but requires a somewhat different approach. See below.
WRITING DEVELOPMENT FOR RESEARCH POSTGRADUATES & ACADEMIC STAFF
Current practices
For research postgraduates, the ELSSA Centre currently offers:
- writing workshops through the University Graduate School and in the various faculties, institutes and degree programs, upon the request of the A/Dean Research or program coordinator; and:
- individual consultations upon request.
For academic staff, the ELSSA Centre currently offers:
- workshops or sessions on writing and writing development issues, such as giving feedback to students and to (more junior) colleagues on their writing, developing research-writing expertise among students and staff, writing successful grant applications, and writing journal papers for publication; and:
- individual consultations.
In one faculty the student workshops are scheduled at the end of each year for the next year, but in other faculties they are scheduled in an ad hoc manner.
Proposed changes
In line with the goals and strategies outlined in the above section, we propose that the writing development services that the ELSSA Centre provides to research postgraduates and to academic staff be modified as follows:
- a greater emphasis on the academic staff development, in terms of developing research writing expertise among their students, their colleagues and themselves
- a more systematic and planned approach to integrating writing workshops for students, for example into research methodology subjects where these are required, or into a series of developmental workshops
- a more formalised feedback and reporting system, so that work that we do with students in workshops and individually gets fed back to academic staff, and conversely, work we do with staff in workshops and sessions gets fed back to students
- a greater emphasis on targeting those research students who are most at-risk, for example, by having supervisors refer such students to the ELSSA Centre for workshops, and then having the supervisor (or us) referring those students who still need additional assistance to individual consultations
- a greater emphasis on providing individual consultations primarily (though not exclusively) to research students who are referred to the ELSSA Centre by their supervisor, or by us after they have participated in a workshop (nb: this could not be the case exclusively, as some students would need access to Centre services confidentially, but we could discourage students from using our services unless they have first been to a workshop).
Academic staff who undertake to participate in workshops for supervisors and/or in developing and running writing workshops for students could be offered credit towards the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education.
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ACTION & TIMELINE
Autumn semester 2005
- proposal presented to and endorsed by Associate Deans’ (Teaching & Learning) forum 24 May
- collect/collate data re NESB/ESB performance: 1996–2000; 2001–2003; 2004–2005
- plan ELSSA Centre + IML + library SD
- develop educational strategies: web based resources (link to UTSOnline), lectures, workshops
- PVC (T & L), A/Deans & ELSSA Centre: research/select most appropriate subjects in UG & PG degrees
- phase out 40% of individual assistance
Spring semester 2005
- phase out generic timetabled classes
- develop faculty based module type workshops to replace generic classes
- evaluate effectiveness of integrated academic literacy models: Business. (Sports, Leisure & Tourism), Engineering, Information Technology and Nursing, Midwifery & Health
- develop integrated academic literacy into subjects: Design, Building & Architecture, Education and Humanities & Social Sciences
- create integrated academic literacy into subjects: Business (other Schools), Law and Science
- link individual assistance to integrated structure
Autumn semester 2006
- implement strategies across all faculties
- report to PVC by AUQA review
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