Liaison and Functional Team Structure Review Task Force Report, 2017-2018

The Liaison Team Structure Review Task Force was convened in the 2017 fall semester, with the purpose of examining the liaison functional and subject team structure implemented in 2013-14 to determine how well it is functioning and what changes should be made in response to evolving needs and University Libraries’ strategic priorities. The task force reviewed identified weaknesses and challenges, including the disconnect between evolving liaison roles and the lack of opportunities for discussion and training regarding those evolving roles, the perceived excessive focus on collections and reference desk staffing, the lack of a central liaison coordinator, and workload issues related to collections work. New liaison opportunities were surfaced through a survey and through discussions with liaison team members. These included: support for online classes, teaching and co-teaching opportunities,community outreach, growth in Zotero support and needs, grants, accessibility services, Open Educational Resources, GIS, scholarly communications, identification of learning materials, and embedded librarianship

Experiential Learning in the Archives: Case Studies in Digital Humanities Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research

This article explores experiential learning in archives and special collections as an emerging area of digital humanities pedagogy within which librarians can take a central role. The case studies presented cover a range of undergraduate research projects that incorporated active and inquiry-based learning exercises with digital archives as a pedagogical approach to digital humanities instruction. The research projects include an honors project to create an online exhibit of medieval manuscript leaves, a capstone experience in the library to explore the relationship between archives and social justice, and a course project that used the University Archives to research the University of Scranton’s Black history

The Education of the Creative Writing Teacher: A Study of Conceptions of Creative Writing Pedagogy in Higher Education.

This qualitative study responds to ongoing discussions in creative writing studies about the lack of discipline-specific pedagogic training for graduate creative writing students. Since 1994, creative writing scholars have called for graduate programs to offer instruction in creative writing pedagogy in order to correct persistent misconceptions of creative writing as unteachable, prepare graduate students to teach undergraduate courses, and to suggest alternatives to the entrenched pedagogic practice of the traditional writer’s workshop. Currently, 33 U.S. graduate programs offer creative writing pedagogy courses, but these courses have gone virtually unexamined in the literature. Through phenomenographic interviews with seven creative writing pedagogy teachers at six U.S. graduate creative writing programs and an analysis of their course syllabi, this dissertation project investigated how instructors of those few courses offered in creative writing pedagogy prepare future instructors. This study discovered significant variation in creative writing pedagogy course parameters and in creative writing pedagogy teachers’ conceptions of teaching described in terms of five categories of pedagogic identity. This study suggests that creative writing pedagogy courses are unlikely to change conceptions or lead to innovation in pedagogic practice unless they address core conceptions of teachers and teaching and investigate alternative pedagogies. Guiding objectives for creative writing pedagogy courses drawn from all five pedagogic identities are identified. These objectives and the categories of pedagogic identity discovered in the data are intended to provide creative writing and creative writing pedagogy teachers, program administrators, and scholars with tools useful for reflection, evaluation, and planning for the future education of creative writing teachers.PhDEnglish and EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133407/1/rmanery_1.pd

A Sensory Education

A Sensory Education takes a close look at how sensory awareness is learned and taught in expert and everyday settings around the world. Anna Harris shows that our sensing is not innate or acquired, but in fact evolves through learning that is shaped by social and material relations. The chapters feature diverse sources of sensory education, including field manuals, mannequins, cookbooks and flavour charts. The examples range from medical training and forest bathing to culinary and perfumery classes. Offering a valuable guide to the uncanny and taken-for-granted ways in which adults are trained to improve their senses, this book will be of interest to disciplines including anthropology and sociology as well as food studies and sensory studies

Students at a Crossroads: TA Development Across Pedagogical and Curricular Contexts

A longstanding question in rhetoric and composition has been how to best educate composition graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs). Although many assume that writing centers are useful spaces for TAs to practice pedagogy and learn about writing processes in preparation for classroom teaching, recent scholarship complicates the claim that transfer from writing centers and/or practicums into composition classrooms is straightforward. Moreover, no study fully considers how the role of the writing center and teaching writing in English MA programs intersects with students’ development as teachers, writers, and scholars. This project brings together several strands of scholarship—the transferability of writing center experience into new contexts, the development of TAs, enculturation of new graduate students, and the MA in English curriculum—to respond to questions about both composition TA education and English masters-level education. This qualitative and two-year longitudinal study, based in critical and feminist paradigms, addresses the role of two teaching contexts, the writing center and composition classroom, in six English MA students’ development as teachers, writers, and scholars. Analysis of interviews, observations, and texts focuses on the interaction between these areas of development. The project found a disconnection between, on one hand, students’ goals, intellectual interests, and experiences and, on the other hand, the English MA program’s design and values. However, though the program’s design did not easily facilitate integration and sometimes resisted transfer, several participants managed to create significant and meaningful pathways across contexts for learning about teaching, writing, and research. Overall, the participants brought to their first-year classrooms from the writing center their value of individual constructive response to writing and relationship-building. Their work and presence in the writing center also helped them internalize (for themselves as writers) and teach (to others) complex concepts such as writing-as-a-social process, conventions of certain academic genres, and the affective needs of writers. In reflecting on these major findings, this project concludes with recommendations for reforming the curricula, including TA education and professionalization, in so-called “traditional” MA in English programs similar to the research site

Teaching​ Information Literacy and Writing Studies: Volume 2, Upper-Level and Graduate Courses

This volume, edited by Grace Veach, explores leading approaches to teaching information literacy and writing studies in upper-level and graduate courses. Contributors describe cross-disciplinary and collaborative efforts underway across higher education, during a time when fact or truth is less important than fitting a predetermined message. Topics include: working with varied student populations, teaching information literacy and writing in upper-level general education and disciplinary courses, specialized approaches for graduate courses, and preparing graduate assistants to teach information literacy.https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/pilh/1003/thumbnail.jp

Electracy in Praxis: Pedagogical Relays for an Undergraduate Writing Curriculum

The paradigm shift from traditional print literacy to the postmodern fragmentation, nonlinearity, and multimodality of writing for the Internet is realized in Gregory L. Ulmer’s electracy theory. Ulmer’s open invitation to continually invent the theory has resulted in the proliferation of relays, or weak models, by electracy advocates for understanding and applying the theory. Most relays, however, remain theoretical rather than practical for the writing classroom, and electracy instruction remains rare, potentially hindering the theory’s development. In this dissertation, I address the gap in electracy praxis by adapting, developing, and remixing relays for a functional electracy curriculum with first-year writing students in the Virginia Community College System as the target audience. I review existing electracy relays, pedagogical applications, and assessment practices – Ulmer’s and those of electracy advocates – before introducing my own relays, which take the form of modules. My proposed relay modules are designed for adaptability with the goals of introducing digital natives to the logic of new media and guiding instructors to possible implementations of electracy. Each module contains a justification, core competencies and learning outcomes, optional readings, an assignment with supplemental exercises, and assessment criteria. My Playlist, Transduction, and (Sim)ulation relays follow sound backward curricular design principles and emphasize core hallmarks of electracy as juxtaposed alongside literacy. This dissertation encourages the instruction of new media in Ulmer’s postmodern apparatus in which student invention via the articulation of fragments from various semiotic modes stems from and results in new methodologies for and understandings of digital communication

Musical futures as critical pedagogy: participatory case study research with generalist primary school teachers in the Republic of Ireland

Within the primary generalist context, issues inter alia of confidence, knowledge, beliefs and values, efficacy, and considerable variance in the musical backgrounds and experiences of teachers compound to problematise music education provision. Consequently, the provision of music education at the primary level is often sparse and inconsistent, relying largely on the background and existing experience of teachers and mediated through their beliefs and values about music and musicality. This thesis investigates the backgrounds, values, beliefs, and ideological positions of primary school teachers with regard to music education. It critically examines the impact of culture, society, and individual factors that affect how teachers implement the music curriculum in Ireland. Using this knowledge, the project engages teachers with Musical Futures – an international approach rooted in how popular musicians learn and spanning over two decades of research into informal learning. The pioneering work of Lucy Green (2002; 2008) in developing the Musical Futures approach has seen it grow exponentially since its inception in the UK in 2003 and has now been adapted by over 13,000 teachers internationally in Canada, Australia, Singapore, China, Cyprus and more recently, Ireland. Musical Futures is an approach or philosophy of music education that places the needs, interests, and abilities of students at the heart of the learning experience and orients intentionality towards playing and making music, with the teacher acting as a facilitator of the process of students’ musical discovery. While Musical Futures has been shown to have had a positive impact on promoting music education at the secondary level, to date, no comprehensive study within the Irish context has examined the impact of the initiative at the primary level in this manner. Through participatory case study research, the thesis investigates the cultural, structural, and agential conditions that affect generalist primary teachers’ experiences of music learning and teaching and the provision of music within the school community using the Musical Futures approach to learning and teaching. Participatory case study research presents a pragmatic and potentially empowering approach for generalist primary teachers and primary school communities to explore, assess and improve their own practices in non-formal music learning. The study worked with six primary schools and seven generalist teachers who engaged with Musical Futures approaches from a period of ten to thirty weeks with their students aged 8-12 years. Data collection tools included teacher interviews, lesson observations, focus group discussions with students, teacher and researcher reflective notes, and video recordings of lessons. The research intersects between the fields of sociology, education and music education, whereby the social reproduction of musical ability and musical values is critically examined. Findings demonstrate how informal learning and non-formal teaching pedagogies impacted practice at the level of the student, the classroom, the teacher, and their ideological position with regard to music and musicality. Using the theoretical lenses of Althusser and Bourdieu to frame the findings, the thesis traces shifts in the ideological position of the teacher with regard to music and musicality within their practice, highlighting the interplay between identic, efficacious and agentic factors in shaping the musical habitus of the generalist teacher, and proffering unique perspectives on informal learning pedagogies and generalist primary music education respectively.N

What\u27s In a Mode: Writing Program Administrators\u27 Perception, Value, and Implementation of Multimodality in First-Year Writing

This study focuses on writing program administrators’ (WPAs) views towards the definition and value of multimodality within their first-year writing program curriculum. Furthermore, the study seeks to discover how first-year writing programs go about integrating a multimodal focus, including support structures that are in place, such as training, equipment, technology, and other resources. Multimodality has become a popular topic of discussion for those in Rhetoric/Composition, yet its program-wide implementation remains low. This study updates a 2005 study published in Composition Studies, which provided an overview of what participants labeled as multimodal or new media for their Composition classroom instruction (Anderson, Atkins, Ball, Millar, Selfe, & Selfe) Much of the scholarship on multimodality has centered on defining the concept, proposing practical ways to incorporate multimodality into instruction, and analyzing the pros and cons of its incorporation. So far, not much scholarship has been directly targeted to WPAs. This project explores the theoretical approaches to multimodality through curriculum implementation by presenting an overview of what works for writing programs across institutional contexts, from doctoral granting institutions to associate’s colleges. This research was explored through the theoretical frameworks of antiracism and utilitarianism. Methodology included surveys and semi-structured interviews via Zoom. Data analysis was used to identify themes of student and faculty perception of multimodality, balancing expectations and faculty experiences, and labor conditions. Implications for navigating curriculum changes while balancing structural disadvantages within programs are discussed. Further research is warranted for expanding this research into even more diverse contexts

InEx: A Show About Inclusive Design

What does the term “inclusive design” mean to you? Broadly speaking, the colloquial definition of “inclusive design” is the intersection between “something that looks inclusive” and “something that looks like it was designed.” This stands in contrast to the more holistic approach which makes up the Inclusive Design program at OCAD University, whose program is focused from the start on seeking out and empowering marginalized, minoritized and historically underinvested communities through all phases of product design. The effect of this more superficial interpretation above taking hold is in shaping public perception. Embracing that superficiality by aligning the term to often fundamentally wrong-headed “design for” projects acts not only to further marginalize the purported users of these products, but to devalue the work of people trained in equity design, participatory action research and co-design, among other techniques and methodologies. Attention (and resources) flow to simple feel-good stories, at the expense of the more complex reality of inclusion and equity work in design roles: that they take time and effort, and don’t fit neatly in PR-friendly boxes. To address this gap in understanding, as well as the range of constituencies involved in defining, or at least narrowing down, the term “inclusive design,” I conducted a series of interviews with six professionals in fields exploring inclusion and equity in design. The resulting conversations showed an expansive set of lived experiences, personal insights into academia and industry, critique into the theory of its inclusive design and how it is claimed, and a look at where we go from here