Our door is always open : Aligning Literacy LearningPractices in Writing Programs and Residential LearningCommunities

Writing studies has considered college students\u27 literacy development as a chronological progression and as influenced by their off-campus connections to various cultural and professional communities. This project considers students\u27 literacy development across disciplines and university activity systems in which they\u27re simultaneously involved to look at the (missed) opportunities for fostering transfer across writing courses and residential learning communities as parallel—but rarely coordinated—high-impact practices. Rather than calling for the development of additional programs, I argue for building/strengthening connections between these existing programs by highlighting shared learning outcomes focused on literacy skills development and learning how to learn

Just a Paycheck? Assessing Student Benefits of Work on Faculty Research Projects

The benefits that students gain from designing and implementing their own independent undergraduate research projects is often presented as a valuable step in their academic career, and a stepping stone to graduate school success. However, it is not clear what benefits students receive when working as undergraduate research assistants on faculty research projects where they, the students, have little or no input into the project or its design. This paper reports on a survey of undergraduate students who participated as wage laborers on two separate faculty-directed research projects. The results of the study suggest that students gain valuable knowledge and skills that serve as constructive preparation for work, personal lives and graduate school careers; in addition, their participation in research enhances their overall undergraduate experience.student learning, assessment, undergraduate research, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

An Examination of the Application of Problem Based Learning: A Valuable Tool to Improve Student Learning or a Challenging Teaching Adjustment?

Pedagogic transitions towards constructivist, student-centred learning models have increased applications of active teaching methods such as problem-based learning (PBL), but little research has explored student perceptions of PBL applications within undergraduate geography curricula. This paper aims to determine whether PBL applications are beneficial to student learning and development; and to determine whether PBL applications such as a migration management case study are suitable for continued use within the undergraduate geography degree programme at the University of Hertfordshire. This study examines the utility of PBL by reviewing existing education and discipline specific literature and by studying geography student reflections of a PBL migration management activity. The findings suggest that undergraduate geography students are largely receptive to PBL applications and find the inclusion of PBL activities within lectures to be useful and engaging. Although challenges can be associated with implementing PBL into higher education curricula, these challenges can be alleviated by using recommendations for best practice and it appears that the advantages of PBL applications for student learning and development strongly outweigh initial adjustment challenges. The predominantly positive student feedback demonstrates that the PBL migration case study is a beneficial addition to the geography degree programme at the University of Hertfordshire and that further applications of PBL within the curricula could be extremely valuable for undergraduate geography students

An investigation into ESL students' academic writing needs : the case of agriculture students in Egerton University, Kenya

This research is aimed at establishing academic writing needs of first year undergraduate agriculture students in an English as a Second Language context. The research was motivated by the need to design subject-specific teaching materials for the Communication Skills (CS) course in one of the Kenyan universities. The study was informed by concepts of discourse communities, audience expectations and language use from social construction theory, and insights from the principles of needs analysis and genre research in ESP. These concepts were used to develop a conceptual framework for pinpointing the writing requirements within the terms of the institutional culture. Research methods used included questionnaire surveys and investigation of institutional documents. An analysis was also done of samples of students' actual writing to determine their linguistic and communicative competence. The results of the study indicate that in the first year, students do not study one discipline called 'agriculture'. Instead, they study a wide range of courses half of which consist of basic courses in the sciences from which specific disciplinary requirements can be distinguished. It was also established that students are expected to produce an extensive variety of types of written work all of which are assessed and account for their final grades. The research also shows that students' proficiency in writing in content areas is limited and that they lack awareness of the conventions of scientific writing. There is also evidence that students do not always appreciate the nature of the tasks they are asked to undertake or the audience addressed

Every student counts: promoting numeracy and enhancing employability

This three-year project investigated factors that influence the development of undergraduates’ numeracy skills, with a view to identifying ways to improve them and thereby enhance student employability. Its aims and objectives were to ascertain: the generic numeracy skills in which employers expect their graduate recruits to be competent and the extent to which employers are using numeracy tests as part of graduate recruitment processes; the numeracy skills developed within a diversity of academic disciplines; the prevalence of factors that influence undergraduates’ development of their numeracy skills; how the development of numeracy skills might be better supported within undergraduate curricula; and the extra-curricular support necessary to enhance undergraduates’ numeracy skills

Vocational ladders or crazy paving? Making your way to higher levels

The report is part of a suite of research projects on apprenticeships under the overall theme of 'making work-based learning work'. The aim of this particular study was to explore the role of level 3 vocational qualifications and work-based learning, including Modern Apprenticeships, as progression routes to higher education and to higher-level knowledge and skills more generally. The study comprised secondary analysis of national datasets, and an exploration of supply, demand and progression patterns in four contrasting employment sectors, focusing on enablers and inhibitors of work-based education and training