Redesigning a Discipline-Specific Writing Assignment to Improve Writing on an EMI Programme of Engineering

English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education presents challenges at many different levels for educators and students. One of the challenges is disciplinary writing, as students typically study disciplinary content through, and also write in, English as a second or a foreign language. The present, exploratory intervention study uses the redesign of a writing assignment in a Master’s level engineering course at a Swedish university to investigate challenges of disciplinary writing in an EMI context. The study describes how collaboration between content and communication staff helped unpack some of the challenges that students faced. The results show that the students’ texts improved and that the redesign helped them to better adjust to a genre partially new to them. The study also underscores the value for programmes to have a clear plan for writing. The planning is likely to benefit from collaboration between disciplinary and communication faculty, as these participants bring different knowledge to the process

Scaffolding Facilitates Inter-School Collaborative Learning: A Case Study in China

Inter-school collaborative learning (ICL) has significant meaning for bridging the educational gap between urban and rural schools. This study examines the effectiveness of three scaffolding conditions on learning outcomes in an ICL environment. One urban primary school and one rural school were selected to participate in the inter-school collaboration. Three 6th grade classes in each school were randomly assigned to one of three scaffolding conditions: lowest-coercion scaffolding (class A), highest-coercion scaffolding (class B), or adaptive scaffolding (class C). Detailed scaffolds were designed and developed to support ICL from 8 dimensions, including 18 strategies and 27 scaffolding tools. Both process data and summative data were collected to measure the learning outcomes at both group and individual levels. Results showed that pupils with highest-coercion or adaptive scaffoldings (in class B and class C) performed better than those with lowest-coercion scaffolding (in class A). Questionnaire results also supported the effectiveness of scaffolds on inter-school collaborative learning. Findings also revealed that middle-coercion adaptive scaffolding was significantly most supportive for urban school while highest-coercion scaffolding was most suitable for rural school

Removing Barriers to WL Teacher Certification: A Closer Look at edTPA Ratings

Both within the field of world language (WL) teacher education and across teacher education in other disciplines, critiques of the edTPA have increased over the past several years. In WL language education, scholars have identified issues related to raters\u27 use of edTPA rubrics and a serious lack of transparency about rater expertise. To better understand this issue, this study examined the problematic WL edTPA rubrics 8, 9, and 12 to compare the official performance ratings of eight candidates in one WL education program in the Southeastern United States with their performance as determined by three experts using detailed content analyses of the portfolios submitted. Each portfolio was coded, using an a-priori coding structure guided by the edTPA performance descriptors and rubrics. The findings revealed that edTPA rater expertise is a significant issue that must be unveiled because it represents another critical barrier for novices entering the profession during a severe WL teacher shortage. Based on the findings and in conjunction with the previous research, we do not recommend that states use the WL edTPA as a consequential assessment for certificatio

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Straddling two worlds: How academic literacy can inform discipline-specific teaching

Academic literacy and discipline specific teaching have often been separated in Australian higher education settings, where academic skills advisors facilitate academic literacy skills whilst disciplinary specific academics deliver content area knowledge and skills. This superficial separation has often created situations where academic literacy advisors have had to address student learning issues without a clear understanding of subject specific knowledge and assessment requirements. The current article explores the greater integration of the teaching of academic skills and content area knowledge through an autoethnography, in which two professional roles merge. This study documents an advisor’s attempts to use writing activities to scaffold discipline specific teaching within a Bachelor of Primary Teacher Education subject at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). It illustrates how academic advisors acquire a unique insight into effective teaching strategies as they directly address students’ learning needs

Making productive use of exemplars: Peer discussion and teacher guidance for positive transfer of strategies

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Reflective Thinking in Elementary Preservice Teacher Portfolios: Can It Be Measured and Taught?

This study examined whether teacher portfolios can be validly and reliably assessed by investigating the effect of an instructional tool on increasing the level of reflective thinking in elementary preservice teachers’ portfolios. It also examined whether reflective thinking in preservice teachers’ electronic portfolios represented sufficient quality to make them useful in practice. The Rubric for Evaluating Portfolio Reflective Thinking instrument developed for this study demonstrated moderate levels of interrater reliability (r = .66) and sufficient content validity to be used to measure reflective thinking. Also, members of the treatment group scored significantly higher on five of the six portfolio domains and on the total portfolio reflective score than members of the control group. Overall percentage levels of reflection were substantially higher for the treatment group (47%) than for the control group (6.7%). Implications for practice and further research are provided