Learning the Disciplines Through Linguistic Feedback: Contribution to the Development of a Discipline-Specific, Formative Evaluation of Students’ Assignments

Students write to learn. Besides, enculturation to the disciplinary discourse happens during writing. Feedback on the assignments from the students scaffolds students’ writing development and learning paths. However, knowledge about the relationship between language, including argumentation in the discipline, on one hand, and the content of the discipline, on the other, is needed. This article is based on a socio-cultural approach to writing in the disciplines, and theory on feedback, and focuses on the relationship between the meso-level of texts (sentences, clauses, word choice) and the content of the discipline.  We discuss how insight into the meso-level of texts may be used to improve and to develop feedback and formative evaluation. Cases from an intervention project in a Danish upper secondary school are included, and indicate that teachers and students assign a lower priority to feedback on the meso-level. This article claims that providing feedback on the meso-level strengthens writing development and students’ learning processes. To illustrate how this may be accomplished two texts are analyzed: one from a history class and one from a biology class

Disciplinary Writing Tutors at Work: A study of the Character of the Feedback Provided on Academic Writing at the BA Programmes at the Humanities Department

New students struggle to develop academic writing skills during transition to university. To meet this challenge, the Humanities department at the University of Southern Denmark implemented a research and development project to increase feedback to student writers. In the project, graduate students were trained as disciplinary writing tutors, and subsequently provided feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. The study presented in this article examines the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors. As researchers, we ask, “What characterises the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors?” The study is positioned in a sociocultural framework that draws on theories of disciplinary and academic literacy. Data was collected in four bachelor’s degree programmes and consists of the feedback given by the tutors and interviews with the tutors conducted at the end of the tutoring. Principal results indicate that the feedback on the students’ texts is distributed at the text layer of content and structure and the text layer of formalities. Feedback at the text layer of sentences is almost absent. Feedback on the writing and learning processes is limited. The discipline-specific feedback occurs as indications in the feedback to the BA students and is made clearer when comparing feedback in different programmes. The feedback the writing tutors provide demonstrates an understanding of academic writing as academic socialisation

Faglige skrivevejledere på studierne - Akademisk skrivning på universitetet.

I denne artikel beskrives en indsats, som har til hensigt at styrke bachelor-studerendes akademiske skriftlighed og faglige socialisering. Det sker gennem inddragelse af faglige skrivevejledere i den skriftlige og skrivedidaktiske praksis i undervisningen. De faglige skrivevejledere er kandidatstuderende på samme uddannelse som de BA-studerende, de skal vejlede, og de deltager indledningsvist i et kursus og varetager derefter vejledning. Indsatsen indgår i et større projekt om Akademisk Skriftlighed på Humaniora på SDU. Indledningsvis beskrives projektet og det samlede forløb. Herefter beskrives skriveindsatser på andre universiteter. Dernæst udfoldes den teoretiske forståelse af akademisk skrivning, som indsatsen baserer sig på. Nærmere beskrivelse af kurset og vejledningen samt evaluering af begge følger derefter. I den afsluttende konklusion reflekteres der over styrker og udviklingsmuligheder i indsatsen

Højere ordens-tænkning i samfundsfag anskuet i et elevperspektiv: Respons til Anders Stig Christensens & Nora Mathés artikel “Higher order thinking in social science education – an empirical study with classroom observations from Denmark and Norway”

Artiklen argumenterer for, at en udvidelse af den kognitive forståelse af højere ordens-tænkning i sociokulturel retning vil kunne styrke grundlaget for lærerens stilladsering og elevernes udvikling af højere ordens-tænkning i samfundsfagsundervisningen. Indledningsvist undersøges og diskuteres begrebet højere ordens-tænkning i et teoretisk perspektiv, hvilket leder frem til en forståelse af, at højere ordens-tænkning er produktiv (og altså ikke kun reproduktiv) tænkning, der omfatter både kritisk tænkning og problemløsning. Derefter argumenteres der for, at en undersøgende tilgang til undervisning styrker problemløsning og elevagens og potentialerne eksemplificeres gennem analyse af empiriske data fra samfundsfagsundervisningen i en dansk og en norsk udskolingsklasse. Afslutningsvis viser analyser af læreplanerne for samfundsfag, at det problemløsende aspekt af højere ordens-tænkning er nedtonet til fordel for kritisk tænkning, hvilket kunne indikere en fagspecifik forståelse af begrebet