How reflective exchanges of second language students can have an impact on their learning outcomes and on future curriculum planning in a tertiary environment

Teaching academic English and study skills at tertiary level can be a restricted and pressured environment due to factors such as heavy course content, large numbers of students or lack of time to teach all areas that are needed. Situations like this often mean there is little opportunity for students to voice personal opinions on the content and method of how they are being taught in ESL oriented papers or their mainstream majors. It also means limited chances for them to articulate and share personal learning experiences and cultural backgrounds to allow them to extend their knowledge of their present situations. This paper describes how giving students time for reflection on these areas in an undergraduate second language academic discourse paper allowed them to contemplate learning and studying strategies for this and other papers they were engaged with. The outcomes for them included an increase in confidence to express themselves to their peers, a realisation that their previous learning and cultural backgrounds had value and use to their New Zealand experiences and a greater understanding of some basic tertiary processes. Web conferencing was used to support their reflection process. The results of these reflective exchanges for the tutor has had an impact on current and future curriculum design and led to the compiling of a list of simple but important factors that could of be of use to the wider tertiary community in their teaching of non-English speaking background students

Sociocultural theory and the teaching of process writing: The scaffolding of learning in a university context

This paper considers how independent and interdependent learning can be fostered through a process approach to the teaching of writing. It does so by presenting the theoretical rational which underlies a university academic skills programme. Drawing on reports of this programme which have been published elsewhere (e.g., Brine & Campbell, 2002), it is a case study illustrating how scaffolding can be effected by teachers and students. The paper begins by briefly reviewing three central concepts of sociocultural theory: the zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and appropriation. Attention is then turned to a consideration of writing as a collaborative process rather than as a product of solitary endeavour. Details are provided about a university course which applies sociocultural concepts to the adoption of a process approach to EAP writing. Attention is then given to the ways by which six principles of scaffolding (Van Lier, 1996) are applied throughout the course. Firstly, various forms of tutor scaffolding are outlined, and then a short sample of transcript data illustrates how students on this course can work collaboratively to co-construct texts and scaffold each other's learning. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the broader pedagogical implications of sociocultural theory to the teaching of writing

Pyroxene low-temperature plasticity and fragmentation as a record of seismic stress evolution in the lower crust

Seismic rupture of the lower continental crust requires a high failure stress, given large lithostatic stresses and potentially strong rheologies. Several mechanisms have been proposed to generate high stresses at depth, including local amplification of stress heterogeneities driven by the geometry and rheological contrast within a shear zone network. High dynamic stresses are additionally associated with the subsequent slip event, driven by propagation of the rupture tips. In the brittle upper crust, fracturing of the damage zone is the typical response to high stress, but in the lower crust, the evolution of combined crystal plastic and brittle deformation may be used to constrain in more detail the stress history of rupture, as well as additonal parameters of the deformation environment. It is crucial to understand these deep crustal seismic deformation mechanisms both along the fault and in the wall rock, as coseismic damage is an important (and sometimes the only) method of significantly weakening anhydrous and metastable lower crust, whether by grain size reduction or by fluid redistribution.A detailed study of pyroxene microstructures are used here to characterise the short-term evolution of high stress deformation experienced on the initiation of lower crustal earthquake rupture. These pyroxenes are sampled from the pseudotachylyte-bearing fault planes and damage zones of lower crustal earthquakes linked to local stress amplifications within a viscous shear zone network, recorded in an exhumed granulite-facies section in Lofoten, northern Norway. In orthopyroxene, initial low-temperature plasticity is overtaken by pulverisation-style fragmentation, generating potential pathways for hydration and reaction. In clinopyroxene, low-temperature plasticity remains dominant throughout but the microstructural style changes rapidly through the pre- and co-seismic periods from twinning to undulose extinction and finally the formation of low angle boundaries. We present here an important record of lower crustal short-term stress evolution along seismogenic faults

Constraints on wave drag parameterization schemes for simulating the quasi-biennial oscillation. Part II: combined effects of gravity waves and equatorial planetary waves

This study examines the effect of combining equatorial planetary wave drag and gravity wave drag in a one-dimensional zonal mean model of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). Several different combinations of planetary wave and gravity wave drag schemes are considered in the investigations, with the aim being to assess which aspects of the different schemes affect the nature of the modeled QBO. Results show that it is possible to generate a realistic-looking QBO with various combinations of drag from the two types of waves, but there are some constraints on the wave input spectra and amplitudes. For example, if the phase speeds of the gravity waves in the input spectrum are large relative to those of the equatorial planetary waves, critical level absorption of the equatorial planetary waves may occur. The resulting mean-wind oscillation, in that case, is driven almost exclusively by the gravity wave drag, with only a small contribution from the planetary waves at low levels. With an appropriate choice of wave input parameters, it is possible to obtain a QBO with a realistic period and to which both types of waves contribute. This is the regime in which the terrestrial QBO appears to reside. There may also be constraints on the initial strength of the wind shear, and these are similar to the constraints that apply when gravity wave drag is used without any planetary wave drag. In recent years, it has been observed that, in order to simulate the QBO accurately, general circulation models require parameterized gravity wave drag, in addition to the drag from resolved planetary-scale waves, and that even if the planetary wave amplitudes are incorrect, the gravity wave drag can be adjusted to compensate. This study provides a basis for knowing that such a compensation is possible

Constraints on wave drag parameterization schemes for simulating the quasi-biennial oscillation. Part I: gravity wave forcing

Parameterization schemes for the drag due to atmospheric gravity waves are discussed and compared in the context of a simple one-dimensional model of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). A number of fundamental issues are examined in detail, with the goal of providing a better understanding of the mechanism by which gravity wave drag can produce an equatorial zonal wind oscillation. The gravity wave–driven QBOs are compared with those obtained from a parameterization of equatorial planetary waves. In all gravity wave cases, it is seen that the inclusion of vertical diffusion is crucial for the descent of the shear zones and the development of the QBO. An important difference between the schemes for the two types of waves is that in the case of equatorial planetary waves, vertical diffusion is needed only at the lowest levels, while for the gravity wave drag schemes it must be included at all levels. The question of whether there is downward propagation of influence in the simulated QBOs is addressed. In the gravity wave drag schemes, the evolution of the wind at a given level depends on the wind above, as well as on the wind below. This is in contrast to the parameterization for the equatorial planetary waves in which there is downward propagation of phase only. The stability of a zero-wind initial state is examined, and it is determined that a small perturbation to such a state will amplify with time to the extent that a zonal wind oscillation is permitted

The Nusfjord exhumed earthquake source (Lofoten, Norway): deep crustal seismicity driven by bending of the lower plate during continental collision

The origin of earthquakes in the lower crust at depth of 20-40 km, where dominantly ductile deformation is expected, is highly debated. Exhumed networks of lower crustal coeval pseudotachylytes (quenched frictional melt produced during seismic slip) and mylonites (produced during the post- and interseismic viscous creep) provide a snapshot of the earthquake cycle at anomalously deep conditions in the crust. Such natural laboratories offer the opportunity to investigate the origin and the tectonic setting of lower crustal earthquakes.The Nusfjord East shear zone network (Lofoten, northern Norway) represents an exhumed lower crustal earthquake source, where mutually overprinting mylonites and pseudotachylytes record the interplay between coseismic slip and viscous creep (Menegon et al., 2017; Campbell and Menegon, 2019). The network is well exposed over an area of 4 km2 and consists of three main intersecting sets of ductile shear zones ranging in width from 1 cm to 1 m, which commonly nucleate on former pseudotachylyte veins. Mutual crosscutting relationships indicate that the three sets were active at the same time. Amphibole-plagioclase geothermobarometry yields consistent P-T estimates in all three sets (700-750 °C, 0.7-0.8 GPa). The shear zones separate relatively undeformed blocks of anorthosite that contain pristine pseudotachylyte fault veins. These pseudotachylytes link adjacent or intersecting shear zones, and are interpreted as fossil seismogenic faults representing earthquake nucleation as a transient consequence of ongoing, localised aseismic creep along the shear zones (Campbell et al., under review).The coeval activity of the three shear zone sets is consistent with a local extensional setting, with a bulk vertical shortening and a horizontal NNW-SSE extension. This extension direction is subparallel to the convergence direction between Baltica and Laurentia during the Caledonian Orogeny, and with the dominant direction of nappe thrusting in the Scandinavian Caledonides. 40Ar‐39Ar dating of localized upper amphibolite facies shear zones in the Nusfjord area with similar orientation to the Nusfjord East network yielded an age range of 433–413 Ma (Fournier et al., 2014; Steltenpohl et al., 2003), which indicates an origin during the collisional (Scandian) stage of the Caledonian Orogeny.We propose that the Nusfjord East brittle-viscous extensional shear zone network represents the rheological response of the lower crust to the bending of the lower plate during continental collision. (Micro)seismicity in the lower crust in collisional orogens is commonly localized in the lower plate and has extensional focal mechanisms. This has been tentatively correlated with slab rollback and bending of the lower plate (Singer et al., 2014). We interpret the Nusfjord East shear zone network as the geological record of this type of lower crustal seismicity