Formative interaction in online writing: making disciplinary expectations explicit

About the book: How to provide appropriate feedback to students on their writing has long been an area of central significance to teachers and educators. Feedback in Second Language Writing: Context and Issues provides scholarly articles on the topic by leading researchers, who explore topics such as the socio-cultural assumptions that participants bring to the writing class; feedback delivery and negotiation systems; and the role of student and teacher identity in negotiating feedback and expectations. This text provides empirical data and an up-to-date analysis of the complex issues involved in offering appropriate feedback during the writing process

Writing for different disciplines

About the book: Student academic writing is at the heart of teaching and learning in higher education. Students are assessed largely by what they write, and need to learn both general academic conventions as well as disciplinary writing requirements in order to be successful in higher education. Teaching Academic Writing is a 'toolkit' designed to help higher education lecturers and tutors teach writing to their students. Containing a range of diverse teaching strategies, the book offers both practical activities to help students develop their writing abilities and guidelines to help lecturers and tutors think in more depth about the assessment tasks they set and the feedback they give to students. The authors explore a wide variety of text types, from essays and reflective diaries to research projects and laboratory reports. The book draws on recent research in the fields of academic literacy, second language learning, and linguistics. It is grounded in recent developments such as the increasing diversity of the student body, the use of the Internet, electronic tuition, and issues related to distance learning in an era of increasing globalisation

Approaches to teaching writing

About the book: Student academic writing is at the heart of teaching and learning in higher education. Students are assessed largely by what they write, and need to learn both general academic conventions as well as disciplinary writing requirements in order to be successful in higher education. Teaching Academic Writing is a 'toolkit' designed to help higher education lecturers and tutors teach writing to their students. Containing a range of diverse teaching strategies, the book offers both practical activities to help students develop their writing abilities and guidelines to help lecturers and tutors think in more depth about the assessment tasks they set and the feedback they give to students. The authors explore a wide variety of text types, from essays and reflective diaries to research projects and laboratory reports. The book draws on recent research in the fields of academic literacy, second language learning, and linguistics. It is grounded in recent developments such as the increasing diversity of the student body, the use of the Internet, electronic tuition, and issues related to distance learning in an era of increasing globalisation. Written by experienced teachers of writing, language, and linguistics, Teaching Academic Writing will be of interest to anyone involved in teaching academic writing in higher education

Spatial Analysis of Regional Inequalities in Turkey

In this paper, we examine regional inequalities in Turkey not only at the inter-provincial level but for three different regional definitions as well. The motivation draws on the findings of Gezici and Hewings(2001) that raised questions about inequalities not only between regions (inter-regional) but inequalities within each region. Hence, one contribution of this paper is to test the effects of aggregation and scale on the identification of regional inequalities. Spatial data analysis is employed to examine the spatial dimension of inequality in Turkey and the relationship between spatial dependence and the dynamics of growth. The results indicate that overall inequalities are decreasing, however spatial dependence is becoming more dominant. The Theil index indicates that interregional inequalities are increasing while intra-regional inequalities are declining for all spatial partitions from 1980 to 1997. Most developed provinces are enhancing overall inequalities, although there is some evidence of a spread effect on their neighbors.

Impacts of directed tutorial activities in computer conferencing: a case study

This paper describes a qualitative study of asynchronous electronic conferencing by three tutorial groups on the same postgraduate course (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide), forming part of an MA in Applied Linguistics (via Distance Education) at the Open University, UK. The groups varied in the degree to which the tutor participated in the discussion and in whether the tutor's input took the form of responding to student posts or the setting of tasks to scaffold the learners' development of academic skills. It is argued that the least interventionist strategy in terms of tutor response and task-setting resulted in the least productive conference discussion in terms of both communicative interaction and academic development, while a more interventionist role by the tutor depended for its success on characteristics of the tutor input and the task set

Transportation Costs, Increasing Returns and Regional Growth: An Interregional CGE Analysis

The purpose of this paper was threefold. First, we presented a flexible analytical framework, based on sound and consistent economic theory and data, in order to assess the likely state/sectoral/income effects of policy changes in Brazil. This is the first fully operational interstate CGE model implemented for the Brazilian economy, based on previous work by the author and associates. Among the features embedded in this framework, modeling of scale economies and transportation costs provides an innovative way of dealing explicitly with theoretical issues related to integrated regional systems. Results seemed to reinforce the need to better specifying spatial interactions in interregional CGE models. Second, in order to illustrate the analytical capability of the CGE module, we presented a simulation, which evaluated the regional impacts of a decrease in transportation costs, in accordance with recent policy developments in Brazil. Rather than providing a critical evaluation of this debate, we intended to emphasize the likely structural impacts of such policies. Third, previous diagnostics suggested the need to make a more in-depth analysis of trade flows between the Brazilian states, potentially leading to generalizations regarding the type of trade involved, changes in its composition through time as the Brazilian economy develops, and the implications of these structural differences in the coordination and implementation of development policies. In order to address this issue we gave interregional trade its proper place by taking into account a fully specified interstate system of accounts specially developed for the purpose of calibrating the CGE model.

Supporting undergraduate students’ acquisition of academic argumentation strategies through computer conferencing

Executive Summary Background This research grows out of work on the importance of argumentation in developingstudents’ critical abilities. It focuses attention on how students argue in computer mediated conferences as opposed to traditionalwritten assignments, investigating the way in which argumentation is realised within the relatively new context of computer conferencing which allows extended written discussions to take place overa period of weeks. Such text-based asynchronous conferencing is typically characterised by features of both spoken and written modes. Aims The main aims of the project were: • to investigate the argumentation strategies used in asynchronous text-based computer conferences; • to compare the argumentation strategies developed through conferencing with those used in the writing of academic assignments; • to examine the strategies used by tutors to encourage and facilitate argumentation in text-based computer conferences. Methods Data was collected over two years for the distance undergraduate course ‘Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Medicine’ at the Open University.Qualitative data was obtained through interviews with the course chair, tutors and students, and through a student questionnaire. Assignments and computer-mediated tutorials were collected for textual analysis, although the timing of the assignments meant that analysis has only just begun on the essay data. To analyse the argumentation in the computer conferences and assignments a method of categorising, coding and tracking argumentative discourse was developed building on earlier work by the authors. In addition, computational searches were carried out to compare linguistic features across conference and assignment data. Results In tutorial conferences, student discussion tended to take the form of collaborative co-construction of an argument through exchanging information and experience to substantiate a position. However, students were also prepared to challenge other viewpoints. In both cases, they frequently drew on personal and professional experience to support argument claims. The use of these strategies suggests that text-based conferencing lends itself to the collective combining of diverse sources of information, experiences and ideas. Conference discussions were often personalised with fewer explicit logical links marking argument structure. They were also marked by complexity of argument strands, many of which reached no conclusion. Preliminary analysis of argumentation in assignments suggests that this did not, however, adversely affect students’ ability to create a more traditional, linear argument in their essays. Further analysis will be undertaken to compare argumentation strategies across the two sets of data. Tutors expressed concern about levels of participation in the tutorial conferences, which varied quite considerably. They also felt uncertain about their own knowledge of appropriate pedagogic strategies which would encourage students to participate in a collaborative yet critical way, and tended to rely on strategies from face-to-face teaching. Analysis of the conference discussion showed that tutors made fewer claims than students and were also less likely to provide information in support of their claims. There was, therefore, little modelling by tutors of the basic type of argumentation that would be expected in formal written assignments.Despite these concerns, student responses indicated that having a tutor and a group of peers to interact with, or just to observe, was valued as a supportive feature of this form of distance learning. No clear picture arose of how to make conferencing more interactive for more students, and this reinforces the sense gained from the tutor interviews of the difficulty of proposing a model of tutoring in computer conferences that will necessarily engage all students or raise the level of discussion and debate. Conclusions Our study suggests that text-based conferencing has an important role to play in developing students’ argumentation strategies and understanding of academic discourse and conventions. In view of its hybrid nature, somewhere between spontaneous speech and formal academic writing, course designers and tutors should aim to take advantage of both aspects – on the one hand, the informal dialogic exchange of opinions and co-construction of knowledge, and on the other,the opportunity for consolidation, reflection and re-positioning. Our findings reinforce the view that students’ willingness to exchange ideas freely and openly is partly a consequence of how personally engaged, at ease and confident students feel with one another and their tutor. In particular, it seems that there is a role for the interpersonal and, to some extent, the chat and the frivolity, which in some other studies discussed in the literature review have been regarded as negative influences. Recommendations To facilitate students’ development of argumentation and learning more generally,tutors need greater awareness of the ways in which academic argumentation operates in computer conferencing as compared to written assignments. Since pedagogic strategies developed in other contexts may not transfer well to computer conferencing, there is a need for targeted professional development, focussing in particular on: • Choosing topics for discussion and designing effective task prompts; • Supporting weaker students; • Encouraging challenging of ideas; • Finding the right tone to facilitate peer discussions. Some specific suggestions are made within the report, but our recommendations at this stage remain tentative as we still have to complete the analysis of the assignment data and draw conclusions about the impact of the computer conferencing on the quality of written argumentation within this more formal context

Structural Convergence of the National Economies of Europe

Analysis of convergence has centered on movement of indices such as per capita incomes or welfare for countries or regions within countries. In this paper, the analysis focuses on the structure of economies in terms of the distribution of production across sectors and explores the implications of convergence of structure for a subset of EU countries. To assist in the exploration, some new methodology is introduced, based on the notion of a field of influence of change. A set of sensitivity indices and an associated importance matrix are constructed for a set of intercountry input-output tables. The results find that sectors at the European level are become more similar than the national economies as a whole.

Impacts of Reallocation of Resource Constraints on the Northeast Economy of Brazil

The present paper explores the role of water and energy resource constraints and allocation on the Northeast Brazil economy. The analysis centered on the creation of an intergrated model in which an econometric-input-output model was linked with a linear programming optimization model for resource allocation. Over the period 1999-2012, the impact on the six agricultural sectors was to reduce their output and employment by 15% annually. The reduction in employment in the rest of the economy was a little over 1% annually. However, since the agricultural sectors continue to employ a significant percentage of the labor force, the aggregate loss of employment amounted to 6% of the total regional employment on average, translating into 1 million jobs annually. When water allocation and energy resource allocations are considered simultaneously, the re-allocations are more limited, resulting in a loss of 0.78 million jobs annually. These results suggest the need for an active link between policy making and economic development when resource constraints are present. Some balance has to be provided between allocation and reallocation on the one hand perhaps driven by concerns with economic efficiency against anticipated losses of employment for part of the labor force with few other alternatives.