DEVELOPING TERTIARY LITERACY PRACTICES IN CONTEXT:

INDUCTING FIRST YEAR STUDENTS INTO THE ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL GENRES OF THEIR CHOSEN COURSE

Kate Wilson & Linda DevereuxUniversity of Canberra

A COLLABORATION BETWEEN

Linda: Course convener, Literacy for Teachers

Linda.devereux@canberra.edu.au

Kate: Director, Academic Skills Program

Kate.wilson@canberra.edu.au

HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT

Massification of higher education increase in numbers of non-traditional students

Students less well prepared for academic discourse

Managerial environments emphasis on productivity Cost cutting

Pressures on staff and studentsImportance of first year (Kift, 2010)

TEACHER EDUCATION Future teachers of literacy (Zipin &

Brennan, 2006)

High proportion of low SES students (Louden & Rohl, 2007)

Professional vs academic preparation(Dovey, 2006)

OUR OWN UNIVERSITY Financial crisis – what’s new! Drop in entry requirements Cutbacks

Student/teacher ratios increasing Increasing class sizes Decreasing teaching hours per unit Only two assessment tasks per unit

BUT Additional funding for first year student

support ($5000 for Literacy for Teachers)

LITERACY FOR TEACHERS First year, first semester subject (early

childhood, primary and middle school students)

250 students High proportion of alternative entry pathways Content – Introduction to theory of literacy

and grammar Many students non readers (Nettles, 2006) An existing ‘soft’ and popular assessment

task – in-class story-telling

AIMS OF COLLABORATION

Enable students to make successful transition to university learning.

Offer inspiring content relevant to students’ profession.

Set students on pathway towards becoming excellent teachers and successful students themselves.

Survive!

PROFESSIONAL & ACADEMIC LITERACIES Northedge (2003 a & b) – everyday,

academic and professional literacies Delpit (1993), Gee (1990) – Discourses of

power Lea & Street (2006) – academic literacies -

beyond a normative approach Lillis & Scott (2007) – engendering a sense of

ownership and participation in academic literacies.

Lillis (2001) – talking students into ‘essayist literacy’

HIGH CHALLENGE HIGH SUPPORTHigh challengeLow supportFrustration

High challenge High supportEngagingHigh achievement

Low challenge Low supportDisengagementNo progress

Low challengeHigh supportBusy workBoredom

(Mariani, 1997)

HIGH CHALLENGE HIGH SUPPORT

Dumbing down Scaffolding up

HIGH CHALLENGE Content – introduce students to new and

challenging concepts Quantity, variety and complexity of

readings Assessment tasks:

In-class essay (Week 4) End of semester exam including three short

essays and text analysis questions. (dropped the popular story-telling assessment

>> tutorial task only!)

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

Managing student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

SequencingManaging student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

READING SCAFFOLDS

SequencingManaging student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

WRITING SCAFFOLDS

READING SCAFFOLDS

SequencingManaging student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

WRITING SCAFFOLDS

READING SCAFFOLDS

Sequencing

Notes pages

Managing student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

WRITING SCAFFOLDS

READING SCAFFOLDS

Sequencing

Notes pages

Adjunct workshops

Managing student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

WRITING SCAFFOLDS

READING SCAFFOLDS

Sequencing

Notes pages

Adjunct workshops

FEEDBACK ON WRITING

Managing student

expectations

AN INTEGRATED NETWORK OF SUPPORT

HIGH SUPPORT

WRITING SCAFFOLDS

READING SCAFFOLDS

Sequencing

Notes pages

Adjunct workshops

FEEDBACK ON WRITING

Individual meetings

Managing student

expectations

OUTCOMES Improved pass rate (81.82% in 2008; 91.34% in

2009) 100% agreed that they had learned new skills 99% satisfaction with adjunct workshops 97% thought notes pages were useful (‘enforced

study’) 94% agreed that deconstructing a previous essay

was helpful ‘I learned a completely new standard of literacy... It

was challenging yet extremely rewarding’ University unit satisfaction rating 88.9% (as

opposed to 76.4 for university as a whole) Generic skills scale 88.9% (compared with 71.7%)

CONCLUSION Despite the challenging new cohort and

managerial context, high challenge-high support scaffolding led to stimulating and satisfying outcomes

No need to give in to the ‘popularity factor’ in setting a high challenge-high support curriculum

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