Literacy Management

Anlässlich des Jubiläums findet am 14./15.11.2014 eine Tagung am SchreibCenter in Klagenfurt (Österreich) statt. Weitere Informationen dazu auf der Homepage.

Da ich den Aufbau dieses Schreibzentrums begleitet habe, freue ich mich natürlich ganz besonders über dieses Ereignis! Aus der Sicht von Literacy Management ist das Klagenfurter SchreibCenter eine echte Erfolgsgeschichte und best practice im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes. Bedarfsforschung und Wirkungsforschung am SchreibCenter haben im Verlaufe der Jahre zu einem für die diversen Zielgruppen an der Uni Klagenfurt und darüber hinaus (Stadt, Region) maßgeschneidertes Angebot geführt (s. Homepage). Das wiederum hat zu nachhaltigen Veränderungen in der akademischen Schreibkultur der Uni als Ganzes geführt. Bestimmt wird davon noch nicht jede Lehrveranstaltung oder jede Lehrperson bzw. jeder Student/jede Studentin betroffen sein. Aber mehr als ein Anfang wurde gemacht und Veränderungen wurden auf den Weg gebracht, die keiner der Beteiligten mehr missen möchte. Ein ganz konkretes, aktuelles Arbeitsergebnis des SchreibCenters besteht im neu eröffneten LeseSchreibZentrum an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Kärnten, dem ersten in der österreichischen LehrerInnenausbildung. Die PH Kärnten konnte bereits in der Konzeptionsphase von den Erfahrungen des SchreibCenters profitieren. Inzwischen wird das LeseSchreibZentrum an der PH von einer Absolventin der Schreibberaterausbildung am SchreibCenter der Uni Klagenfurt geleitet. Weitere Einrichtungen dieser Art deuten sich an anderen Pädagogischen Hochschulen Österreichs an. Daraus ergibt sich eine ideale Konstellation für die langfristige Ausbildung und Begleitung von Schreibenden/Lesenden und die Etablierung einer anderen literalen Kultur an den Schulen und Hochschulen in Österreich.

  Peer Tutoring wird an deutschen Hochschulen zunehmend wichtiger. In vielen Schreibzentren spielen Peer Tutor*innen eine zentrale Rolle und tragen mit großem Engagement und hoher Eigenverantwortung zum Gelingen von zahlreichen Projekten und der Etablierung einer neuen Schreibkultur an der Hochschule bei. Die individuellen Angebote wie Schreibberatungen, zahlreiche Kurse und Workshops zum akademischen Schreiben, neue fachnahe Lehr-Lern-Formate wie Writing Fellows oder die Repräsentation eines Schreibzentrums nach außen wären ohne sie kaum realisierbar.

Mit der gestiegenen Präsenz von Peer Tutor*innen innerhalb ihrer Universitäten ändern sich jedoch auch ihre Positionen im Studienalltag. Je mehr Aufgaben sie selbstverantwortlich übernehmen, desto schwieriger wird es, von ihrem Umfeld ‘auf Augenhöhe’ wahrgenommen zu werden. Dies kann sowohl in ihrer Arbeit mit anderen Studierenden, die sie als Autoritäten wahrnehmen, oder Lehrenden, die plötzlich höhere Erwartungen an sie zu haben scheinen, geschehen, und Auswirkungen auf ihre Rolle als Student*innen haben. Studentische Mitarbeiter*innen von Schreibzentren finden sich also verstärkt in Situationen wieder, in denen sie gleichermaßen als Lernende und als Mit-Lehrende auftreten. Auf der Frankfurter Peer Tutor*innen-Konferenz sollen diese Herausforderungen sichtbar gemacht und diskutiert werden.

Daneben soll es auch weiterhin um verschiedene Ausbildungsmodelle von Peer Tutor*innen im deutschsprachigen Raum gehen.. Gerne könnenKonzepte vorgestellt und mit anderen Ansätzen verglichen werden. Außerdem möchten wir Peer Tutor*innen die Gelegenheit zur Vernetzung geben. Innerhalb der drei Konferenztage möchten wir den bestmöglichen Raum für Vorträge, Workshops und Möglichkeiten zum Dialog bieten, damit wir uns über die Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunftsperspektiven von Peer Tutor*innen an Schreibzentren austauschen können.

Informationen zu Übernachtungsmöglichkeiten, Anreise, öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln, Lageplänen usw. gibt es hier Ebenfalls zu finden ist dort der Call for Paper für die Konferenz.

The WDHE Network’s listserv and biennial conference have been integral to charting the development of Academic Writing pedagogy and theory in UK universities, and this year’s conference, hosted by the Centre for Academic Writing at Coventry University, will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Founding of the WDHE Network. The conference will provide an important opportunity to reflect on how and why the field of Academic Writing has grown, and to consider national and international collaborations with colleagues and ‘Future Directions in Academic Writing’.

Featured Speakers:
Richard Andrews: ‘Writing in Higher Education: what is happening, and what are the possibilities?’
Diane Pecorari: ‘If there’s nothing new under the sun, how can plagiarism research make an original contribution to the future teaching of academic writing?
Conference Themes:
·         Reflecting on past, present, and future directions for Academic Writing pedagogy
and research
·         New forms of academic writing
·         Affective domains of student writing
·         Writing and technology (e.g. teaching and tutoring online, digitization)
·         Multilingualism and Academic Writing
·         Working with students or with staff on writing development
·         Multimodality and Academic Writing
·         Innovations in Academic Writing teaching and tutoring
·         Influencing institutional policies on Academic Writing development
·         Plagiarism and proofreading policies and research
·         Careers in Academic Writing development and research
Longstanding WDHE Network colleagues as well as those who are new to Academic Writing teaching and research are welcome. The conference is open to all who have an interest in Academic Writing development.
See the conference website for details: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/events/WDHE2014/

Keynote: Bret Eynon and Laura Gambino, leaders of the FIPSE-funded Connect to Learning Project, will present the vitally important results of this 3-year Project:
What difference does ePortfolio make? And what does it take for ePortfolio to make a difference?  The findings from the Connect to Learning (C2L) project suggest that sophisticated ePortfolio practice improves student success, deepens student learning and catalyzes transformative institutional change. Data from a constellation of C2L campuses demonstrates that reflective ePortfolio practice helps students engage more deeply and take ownership of their learning, supporting advanced levels of student success as measured by GPA, retention and graduation.  C2L’s Catalyst for Learning resource site presents evidence from across the network, documenting the combination of classroom pedagogies, professional development, and outcomes assessment strategies that help successful ePortfolio initiatives build deep learning and scale their projects, nurturing the growth of campus-wide integrated learning cultures.  Effective ePortfolio initiatives pursue an eco-systemic approach, focusing on multiple levels of institutional life, from classrooms to departments and other institutional structures.  Linking integrative social pedagogy with professional development, outcomes assessment and multi-faceted scaling up strategies, successful ePortfolio initiatives catalyze a cross-campus integrated learning culture. 

More information about the conference and registration: www.aaeebl.org/?page=2014annualconference

Writing center people enjoy writing—and writing about writing, about writing centers, and about tutoring writing.  That’s one reason why we’re starting a blog so that people all over the globe can interact, post comments, offer useful information, ask questions, comment on each other’s posts, tell us about conferences others might want to attend, list websites where you found information that helps you and your tutors and/or teachers, and so on. Another reason is that in most cases, writing center people are the only ones doing such work at their institution. That can be a bit lonely. So we have to reach across borders to meet each other. This blog will provide the space to do that if you read and post on it.

Muriel Harris, Writing Lab Newsletter, Editor

The early-bird deadline for the AAEEBL Annual ePortfolio Conference has been extended from June 21 to June 28.  We hope this helps, especially for those who are also looking to join AAEEBL at this time as institutional members and who need the extra time. 

Conference landing page — www.aaeebl.org/2013conference — from here, you’ll find links to Monday workshops, registration, the full conference schedule, travel information and more. 

Regarding our generous conference discounts: Do you plan to join AAEEBL as an institutional member, or has your institution recently joined? Please remember that it takes a few days to get the institution’s name in the drop-down menu for Annual Conference registration.  We do not have a mechanism that automatically populates the drop-down menu with new member institutions, so if you are planning to join to gain both the early-bird and the member discount for the conference, allow 2-3 days prior to the June 28 early-bird deadline so we can send word about your membership to the folks who manage registration who will add your institution to the drop-down menu.

To join, go to https://aaeebl.americommerce.com/store/c/18-AAEEBL-Memberships.aspx. 

Why join?  Just for the conference discounts?  We hope not!  AAEEBL provides services to the full eportfolio community, mostly for free.  When you join, you get a return on your investment — or more — through conference discounts, but your institution’s membership also helps to keep AAEEBL services available and relevant.  This coming year, we are moving toward what we hope will be a quantum leap forward with our new Web platform and new programming.  We need you and your support, and we hope you find AAEEBL helpful and benefit from our services. 

July 8 is the AAEEBL Annual ePortfolio Research Survey deadline! The AAEEBL Annual ePortfolio Research Survey is in full swing, and we’ll share preliminary findings at the Annual Conference in Boston.  To read more about the research, go to http://www.aaeebl.org/research, or go use this quick link to go directly to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013aaeebl-survey to respond to the survey. 

Please share about this research with colleagues of you’re at an institution and clients if you are one of our corporate partners.  Do us a huge favor, and tweet it and post it to any social media site of your choosing.  AAEEBL is mightily engaged in social media marketing and sharing, but, as you know, the more help, the better the result!   Please lend a hand by sharing and thereby furthering our research efforts related to eportfolio implementation and learning outcomes.

Finally, news you’re all waiting for: AAEEBL’s Twitter hashtag for the 2013 Annual ePortfolio Conference will be #aaeebl2013.  We’re looking for a lively discussion from the conference workshops, plenaries and concurrent sessions.  The Conference Engagement Team will take a lead and encourage all attendees to join in the conversation!

On behalf of the University of Minnesota, I enthusiastically invite you to peruse the IWAC 2014 CFP  which appears below, attached, and on the conference website.  As the summer moves forward, we will continue to add programmatic and logistical information to the website, so continue to check in with us.  We look forward to a lively and interactive series of discussions, presentations and demonstrations focused on current shifts and changes taking place within the fields of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Writing in the Disciplines (WID), Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC), writing/literacy pedagogy, writing assessment, and administering change in educational institutions. 

A while ago, the WAC Clearinghouse, a partner of the International Literacy Management initiative, announced three new or re-published books that are closely related to literacy management issues. All of the books below are available for free download in PDF format and soon also in ePub format at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/

Book 1: The edited collection, Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places, is available on the Clearinghouse at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/wpww and at Parlor Press at http://www.parlorpress.com/wpww/ (for those of you who would like to purchase a print copy). The collection (first published in 2012) is edited by Chris Thaiss, Gerd Bräuer, Paula Carlino, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, and Aparna Sinha. Emerging from the International WAC/WID Mapping Project, this collection of essays is meant to inform decision-making by teachers, program managers, and college/university administrators considering how writing can most appropriately be defined, managed, funded, and taught in the places where they work. Writing Programs Worldwide offers an important global perspective to the growing research literature in the shaping of writing programs.

Book 2: The High School Writing Center: Establishing and Maintaining One, edited by Pamela B. Farrell (Childers) is now available at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/hswc/ courtesy of the partnership between WAC Clearinghouse and NCTE. This collection, which is part of the Landmark Publications series, offers twenty-two articles that provide practical information on establishing a writing center and monitoring its daily operation. The collection addresses the issue of establishing and maintaining a successful high school writing lab/center. Since its first appearance in 1989 in print, this book has served hundreds of high schools around the Globe as a compass for setting up writing centers in institutions of secondary education.

Book 3: Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn Across the Disciplines, edited by Anne Ruggles Gere in 1985, is available at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/sawdust/ courtesy of the partnership between WAC Clearinghouse and NCTE.. This book is also part of the Landmark Publications series. It offers  a response to Arthur N. Applebee’s call for “more situations in which writing can serve as a tool for learning rather than as a means to display acquired knowledge” (1982). Gere brings together teacher-authors from a wide variety of disciplines to detail how they have successfully used writing activities to improve their students’ comprehension–without creating significant grading burdens for themselves.

Book 4 (just added to the WAC Clearinghouse collection in April 2013): Programs and Practices: Writing Across the Secondary School Program, edited in 1994 by Pamela B. Farrell-Childers, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Art Young, is available at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/programs/ courtesy of the partnership between WAC Clearinghouse and NCTE.

This collection addresses how writing across the curriculum has been incorporated into schoolwide, districtwide, and statewide programs. The editors and contributors show how WAC efforts, and particularly those that begin with small groups of teachers working in a limited number of classrooms, can serve as the catalyst for systemic change. The essays explore the philosophical foundations for WAC programs and offer a number of specific classroom applications that provide the explanatory power of practical experience. Readers of this collection will discover how others have nurtured WAC through the creation of environments in which WAC becomes central to an institution’s educational mission. They will also discover how individual schools, school districts, and state agencies have worked to institutionalize WAC.

The Association for Learning Development in Higher Education will be celebrating its 10th annual conference in Plymouth in March 2013 and we invite you to join us in this celebration.

Our 2013 conference will provide an opportunity to recognise achievements in the field of learning development. We will look ahead and ask how we are adapting to the ever changing landscape of higher education; responding to strategic changes in government policy and funding and leading innovation in educative practice, particularly through the use of new technologies and supporting creative learning and teaching practices.

Learning Development and the Day of the Cyborgs: Evolution, Revolution or Surrender?
For over twenty years, learning developers have led the way in championing student-centred approaches to higher education. Now, when the sector is being called to put ‘students at the heart of the system’, it is timely to take stock of what has been achieved. How far have we come in changing conceptions of learning and learners? Have the fundamental issues really changed? What would be different if higher education were truly student-focussed? And as the Digital Age and the Digital Student advance upon us, will there still be a role for carbon-based learning developers in the higher education institutions of the future?

The themes for our conference this year will focus on :

• Inclusivity
  • How is learning development ensuring all students will have the opportunity to succeed in higher education post 2012?
  • How are Learning Developers reaching specific groups (e.g. STEM, pgt, distance learners)?
• Innovation and creativity
  • How LD has progressed over the past 10 years
  • In what creative ways are we ‘being Learning Developers’?
  • How are we working with students as producers of knowledge?
  • How are we addressing issues of sustainability in our work?
• Digital literacies
  • How are we making use of new technologies to support learning development?
  • How is knowledge being disseminated and sustained?
• Impact
  • What are our measurements of impact?
  • What research methodologies are being used?
  • What are our reporting mechanisms?
  • How are we drawing on and/or contributing to the scholarship and research of LD?

Programme
Click here to view an outline programme for the conference
Click here to view details of parallel sessions