UiB Write : on teaching with writing in HigherEd

Academic communication - what tutors expect

Siân Lund, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Coordinator at the Royal College of Art, has developed a booklet as a pedagogical tool to help MA-students in Art and Design understand what tutors expect from their writing and academic communication. The booklet is based on interviews with tutors and gives the students insights into how to develop and position their identity through writing.

The art of teaching technical writing

Ruth Wiederkehr and Marie-Thérèse Rudolf von Rohr from the University of Applied Sciences of NW-Switzerland talk about methods and challenges for teaching technical writing to engineering students. Students must master genres like the technical report, but also tailor information to a non-scientific audience. In six sequential research projects, they are introduced to diverse skills that continuously enhance their writing.

A workshop about identity

Randi W. Stebbins, Director of the University of Iceland Center for Writing, has borrowed methodologies from Creative Writing to help students recognize and develop their identities as academic writers. In a workshop, participants are given three activities to complete - an identity wheel, freewriting, and a task to connect their identity to the community.

Research Questions for papers in Higher Education

Lotte Rienecker, co-author of The Good Paper (2017) and numerous books and articles on academic writing, discusses examples on research questions and gives advice on how to teach and supervise research questions in BA-papers. She presents a research question checklist and practical tasks for students.

Teaching Art and Design with poster-workshops

Peter Thomas, Senior Lecturer in Academic Writing and Language at Middlesex University, talks about teaching writing to Art and Design students. Together with his colleague Grace Lees-Maffei, he has used posters and poster-sessions as teaching tools and conducted a study on how students engage with and perceive this genre. Why are posters useful to fuse theoretical knowledge and practice-based learning?

A critical approach to the use of plagiarism software

Tine Wirenfeldt Jensen, PhD in Learning & Education and owner of the educational development consultancy METoDo, talks to UiB Write about how a focus on plagiarism and the use of plagiarism detection software impacts students' writing development and their identity and independence as writers.

Writing in Physics

Prof. Rachel Riedner, Director of the University Writing Program at GWU, and prof. William Briscoe, Chair of Physics, on curricular changes made in Physics at George Washington University to give attention to students' writing development. They address the importance of teaching genres of writing in STEM subjects to prepare students for life after university.

The influence of supervision models on MA-student's research literacy

Karl-Heinz Pogner, associate professor, and Vibeke Ankersborg, external lecturer and Master’s Thesis Counsellor, both from  Copenhagen Business School have conducted research that investigates the Challenges of Master Thesis Writing. They talk to UiB Write about different models of supervision, and the value of the Scandinavian partnership model of supervision, "vejledning".

Genres and the writing process of Master- and PhD students

Montserrat Castelló, professor in Educational Psychology at Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, has conducted extensive research on academic writing, and the teaching of writing regarding graduate and PhD-students. She speaks to UiB Write about divergent views on academic genres between students and supervisors, and the challenges PhD-students experience in the writing process.

Using technology in classroom instruction for writing support

Karen Head, Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and Executive Director of the Communication Center at Georgia Tech, and Chris Anson, Distinguished Professor of English at NC State University, Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program, talk about technology in the classroom. Both have used a variety of tools to engage students, and share their experience with screencast-feedback, Fakebook, and twitter-streams.