Reconsidering priorities and responsibilities

Educational interventions promoting disciplinary discourse in Swedish and English across multiple engineering programmes and educational levels

Activities

Chalmers Open Communication

Studio

Integrated(yrs 1-3)

Faculty, Industry

Electives(MSc, PhD)

English ~50English for engineers ~50Technical writing ~25Fiction ~15Academic writing ~95

2-3 courses in all 12 BSc

programmes1-3 courses in 13 MSc programmes~650 BSc thesis

tutorials

Diploma of higher educationWorkshops; Seminars,Comissioned courses

Staffing12 faculty +

short term contracts

R & DFunded projects for

educational development

A division in the Department of Applied IT

FundingCourse budget system

Some overhead allocation

Definitional issues

Higher education ordinance vaguely requiring ‘communication skills’

Outcomes, activities, and assessment aligned for enhancing student learning of disciplinary content and discourse

– targeted domain knowledge depth– targeted language and discourse awareness– targeted genres, discourses, and audiences

ICL? ESP?

EAP?

EMI?

WID?

WAC?ESL?

NWNC?

Rationale: The constructive alignment sun

Decide / Revise learning outcomes

Revise / define Activities

Assessment revision / design

Criteria definition / revision

Feedback re-design

Content revision / definition

Student profile analysis

Consider medium of instruction

Puzzle

Barrie. (2007). ”A conceptual framework for the teaching and learning of generic graduate attributes”. Studies in Higher Education. 32(4), 439-458

Rationale: the ‘generic attributes model’

• Conceptions– Precursor– Complement– Translation– Enabling

• Methods– Remedial– Associated– Teaching content– Teaching process– Engagement– Participatory

Supplementary

Integrated

Teaching

LearningCf. Lea & Street: Academic literacies framework

Rationale: Writing in the making

InstructionsCase / Lab / Project notes

Problem Methods

Case / Lab assignment

Project report, article

Oral presentation

ActivitiesLiterature Evaluation

Granted that we don’t settle for a skills discourse, we need to be more deliberate in our use of writing throughout the learning process

Rationale: Balancing priorities

Integration of language into content Enhancing student learning

through communication

Learning to write‘Writing to learn’

Language proficiency ‘Disciplinary communication’

Promoting disciplinary discourse: Chalmers IMechanical engineering: CDIO-focusDesign reports

Year 1:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)- Peer response- Teacher responseOral presentationReport guidelines

Year 2:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)Oral presentations:- Peer feedback- Teacher feedbackIndustry representedReport guidelines

Year 3:Bachelor thesis (collaborative)Guidelines and criteriaPeer response seminar Teacher responseOral presentationThesis seminars

Promoting disciplinary discourse: Chalmers II

Mechanical engineering: CDIO-focusDesign reports

Chemistry:Technical reports; critical concepts seminar; design project

Year 1:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)- Peer response- Teacher responseOral presentationReport guidelines

Year 2:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)Oral presentations:- Peer feedback- Teacher feedback- Industry representedReport guidelines

Year 3:Bachelor thesis (collaborative)Guidelines and criteriaPeer response seminar Teacher responseOral presentationThesis seminars

Y2: Commentary

Y2: Seminar 1

Y2: Seminar 2

Y2: Exchange

Y3: Design project

Y1: Tech rep (Sw)

Physics:Data commentary,

Experimental lab report,

Debate

Lay introduction

Data commentary

Full lab report

Strength of claim

Argumentation

Promoting disciplinary discourse: Chalmers III

Mechanical engineering: CDIO-focusDesign reports

Chemistry:Technical reports; critical concepts seminar; design project

Year 1:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)- Peer response- Teacher responseOral presentationReport guidelines

Year 2:Product development courseTechnical report (collaborative)Oral presentations:- Peer feedback- Teacher feedback- Industry representedReport guidelines

Year 3:Bachelor thesis (collaborative)Guidelines and criteriaPeer response seminar Teacher responseOral presentationThesis seminars

Y2: Commentary

Y2: Seminar 1

Y2: Seminar 2

Y2: Exchange

Y3: Design project

Y1: Tech rep (Sw)

Outcomes and Assessment Approaches

Outcomes• Meeting higher education

agency requirements• Meeting university-wide

criteria for theses• Genre and activity system

awareness• Audience analysis skills• Peer response work• Language proficiency

Assessment• Assignment level

– Specific learning outcomes and criteria negotiated with course manager

• Course level – ‘Report writing’ components– Critiques– Pass rates and distribution of

grades• Programme level

– Annual contract and evaluation– External audits

Multidimensional assessment

Adapted from Anson, C. M. (2006). Assessing writing in cross-curricular programs: Determining the locus of activity. Assessing Writing, 11, 100-112.

Length of inquiry

Formal investigation

Context of inquiry

Focused inquiry / action research

Reflection in / on action

Instructional routine

Course; Partnership / team; Department; Institution

Types (Bonnet 2012):

ProductProcessParticipantsQualitativeQuantitative

This space needs

populating with studies

and doing that might take

us out of our comfort

zones…

Bonnet, A. (2012). Towards an evidence base for CLIL: How to integrate qualitative and quantitative as well as process, product and participant perspectives in CLIL Research. International CLIL Research Journal, 1(4), 66-78.

Recurring questions!• “What’s the impact of varying CEFR-levels with an

approach like this?”– All interventions need to be situated of course but I

imagine such variation affects balances and the design of sequences more than anything

– There are no short-cuts to proficiency but we can use content form the disciplines, surely?

• How did you get programmes and supervisors onboard?– Long process of course– Central degree project guidelines have been important – Central effort on constructive alignment has been a catalyst– Audit was useful!

What are our issues?• What’s the problem?

1. “I don’t do math” <> “I don’t do English” There is no room in learning-oriented HE for such arrogance! We accepted that attitude initially and now we struggle to get

the new deal across

2. The approach involves a considerable amount of educational development work and competence We get paid for our work with students only (most of the

time)…

3. Balancing the academy <> workplace We have ended up doing EAP and disciplinary discourse for

the academy mostly Workplace scenarios are less popular or frequent and

occasionally in conflict

Thank you!

Let’s see if you have any questions …

Academic identity

Cecilia Jacobs. (2007). ‘Towards a critical understanding of the teaching of discipline-specific academic literacies: making the tacit explicit’. Journal of Education 41: 59-82

Understanding ‘academic literacies’

Collaborative partnerships

Cecilia Jacobs. (2007). ‘Towards a critical understanding of the teaching of discipline-specific academic literacies: making the tacit explicit’. Journal of Education 41: 59-82

Transdisciplinary collaboration

Jacobs: collaborating for disciplinary discourse

From Academic literacy to ‘Language for Specific Purposes’

Gustafsson, M. (2011). ”Academic literacies approaches for facilitating language for specific purposes” Ibérica 22 (2011): 101-122.

Promoting disciplinary discourse: types

A small embedded unit in one course

Embedded ICL interventions in…

…multiple courses in a program

Closely embedded ICL…. …interventions in

Content course paired with a…

… communication course

…multiple courses in a program

Why do we care about ICLHE impact?• How do we know that what we do is ‘right’ and that we do

it well?– How can communication be used to extend / change students’

disciplinary knowledge and understanding?– How can impact across interventions be facilitated to foster student

development?– How do we measure the effectiveness of ICL beyond “satisfaction”?

• What is the relevance of the I and the C and the L of ICLHE?– How closely integrated should a particular learning environment be?– How much time should be given to ICLHE in a given curriculum?– How much resources should be devoted to ICLHE?

Table 1: ICLHE impact in ME, years 1-3 What outcomes? Report and presentation quality relative learning outcomes, design process

documentation

What should we ‘measure’?

Learning impact on domain knowledge, disciplinary discourse literacy beyond the isolated case, relevance in progression of tasks toward workplace communication

For whom or from what vantage point?

The objective of meeting Swedish higher education agency requirements, the programme learning outcomes, and CDIO requirements

Who uses the ‘research’?

The programme manager who, in turn, promotes similar work in related programmes, published articles about the programme get wider distribution but their citation index is low and their effect on research is uncertain

How and when do we measure?

Mid-course, end-of-course by criterion-based report grades, post-cycle interviews with a sample of students (Eriksson & Carlsson, 2013)

What is an ‘effective’ intervention?

Course evaluation data for the ME-course, student and programme manager satisfaction, performance in subsequent projects, annual contract negotiation with programme manager

Relative what baselines?

-- (an unarticulated sense of performance in the past and a somewhat better sense of continuous improvement)

Table 2: ICLHE impact in Chem EngWhat outcomes? Report and presentation quality relative learning outcomes, the disciplinary

literacy for a selection of threshold concepts

What should we ‘measure’?

Learning impact on domain knowledge, disciplinary discourse literacy beyond the isolated case, performance on degree thesis projects, relevance in progression of tasks toward workplace communication,

For whom or from what vantage point?

The objective of meeting Swedish higher education agency requirements and the programme learning outcomes

Who uses the ‘research’?

The programme manager who, in turn, promotes similar work in related programmes, published articles about the programme get wider distribution but their citation index is low and their effect on research is uncertain

How and when do we measure?

Mid-course, end-of-course by criterion-based report grades, isolated reflective writing pieces,

What is an ‘effective’ intervention?

Course evaluation data, student and programme manager satisfaction, performance in subsequent projects (for year one and two courses), annual contract negotiation with programme manager

Relative what baselines?

-- (an unarticulated sense of performance in the past and a somewhat better sense of continuous improvement)

How do faculty and students perceive ICL’s impact on content?

• Structuring disciplinary work– Assignment scaffolding mirrors disciplinary work

processes• Understanding disciplinary epistemologies

– Appropriate evidence– Appropriate rationales

• Prioritizing disciplinary content– Key outcomes versus appendices of detailed work