In this conceptual paper, borne from the experiences of two academic literacy lecturers at the NWU, we ask, regarding elements of assessment, how we can sensibly adapt an intervention-style writing course in a post-COVID higher education context. We propose a course correction model, applicable to academic literacy writing courses, to address the…

Modern society demands renewed attention on the competencies required to best equip students for a dynamic and uncertain future. We present exploratory work based on the premise that metacognitive and reflective competencies are essential for this task. Bringing the concepts of metacognition and reflection together into a conceptual model within…

Building on studies of alternative rhetorics, this article envisions personal writing pedagogy as a relational endeavor that fosters rhetorical alliances among disparate communities. I detail a particular course design through which "personal reflection" becomes a means of enacting more radical forms of belonging.

Writing-to-learn involves the use of low-stakes informal writing activities intended to help students reflect on concepts or ideas presented in a course. Writing-to-learn can be a flexible and effective tool to help students understand and engage with course concepts, and past research has shown that writing-to-learn activities can substantially…

Writing and communication are essential skills for success in the workplace or in graduate school, yet writing and communication are often the last thing that instructors think about incorporating into a mathematics course. A mathematical modeling course provides a natural environment for writing assignments. This article is an analysis of the…

This article describes the effects of a year-long reflective writing assignment--weekly Learning Posts--designed for students in an undergraduate music education course. I created this assignment to cause students to regularly interrogate the teaching and learning they experience in their own daily lives. This study's research question emerged…

Teacher education is not only about teaching teachers the art and science of instruction, but it also should encompass a political agenda, helping educators to recognize and address oppressive practices in our schools and in our communities. Through a disability studies framework, teacher candidates can be guided toward social and political action…

Learning community (LC) programs continue to proliferate across college campuses as a strategy to engage and retain students. Although evidence exists to suggest increased levels of social engagement among LC participants, there is an ongoing debate about the impact on student academic engagement and intellectual development. This article…

Although service learning provides unparalleled real world experiential student learning opportunities and benefits to four major constituencies--student, faculty, community and institution, it takes place in an uncontrolled environment introducing uncertainty into the instructional process. Faculty might avoid this valuable approach to…

This paper presents a set of activities, which scaffolds students to succeed in the standard Physics gateway course. The set of instructional activities that were designed included four distinct components: reflective writing, collaborative groups, critiques, and an essay question on the examination. Each activity was designed to lead into and…

This article argues that teacher-education programs often promote surface conceptions of inclusivity that limit preservice teachers' ability to understand and build upon the lived experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse youth. Conventional wisdom implies that teachers of color are native informants of these lived experiences; however,…

Because of the recent revolutionary developments brought about by Web 2.0, the emergence and popularity of blogs as learning tools represent an important area of consideration by the higher education sector. Indeed, while many researchers have acknowledged the advantages of using blogs in this environment, it is clear that more investigation is…

This article reports the results of a research project involving "unconventional" pedagogical practices and examines the impact of contemplative practice on teaching and learning in an undergraduate creative writing class and a graduate level methods of teaching writing course. Using student evaluations of the projects, the authors…

The study is to examine if preservice teachers improve their social studies teaching and learning when they follow a structured and guided methods course based on the four-step social studies teaching cycle. The four steps are 1) preinstructional exploration, 2) assessment development, 3) instructional development, and 4) reflective extension. The…

An autobiographical writing assignment given to fourth-year BSW students is described and evaluated. Its purpose is to encourage students to reflect upon their life experience and identify significant values and life principles embedded in their personal narrative, and explore these as a foundation for social work practice. The limitations of…