Learning Development & Student Writing According to Lillis (2001) Nowhere in the university system is the debate about the ‘crisis’ in education and the ‘lowering of standards’ more intense than in the arena of student writing.

Learning Development & Student Writing In this presentation I will discuss how my Learning Development practice has helped me to understand student issues with – and attitudes to – their writing and how I have fed this understanding into development materials produced for both staff and students.

Learning Development & Student Writing Wider Context: Move to mass HE – global marketing of HE   Institutional Context Lecturers: Driven by internal & external targets, inspections & QA Little time to tackle complex issues with students Run increasingly larger lecture & seminar groups Few opportunities for formative feedback See students as not being able to write grammatical English or to formulate syntactically correct sentences Send students to Learning Development to be ‘fixed’ (Mitchell 2003)

Learning Development & Student Writing Students: dismembered by the discourse of derision working – 20 or more hours per week raising families little time: to tackle new material to practice their thinking/writing to familiarise themselves with a bewildering array of assessment engines

Learning Development & Student Writing Imagine tackling Presentations & seminars Essays, reports, papers, dissertations & projects Case studies & child studies Annotated bibliographies Reading Records Learning Logs Abstracts & Summaries

Learning Development & Student Writing Seen & unseen exams Open or closed book exams Exams with differing time limits Exams with differing word limits AND that perennial favourite Group work – with group mark awarded Group work – with individual mark awarded Group work - with self- and/or peer evaluation

Learning Development & Student Writing Student responses to this:   I’ve been humiliated in ways I’d never have put up with outside that institution I am still not sure if my work is considered academic, I still don’t know what makes one of my essays better than another.  

Learning Development & Student Writing Academic language, the kind of language that doesn’t readily flow off my tongue: the type of language I rarely use when speaking to my peers. The type of language that I don’t readily understand and the type of language that means spending hours at a computer turning something quite simple into something that sounds moderately impressive with elitist results.

Learning Development & Student Writing Staff development activities Took these quotes and many more and built them into a Writing Resistance Workshop at Conference in Plymouth last year.  

Learning Development & Student Writing Some responses captured in the staff writing:   The type of language that, quite frankly, has caused me much concern and about which I have spent much, probably too much time, reflecting upon…

Learning Development & Student Writing This was such a familiar conversation. I have heard it many times in my research – it is the bewilderment that I find most worrying. When people don’t even know where to start in terms of asking for help. To not even be able to say STOP, I don’t know how to even begin

Learning Development & Student Writing Well yes, I can relate to this … when I studied at undergraduate level my tutors, in the main, were distant and detached. Often they used language to demonstrate their knowledge rather than develop mine.

Learning Development & Student Writing Oh face up to it – I do still disempower my students, I do expect them to use long, posh words like me. I even give them phrases I want them to try using like me ‘the construction of gender through multiple discourses’ and feel terribly self-satisfied if they actually do

Learning Development & Student Writing The student quotes are now part of a STAFF DEVELOPMENT PACK that we have in Learning Development – and that we will be using here in the Learning & Teaching Conference – July 2005.

Learning Development & Student Writing FURTHER   We have built the WebCT ‘Write to Learn’ Not as yet another initiative – but to help students with real writing tasks within real modules

Learning Development & Student Writing

Learning Development & Student Writing

Learning Development & Student Writing

Learning Development & Student Writing Student evaluation at this moment – to propel further development

Learning Development & Student Writing Conclusion Working in Learning Development affords unique opportunities to work with and listen to students We work hard to build what we learn into staff development activities – like ‘Writing Resistance’ & Student resources - like Write to Learn At this time of dynamic change in HE, Learning Development is at the heart of WP – and access, retention , progression & achievement.