Supporting postgraduate writing pedagogies using Sakai Shaheeda Jaffer & Andrew Deacon Centre for Educational Technology University of Cape Town 9 th Sakai Conference Paris 1 July 2008

The ‘postgraduate condition’ Students view –High expectations of academic discourse –Difficulty entering scholarly community Lecturer view –Lack of student preparedness –Students need more practice writing drafts Institutional view –Student throughput inefficiencies

Educational technologists role Can educational technology help? –Possibilities at proposal and drafting stages Focus on mediation role with lecturers –What and how technologies are used Negotiating learning designs: –Understanding the pedagogies –Making effective educational technology choices

Writers’ Circles Informal (students join voluntarily) –Support thesis writing Format: –Fortnightly meetings with ‘warm-ups’ & discussion of student draft writing Aims: –Space to rehearse their research agendas –Develop postgraduate identities –Peer-critiques on drafts –Engage with academic writing structures & conventions

Writers’ circles: initial ideas Students post writing into the resources section and elicit comment from peers and facilitators Students store drafts on Vula space and in so doing keep track of their development. Students read and comment on peer’s writing through the use of the forums between writers’ circles Facilitators read & comment on student’s writing online

Implementation Pedagogy dependent on engagement in f2f workshop Vula used to share writings prior to workshop No online interaction between students and between lecturer and students Growing realisation that f2f facilitation important

Use of Vula

History course Formal (research methodologies courses) –Support thesis writing Format: –Bi-weekly seminars Aims: –Develop skills working with primary source documents –Lecturer and peer critiques on drafts –Develop generic research skills

History research methods course Short formal accredited courses Honours and masters courses Students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds Weekly seminars Focus: –Thesis writing –Analysis of primary source documents Tools used: –digital archives (Aluka) –wiki in Vula (Sakai) –Timelines –maps

History research methods course

Aluka

Time lines

Maps

Comparisons Writers circlesResearch methods improve student writing & induct students into scholarly discourse informal multidisciplinaryformal multidisciplinary writing structurescontent pedagogy patternedpedagogy varied draft thesis writing - chapters not formally assessed writing tasks wrt primary source analysis (assessed) Tools: Vula Tools: digital archives, wiki, maps, timelines

Conclusions Educational technology used in limited ways –few educational tools suited for PG writing Contradiction between educational technology and becoming scholarly –Collaborative learning designs Aims similar –draft writing and discussion central to both Pedagogies very different –uses of technology different –not understood ahead of time

Thank you