scholarly journals Developing reading in a first-year academic literacy course

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlys L Van Wyk ◽  
Willfred J Greyling
Keyword(s):  
Academic Literacy ◽  
First Year ◽  
Literacy Course

scholarly journals Sense of belonging and first-year academic literacy

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 116-142
Author(s):  
Steve Marshall ◽  
Mingming Zhou ◽  
Ted Gervan ◽  
Sunita Wiebe
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Mixed Method Study ◽  
First Year ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
The University

In this article, we analyze a broad range of factors that affect the sense of belonging of undergraduate students taking a first-year academic literacy course (ALC) at a multicultural, multilingual university in Vancouver, Canada. Students who fail to meet the university’s language and literacy requirements are required to pass ALC before they can enrol in writing courses across the disciplines. Consequently, many of those students feel that they have yet to be accepted as fully legitimate members of the university community. We present data from a two-year, mixed-method study, which involved asking students in surveys and interviews about their sense of belonging, as well as analyzing their reflective writing samples for issues related to their sense of belonging. We found that the participants’ perceptions of sense of belonging are multilayered and context-dependent, relating to changes in time and space, classroom pedagogy, and other social, cultural, and linguistic factors. Implications for higher education are discussed.  

scholarly journals Experiential Learning and Peer Teaching to Develop PowerPoint Slide Formatting Skills

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-41
Author(s):  
Kay Maree Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Peer Teaching ◽  
First Year ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Face Time ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Specific Learning

Construction of visual material to enhance audience understanding of an oral presentation is an important skill in educational and professional settings. Many first-year undergraduates may not be familiar with the basic principles of effective slide design to increase audience understanding. However, faculty face time pressures to train students on effective use of information technology for educational activities. This paper reports on the development and use of a time-efficient, engaging, in-class activity involving specific learning criteria for slide design in an academic literacy course. The activity is based on experiential learning and peer teaching to increase student ability and confidence with creating PowerPoint slides for first year undergraduates. Students evaluated the activity positively and were able to achieve most of the learning criteria. Recommendations for further development of the activity are provided.

scholarly journals Treasure Hunt in the Library: An Exercise in Academic Literacy

10.28945/3092 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Langley
Keyword(s):  
Public Libraries ◽  
World View ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
The Impact

This paper presents an Academic Literacy course designed for first year students in our department. The course is based on a set of relevant reading materials and covers knowledge levels and classification systems, logical and physical library organization principles, physical and virtual search for publications, bibliographic citations and referencing methods and purposes. The paper describes two, out-of-class, activities related to the academic and public libraries in the information age. The first activity, the “Book Hunt”, organizes the students’ conceptions of the variety of functions being served and the impact of information technology on retrieving academic publications. Students’ response to a reflective assignment dealing with concepts and impressions is described. The second activity “Visiting a public library”, involves interviewing the librarian and writing a report on the structure and functions of the library. The paper discusses features of students’ reports and indicates the contribution of the activities to the students’ academic world view.

scholarly journals Decolonising an Academic Literacy curriculum at the University of the Free State with creative writing: challenges and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Peet van Aardt
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
First Year ◽  
Literacy Curriculum ◽  
African Students ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
Graded Readers ◽  
The University ◽  
Local Narratives

As part of the first year Academic Literacy course at the UFS, students are required to study graded readers. The booklets are abridged versions of Western fiction, therefore these narratives reinforce the colonial presence in our curriculum. But South African students need to read local narratives in order to learn about each other – from each other. By taking part in the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN) students improve our curriculum by writing their own short stories so that they become contributors of material that will be graded and tested to form part of the UFS Academic Literacy curriculum. Thereby, students contribute to larger bodies of knowledge through their lived experiences. This paper reflects on the challenges and opportunities within the iCAN process.

scholarly journals Open Online Assignment Submission: First Year Students' Behavior and Views

10.28945/3230 ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Langley ◽  
Miky Ronen ◽  
Shlomit Ben Shachar
Keyword(s):  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Intentional Learning ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Support ◽  
Open Forum ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Student Access ◽  
Literacy Course

The Open Assignment Submission (OAS) is an innovative regime whereby students submit homework assignments of an appropriate nature into a designated open forum provided by the Learning Management System (LMS). Our previous research, carried out with a cohort of Education graduates, indicated possible benefits and challenges of OAS as a means of supporting assignment submission through learning from peer examples. The current paper presents a recent explorative case study into the behaviour patterns and views of 55 first year students regarding OAS, during the very early stages of the Academic Literacy course. Drawing on two main data sources (a self-report questionnaire and data of student access and submission retrieved from the course LMS records) we have found characteristic patterns of peer-example viewing, assignment submission schedules and related grades. The OAS regime appears to provide an appreciated learning support and has a potential to promote intentional learning.

scholarly journals Reading competency of first-year undergraduate students at University of Botswana: A case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beauty B. Ntereke ◽  
Boitumelo T. Ramoroka
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Reading Levels ◽  
First Semester ◽  
University Of Botswana ◽  
Students First ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
The University

The ability to read and interpret textbooks and other assigned material is a critical component of success at university level. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: to evaluate the reading levels of first-year students when they first enter the university to determine how adequately prepared they are for university reading. It is also to find out if there will be any significant improvement after going through the academic literacy course offered to first-year students. The participants were 51 first-year undergraduate humanities students enrolled in the Communication and Academic Literacy course at the University of Botswana. The data were collected through a reading test adopted from Zulu which was administered at the beginning of the first semester. The same test was administered at the end of the semester after the students had gone through the academic literacy course to see if there was any difference in performance. The findings of this study indicate that there is a mixed and wide variation of students reading competency levels when students first enter the university and that a significant number of first-year entrants are inadequately prepared for university reading.

Creating epistemic access through a scaffold approach: Academic literacy skills development for South African first-year public administration students

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-174
Author(s):  
Gerda HG van Dijk ◽  
Brenda A Vivian ◽  
Lianne P Malan
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
South African ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Epistemic Access

For higher education institutions to produce graduates capable of contributing to society and the economy in a productive manner, educational emphasis is placed on the development of critical thinking. The above necessitates that higher education institutions are able to engage in responsive curriculum design and delivery for enhanced student success and access. Public Administration programmes focus on equipping students to work within the broader government sector, able and capable of delivering public functions responsive to the needs of society. Literature suggests that there are a number of factors which influence the success ratio of any undergraduate programme in the South African context, including, inter alia, increased enrolments, student–staff ratios and the overall decline of professional and intellectual life in the country. Further complicating matters are classes too big to be participatory and crammed syllabi preventing in-depth discussions. The notion of embedding academic literacy development in curriculum design through a scaffolded approach aims to influence the academic performance of students through engaged and active learning in order to attain a higher level of achievement as well as benefit from the process of scaffolding. The research comprises a mixed method approach using a case study of the first-year students enrolled for a Public Administration degree. Data collected included an analysis of 2015, 2016 and 2017 student cohorts in: determining their academic literacy level upon registration (set as a baseline before any academic literacy intervention); tracking their academic performance through their formative and summative assessments (through a scaffolded approach); and reflecting upon their learning through their completion of a semi-structured survey. The research intends to argue that the use of a scaffolded approach to learning enhances epistemic access, which sees students moving beyond propositional, or foundation knowledge to epistemic or reflexive knowledge.

scholarly journals Getting Past the Gateway: An Exploratory Case on Using Utilitarian Scientific Literacy to Support First-Year Students At-Risk of Leaving STEM

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Chambers ◽  
Salter ◽  
Muldrow
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Control Group ◽  
First Year ◽  
Students At Risk ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Stem Pipeline ◽  
Literacy Course ◽  
The Impact

First-year students who enter college pursuing a STEM degree still face challenges persisting through the STEM pipeline (Chen, 2013; Leu, 2017). In this case study, researchers examine the impact of a utilitarian scientific literacy based academic intervention on retention of first-year students in STEM using a mixed methods approach. A sample (n = 116) of first-year students identified as at-risk of not persisting in STEM were enrolled in a for credit utilitarian scientific literacy course. Participants of the semester long course were then compared with a control group of first-year students identified as at-risk of persisting in STEM. A two-proportion z test was performed to assess the mean differences between students and participants of the course were given a survey to gauge student experiences. Quantitative results (φ 0.34, p < 0.05) indicate that the utilitarian scientific literacy course had a statistically significant impact on retention among first-year students at-risk of persisting in STEM. Moreover, qualitative data obtained from participant responses describe internal and external growth as positive outcomes associated with the intervention.

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