Building Context: Using Activity Theory to Teach About Genre in Multi-Major Professional Communication Courses

Instructors in multi-major professional communication courses are asked to teach students a variety of workplace genres. However, teaching genres apart from their contexts may not result in transfer of knowledge from school to workplace settings. We propose teaching students to research genre use via activity theory as a way of encouraging transfer. We outline theory and research relevant to teaching genre and provide results from a study using activity theory to teach genre in two different professional communication courses.     

Bridging the Workplace and the Academy: Teaching Professional Genres through Classroom-Workplace Collaborations

This article explores the effect of classroom-workplace collaborations on student learning. Drawing on two case studies, I explore how classroom-workplace collaborations help us to teach professional genres. I examine how they replicate workplace activity and convey features of workplace genres and how they serve as transitional experiences for students. I also examine students' reactions to the feedback they received during the projects.     

基于学科交叉和学科集成的实验教学方法改革与创新

目前高等教育以专业基础知识的灌输为主要教学方式,理论与实践脱离,使学生在接受理论时十分吃力,教学效果事倍功半,不利于培养创新型人才。本文结合教学实践,构建了基于学科交叉和学科集成的实验教学方法,具体介绍了在梯队建设、教学体系、课程建设和教材建设等方面所做的工作。通过近几年的实践与探索,该教学方法在培养创新型、综合型人才方面具有很好的效果。     

The performance of academic identity as pedagogical model and guide in/through lecture discourse

The study described in this article sets out to understand the barriers and affordances to successful completion of the short research thesis required in many advanced undergraduate courses or Honours programmes. In the study, the genre features of students' research projects and the criteria used to assess them were analysed and both students and supervisors were interviewed. The article focuses on one particular student from the case study and the findings provide in-depth insights into the complexities of genre acquisition in one particular department at a South African university, where writing and knowledge of the genre are often not taught, but must be acquired through a form of apprenticeship. The article concludes by raising some questions about how research genres can best be mediated in developmental contexts, where the teaching of writing may not be valued.     

西方专业体裁学习研究及启示

专业体裁学习研究是西方专业学习领域的新兴研究热点。它以北美体裁理论、文化-历史活动理论、情景学习理论等为理论框架,着重探讨专业身份获取问题、专业教育课程效果问题,以及专业教育和专业实践之间的冲突问题。对我国专业学习研究的启示是:采纳专业体裁学习研究的理论框架和研究方法,把体裁作为新的研究切入点;把握本领域正在发生的"集体转向"、"逆集体转向"和"关系转向";开展合作性研究项目,建设跨学科研究团队。     

高职服装类专业实践教学体系的构建

建立具有服装特色实践教学体系的主要做法是:设计体现服装类学生职业能力培养的实践教学课程体系与实施方案;强化“双师型”师资队伍建设;加强校内外实验、实习场所及实训基地的建设;编写一批具有高职特色的实践课程教材;通过搭建师生专业工作室平台,推进产学研结合,实现人才培养目标。     

体裁分析在商务英语写作教学中的应用

写作是一项需要综合知识的语言技能,把语篇语言学知识应用于商务英语写作具有十分重要的意义。文章从语篇语言学的体裁分析理论入手,探讨体裁教学法在商务英语写作教学中的应用。结合写作过程,帮助学生了解体裁的社会功能和交际目的,认识体裁结构和认知模式及语言运用策略,从而使他们更好地理解和创造出符合特定体裁惯例的商务语篇。     

英语写作教学中学生体裁意识的培养

体裁意识薄弱是学生在英语写作中普遍存在的问题,帮助学生树立体裁意识是英语写作教学的重要环节。在英语写作教学中应同时引入体裁分析和篇章对比的方法,通过让学生广泛地接触各类体裁的文章,了解英汉同一体裁语篇的结构的差异,可以使学生掌握英语体裁的篇章模式和写作图式,帮助学生在英语写作时有效地避免受到汉语篇章模式和写作图式的影响,尽量按照英语的写作规范进行谋篇布局,进而达到成功交际的目的。     

推进高职课程改革 提高学生综合素质——互动教学实验报告

课堂教学是提高高职学生综合素质的主战场之一。如何进行课程改革,使高职学生更好地适应未来职业以及职业转换的要求呢?互动教学课题组从理论教学和实践教学两方面进行课程改革,实行互动教学,提高学生综合素质。     

Response to Madelyn Flammia's “a desktop publishing course: An alternative to internships for rural universities”∗

Charettes offer a productive way of combining theory and practice to address some of the difficult matters of getting students to see and perform technical communication as students, professionals, servers, and citizens. This collaborative activity helps students prepare for an increasingly modular professional world by revealing the contingent rhetoricity of professional autonomy. Charettes can help technical writing programs and students integrate service and civic learning into the curriculum by using indigenous professional genres that actively demand stakeholder participation. The intensity and pragmatic force of charettes can assist students in building their ethos while working with fellow stakeholders. The wide range of possible documents involved in the process associated with charettes can help technical communication students and teachers explore the connections between rhetorical exigencies and genre and put their skills to good use in a culture where many are looking for new ways to build critical citizenship.     

Pedagogical Approaches: Using Charettes to Perform Civic Engagement in Technical Communication Classrooms and Workplaces

Charettes offer a productive way of combining theory and practice to address some of the difficult matters of getting students to see and perform technical communication as students, professionals, servers, and citizens. This collaborative activity helps students prepare for an increasingly modular professional world by revealing the contingent rhetoricity of professional autonomy. Charettes can help technical writing programs and students integrate service and civic learning into the curriculum by using indigenous professional genres that actively demand stakeholder participation. The intensity and pragmatic force of charettes can assist students in building their ethos while working with fellow stakeholders. The wide range of possible documents involved in the process associated with charettes can help technical communication students and teachers explore the connections between rhetorical exigencies and genre and put their skills to good use in a culture where many are looking for new ways to build critical citizenship.     

Affirming Cultures,Communities and Experiences: Teaching for Social Justice in Teacher Education Literacy Courses

In this article we share several activities we use in our teacher education literacy courses that incorporate a social justice lens. For each activity we suggest resources, offer examples we have created and used in our teaching, and share research to support each activity. The activities build on each other, with the intent of increasing preservice teacher knowledge of how to teach for social justice by moving beyond awareness and understanding lived experiences of students to affirming cultures and experiences of all students, creating inclusive and equitable classrooms. By experiencing teaching from this stance in our courses, we hope that our preservice teachers take up and teach from a social justice stance in their future classrooms.     

构建以学为主的“思政课”教学理念

为提高思政课的教学实效性,使学生的心思回到课堂上,必须转变以"教"为主的教学理念。以"学"为主的教学理念符合知识建构的原则,有利于学生形成批判性思维,有助于培养学生的团队合作意识和沟通协调能力,对于思政课教学有重要的启示。构建以学为主的教学,应以学生为中心,关注学生的需求,优化以学习为中心的教学设计,重点解决好"教什么""怎么教""学到什么"的问题。     

视频案例教学的运用与探索——以《教育通论》为例

《教育通论》是我国高等师范教育学专业的一门基础理论课课程,是学生进入大学后接触的第一门专业课,教学难度大。视频案例教学是一种在高等师范教育中刚刚兴起的教学方法,视频案例具有信息含量大,生动具体等特点,有利于调动学生多种感官参与学习,从而提高学习的效率。当今,电视、网络上可资利用的视频案例十分丰富,如果能将已经被证明是有效的视频案例教学与《教育通论》有机结合起来,则不失为该课程方法上的革新,值得探索。     

Teaching Theory Analogically: Using Music to Explain Criminological Theory

There have been a number of articles recently advocating the use of nontraditional mediums to teach criminological theory. Many of these articles have advocated using music and/or music lyrics to illustrate and enliven the various theories taught in introductory theory courses. Despite the growing attention paid to teaching criminological theory, few, if any, discuss how to help students understand the more fundamental ontological question—what is “theory.” This article proposes an alternative pedagogical approach that draws upon students’ understanding of musical genres analogically to explain: (1) the historical development of the various theoretical approaches, (2) the historical, cultural and theoretical antecedents of the various approaches, and (3) how to identify the theoretical orientation(s) and influences in an unfamiliar text. Ultimately, this approach is intended to counter the overly compartmentalized and linear understanding of theory unintentionally brought on by the dynamics of teaching schedules, generic “theory” textbooks, computerized presentation software and testing methods.     

Insights from DataFest point to new opportunities for undergraduate statistics courses: Team collaborations,designing research questions,and data ethics

As the field of data science evolves with advancing technology and methods for working with data, so do the opportunities for re-conceptualizing how we teach undergraduate statistics and data science courses for majors and non-majors alike. In this paper, we focus on three crucial components for this re-conceptualization: Developing research questions, professional ethics, and team collaborations. We share vignettes from two teams of undergraduate statistics or data science majors at two different stages of their development (novice and expert) while they worked on a DataFest data challenge. These vignettes shed light on opportunities for re-conceptualizing introductory courses to give more attention to issues of the process of developing focused research questions when given a complex data set, professional ethics and bias, and how to collaborate effectively with others. We provide some implications for teaching and learning as well as an example activity for educators to use in their courses.     

Research and a professional development programme on teaching learning strategies as part of course content

Abstract

There is evidence that many students leave university without effective learning strategies and skills that would facilitate their learning in the future. For example, they can complete their university courses without developing information skills or a love of learning, with only a limited repertoire of learning strategies, and with no intention of engaging in further learning. While these findings indicate a need for universities to review the structure of courses and the way that they are taught and assessed, it is not necessary to wait for this to happen. Within existing course structures, universities can help prepare students for lifelong learning by teaching them learning strategies. This is best done if the strategies are taught by university teachers in the context of their regular coursework. We have confirmed in our research and professional development projects that this can be done. In an experimental study, we investigated the effects of explicidy teaching students learning strategies in the context of their regular coursework. This research indicated that students who were taught learning strategies in the context of their regular coursework used them effectively and achieved better results than students who were taught in the conventional way. In a professional development project, we taught university teachers from a variety of subject areas to teach learning strategies to students in their own courses. These teachers were successful in helping students develop a repertoire of effective learning strategies and display greater commitment to their learning.     

高职Visio网络工程制图课程的教学探讨

网络工程制图课程是高职网络专业的必修课程,是提高学生动手能力、充分表现理论与实践相结合的最好课程之一。教学中,要提高学生的学习兴趣,因材施教;考核方法可分为阶段性测验和最后期末上机考试,考核要体现公平和公正性;同时要提高教师专业知识和自身修养。     

When genres meet: Inquiry into a sixth‐grade urban science class

In this study, we explore oral and written work (plays and rap songs) of students in a sixth‐grade all African‐American urban science class to reveal ways affective and social aspects are intertwined with students' cognition. We interpret students' work in terms of the meeting of various genres brought by the students and teachers to the classroom. Students bring youth genres, classroom genres that they have constructed from previous schooling, and perhaps their own science genres. Teachers bring their favored classroom and science genres. We show how students' affective reactions were an integral part of their constructed scientific knowledge. Their knowledge building emerged as a social process involving a range of transactions among students and between students and teacher, some transactions being relatively smooth and others having more friction. Along with their developing science genre, students portrayed elements of classroom genres that did not exist in the classroom genre that the teacher sought to bring to the class. Students' work offered us a glimpse of students' interpretations of gender dynamics in their classrooms. Gender also was related to the particular ways that students in that class included disagreement in their developing science genre. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 579–605, 2002     

Training Technical and Professional Communication Educators for Online Internship Courses

ABSTRACT

This article explores how to train educators to teach online internship courses. The article introduces an online internship course focused on workplace communication available to students across the university. Approaches to training educators to teach this course include requiring educators to immerse themselves in experiential learning situations, leveraging innovative uses of contemporary technologies for communication, and reflecting on online teaching processes.