Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity

Students with poorly developed authorial identity may be at risk of unintentional plagiarism. An instructional intervention designed specifically to improve authorial identity was delivered to 364 psychology students at three post‐1992 universities in London, UK, and evaluated with before‐and‐after measures of beliefs and attitudes about academic authorship, using the Student Authorship Questionnaire. Changes in questionnaire scores showed that the intervention led to significantly increased confidence in writing, understanding of authorship, knowledge to avoid plagiarism, and top‐down approaches to writing, and significantly decreased bottom‐up and pragmatic approaches to writing. For understanding of authorship, knowledge to avoid plagiarism and pragmatic approaches to writing, significant intervention by year of study interaction effects showed that the greatest improvements were among year one undergraduates. Direct evaluative feedback showed that 86% of students believed the intervention helped them avoid plagiarism and 66% believed it helped them write better assignments. Post‐intervention focus groups revealed changed student understandings about authorial identity and academic writing. The results show that interventions can help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by adopting more authorial roles in their academic writing. Further research could explore other influences on authorial identity, and examine the impact of authorial identity interventions on other outcome indicators.     

写作能力的培养从家庭教育开始

学生主观的写作恐惧情绪,客观的词句贫乏无话可说,起源都在于家庭教育。家庭教育中,家长进行孩子启蒙教育的开始,与孩子交流的言语习惯、思维习惯都已是在潜移默化地影响了孩子的语言与思维,这两点也直接地影响了将来孩子在写作中语句、内容、情感、观点的几大写作要素的发展。因此,以家庭教育为入口,从根本上解决写作难的问题具有现实意义。     

二战中欧洲战场唯一的中国特写作家——萧乾

萧乾的人生经历具有传奇色彩,他出身贫寒,但通过努力最终成为二战风云中唯一的中国战地记者;他的新闻特写融入文学笔法,引人入胜,可读性很强;他在长期的新闻工作中,总结出许多宝贵的采写经验和新闻理念,对于今天的新闻工作者依然有着指导和借鉴作用。     

在特定的语境中输出预期的句型——英语句型模仿写作明示教学实证研究结论之一

本文报告了一项由90名贵阳学院非英语专业一年级大学生参加的实证研究,目的在于检验句型模仿教学法在非英语大学写作教学中的作用。该实证研究的结论之一是：句型模仿教学法能使非英语专业大学生在特定的语境中通过输出更多带有现成句型的句子从而提高句型输出的多样性。     

研究生学术论文的撰写及发表策略

研究生要增加大量的知识储备,采用实践法、模仿法、切块法、作业法等撰写方法,提高学术论文质量;并掌握论文发表的途径,增加论文发表的命中率,提升论文发表的档次。     

Learning to be critically reflective: exploring fiction writing and adult learning

Many educators in adult, community and higher education contexts are concerned with fostering reflective learning amongst their students. This paper explores the concept of critical reflection and considers how engaging with fiction may be an innovative pedagogical approach to support critical learning opportunities. Drawing upon interviews with fiction writers, ways in which critical reflection may be encouraged in connection to reading and writing fiction are taken up by exploring three different thematic areas that relate to a Habermasian framework of knowledge constitutive approaches to learning. These different areas can be categorised as (a) technical-rational, (b) humanistic and (c) critical or emancipatory. The first of these considers critical reflection as a way to develop technical capacities as a creative writer. The next section takes up a humanistic framework to explore the value of individual and collective learning opportunities to enhance personal growth and critical reflection. The third area of discussion considers a deeper critical or emancipatory framework of learning through critical reflection which may lead to social change. The paper concludes by considering the value of arts-informed adult education approaches, such as those related to fiction writing, to enhance the development of critical reflection amongst adult learners.     

Student attitudes that predict participation in peer assessment

Peer assessment has been widely applied to actively engage students in learning to write. However, sometimes students resist peer assessment. This study explores reviewers’ attitudes and other underlying factors that influence students’ participation in online peer assessment. Participants were 234 Chinese undergraduates from two different academic backgrounds: engineering majors (n = 168) and English majors (n = 66). Gender, academic background and prior experience with peer assessment were all related to participation levels. Moreover, factor analyses revealed three attitudinal factors: (1) positive attitude (a general endorsement of the benefits of peer assessment), (2) interpersonal negative (concerns about the negative effects on interpersonal relationships), and (3) procedural negative (doubts about the procedural rationality of peer assessment). Among the attitudinal factors, procedural negative was negatively associated with participation, as expected. Interestingly, interpersonal negative was associated with greater participation, and positive attitude was associated with lower participation, in part because students worked hard on each review rather than doing many reviews superficially. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Failing with grace: kids,Improv and embodied literacies

In this article, we explore the idea that comedy, with its often unorthodox ways of looking at, experiencing, and responding to the world, offers untold possibility for classroom literacy instruction. The article focuses on the potential of Improv comedy as socio‐materialist literacy in the classroom. It provides an account of Improv as a form of embodied literacy that operates as an assemblage created collectively between many people, practices, and material objects. We present findings from interviews with professional comedians regarding the possibilities of comedy for language and literacy instruction with elementary school children. The article then examines a moment from the subsequent classroom phase of the study to look at ways Improv can help students create stories and ways that laughter can be used to create a cohesive assemblage based around students' spontaneous creation of texts. The aim of the article is to provide educators with a practical means to apply socio‐materialist literacy in their classrooms through Improv, which will, in turn, allow students to create collectively generated texts and assemblages.     

Student Perceptions of the Use of Writing in a Differential Equations Course

The use of writing to learn mathematics at the university-level is a pedagogical tool that has been gaining momentum. The setting of this study is a second-year differential equations class where written assignments have been incorporated into the course. By analyzing survey results and students' written work, we examine the extent to which students view writing as an effective learning strategy, as well as their beliefs about the relationship between mathematical writing and communication. We also discuss what students' narratives reveal about their past mathematical experiences.     

Pre-service teachers in an after school program: increasing understanding of students,communities, and teaching

The purpose of the After School Creative Expression Program (ASCEP) was to provide a short-term afterschool program focusing on the visual and written creative arts to a group of elementary school children attending a Title 1 school. Pre-service teachers attending a liberal arts university within the same geographic region developed lessons in writing and photography and served as afterschool educators for ASCEP. The program provided pre-service teachers a valuable experience outside the classroom. Findings demonstrate pre-service educators gained new insights from ASCEP that will impact their teaching practices during school. Overall, results show ASCEP provided future educators with valuable learning experiences and opportunities to connect more deeply with their students and their community.