We’re all in this together! An inclusive approach to developing academic literacy
Written by Alison Leslie
Context
My in-sessional provision is framed by an academic language and literacies approach in which these are contextualised, embedded and mapped to the curriculum thus giving students a better chance of succeeding with their learning. My full-time secondment to the School of Sociology and Social Policy since 2018 has allowed me to work alongside subject tutors to share our specialisms and develop our understanding of how all students navigate and learn the discipline, what the challenges are and how we can best support them. We are continuously experimenting with different approaches to communicating and providing this support in order to reduce any barriers to learning and meet the needs of the School’s increasingly diverse student cohort. The School is now recognising that my original role, to help them cater to a large intake of international students on a new MA programme, is far wider reaching.
Activities
What I am trying to do is get away from a traditionally deficit and remedial approach to supporting international students, through sharing our understanding of how knowledge is created. As I don’t have a background in these disciplines either, I am able to model how I am developing my own understanding of this academic community, thus making for a more egalitarian and empowering learning experience for both me and my students.
One enabler is being assigned to a core programme (MA Society, Culture and Media) and the PGT Dissertation module. I support tutors by:
- team teaching in seminars and scaffolding seminar discussions through reading circles, reading logs, concept maps and discipline glossaries;
- running additional weekly workshops mapped to their assignments and dissertation writing;
- attending Q&A sessions, signposting students to resources and responding to immediate needs.
None of my provision is timetabled, which allows students to self-select and in my effort to reach out to all the students in the School, I have extended my provision to:
- team teaching a suite of online academic writing workshops with the Academic Integrity lead, which has allowed us to champion a more preventative approach to dealing with academic malpractice;
- running a weekly Sociology café, which brings students together in an informal safe space (on Teams or the LUU refectory) to discuss topics through a disciplinary lens;
- running writing consultations and tutorials, to give feedback on draft assignments and offer advice on learning;
- sharing independent study resources in the School’s Minerva;
- organising a day trip to Scarborough at the end of the year to celebrate our sense of community.
Impact
What I have learnt is that having any meaningful and measurable impact takes time. Small rewards can be tutors signposting me to students in their assignment feedback and students saying how much they have developed in confidence as a result of attending my workshops or consultations.
Other evidence of impact comes from higher attendance rates in workshops than previous years, with more students self-selecting or being encouraged by peer recommendations. Reaching students in a timely manner who are most in need without positioning them as deficit is always a challenge and typically it is the more resilient and high-achieving students who attend regularly. So having these students, student reps and tutors help promote my ‘support’ as positive and not to be afraid of seeking has increased engagement.
The transition to online delivery in the last few years has helped me be more visible, by offering additional platforms for communicating who I am and what I do. However it has also created a need for more support both for staff and students, which I have been able to provide too, such as the use of digital tools for inclusive teaching and learning and creating a sense of belonging. In fact an indirect result of my activities is often sharing pedagogical approaches with subject lecturers. The most rewarding aspect of my collaboration with colleagues is the conversations we have around how students learn. The biggest challenge remains how we mainstream our embedded academic language and literacies approach without sacrificing the subject content.