Digital Sense-Making: Narrating the Transition to College

1. Digital Sense-Making: Narrating the Transition to College Philip Kreniske The Graduate Center & Hunter College City University of New York (CUNY) Kreniske, P. (2014, May). Digital Sense-Making: How SEEK Students Narrate their Transition to College. In C. Daiute (Chair), Multi-expressive Genres for Development conducted at the Annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, San Francisco, CA.

2. Writing as a Social and Cognitive Tool Writing as an explicitly social process (Bazerman, 2004; Ede, 1989; McLane, 1992; Ong, 1975; and many others) and the importance of audience (Black, 1989; Flower, 1979; Ong, 1975; Sperling, 1996 and others)

3. Writing as a Social and Cognitive Tool and the Digital The shift in recent years to massive use of digital and explicitly social writing has increased the importance of audience (Baker & Moore, 2008; Fishman, Lunsford, McGregor, &Otuteye, 2005;Magnifico, 2011; Manago, Tamara, & Greenfield, 2012) 

4. What is a blog? Often, but not exclusively, blogs are written from one author’s or group of authors’ perspective. Distinct from platforms like Facebook and Twitter in two main ways. Opportunities for interaction are more limited and structured on a blog. Blogs generally place more emphasis on longer written texts, around 500 words, as opposed to Twitter where writers are limited to 140 characters, and though Facebook does not have the same limitations – the average post is around 122 words. • (Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2011).

5. Affordances of the Blog Magnify the Importance of Audience (Bolander, 2012; Graves, 2007 ; Heft, 2007)  Hypertext Blogger can explicitly select their audience; public, private with limited access to chosen others, or completely private Allow writers and commenters to communicate across geographical space. posts and subsequent comments can be appear synchronous - or asynchronous

6. Affordances of the Blog Magnify the Importance of Audience Formation of connections leading to increased implicit and explicit support as compared to most other writing mediums Social interactions and supports why blogging contributes to positive emotional development (Baker & Moore, 2008; Bane, Cornish, Erspamer, & Kampan, 2010; Boniel-Nissim & Barak, 2011; Ko & Kuo, 2009; Schmitt, Davanim, & Matthias, 2008; Sosnowy, 2013) and perhaps cognitive development too (Davidson, 2011; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Fishman et al., 2005) little systematic and empirical work has examined these claims (Wuyts, Broome and McGuire, 2011)

7. Writing Supports Sense-Making During Challenging Transitions Writing can be a tool to support sense-making. Sense-making involves figuring out how one fits into a context (Daiute & Nelson, 1997; Lucic, 2013).

8. Increasing college enrollment and importance of a degree

9. Writing as a Gatekeeper Increasing college enrollment and importance of a degree

10. College Transition is Challenging for All Especially for students from low income backgrounds many of whom are the first in their family to attend college. (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011; Clark, 2005; Terenzini et al., 1994; Hurtado, Carter, &Spuler, 1996; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Zhang & Smith, 2011 )

11. Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) at CUNY • SEEK provides funding and support for students • for families with annual income below $20,655 • slightly lower SAT and high school GPA as compared to other students at the college • 22 transfer students • (with over 120 freshman admitted in the fall)

12. Research Questions How do SEEK transfer students use blogging to support their transition to a new college? How might their writing change over the course of the semester. What are the implications of the change?

13. Students write at the beginning, middle and near the end of the semester. Design Beginning set up blog and respond to prompt and comment Middle Respond to prompt and comment End Respond to prompt, comment and brief survey

14. Design Beginning Set up blog and respond to prompt and comment Middle Respond to prompt and comment End Respond to prompt, comment and brief survey

15. Design, Prompt 1

16. Emma’s First Post

17. Emma’s Last Post

18. (Daiute, 2014) Coding Narratives: A Significance AnalysisEmma’s 1st Post Cognitive Words

19. Coding Narratives: A Significance AnalysisEmma’s 1st Post Cognitive andAffect Words

20. Coding Narratives: A Significance AnalysisEmma’s 3rd Post Cognitive Words

21. Coding Narratives: A Significance AnalysisEmma’s 3rd Post Cognitive andAffect Words

22. 1st Post 3rd Post Comparing 1st and 3rd Narratives: A Significance AnalysisEmma’s Cognitive andAffect Words

23. Use of Affect Increased Over the Semester Note: Mean ratios of affect words to total words per narrative.

24. Use of Cognitive Words Increased Over the Semester Note: Mean ratios of cognitive words to total words per narrative.

25. Implications of the change in writing over the semester Bloggers increased use of affect and cognitive words over time suggesting that this explicitly social writing was an enactment of emotional and cognitive development development. Bloggers used the writing activity to make sense of – and think through their challenging college transition.

26. Explore the comments and the interaction of comments and how bloggers’ writings changed. Next cohort of participants Comparison of explicitly social writing (bloggers) and implicitly social writing (word processed). Other outcomes – i.e. college graduation rates? Next Steps

27. Thank You.Questions? pkreniske@gc.cuny.edu