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Wellesley Plus Lab Incorporating Critical Literacies into a Supplementary First Year Experience

Wellesley Plus Lab Incorporating Critical Literacies into a Supplementary First Year Experience. Megan Brooks Director of Research, Instruction, and Computing Support Heather Woods Director of Access and Digital Media. What is Wellesley Plus?. Program is: Invitation-based Voluntary

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Wellesley Plus Lab Incorporating Critical Literacies into a Supplementary First Year Experience

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  1. Wellesley Plus LabIncorporating Critical Literaciesinto a Supplementary First Year Experience Megan Brooks Director of Research, Instruction, and Computing Support Heather Woods Director of Access and Digital Media

  2. What is Wellesley Plus? Program is: • Invitation-based • Voluntary • Includes curricular and co-curricular components Lab is: • Credit-bearing • Attached to a required writing course • Self-contained Students are: • Typically 1st generation college students • Often from underprivileged high schools • Represent 4% of their class (24 of 600)

  3. Who Are the Instructors? • Research and Instruction Librarians • Megan Brooks and Alana Kumbier • Research and Instruction Technologists • Heather Woods and Rebecca Darling Focus is on collaborative instruction and team-teaching Instructors model collaborative behavior for students

  4. The Lab: Then and Now • 2006: 1 lab • 24 students • 3 hour lab/week • Taught large number of tools • Writing faculty use text (literature) as source material • Writing faculty worked with previous program • 2010: 2 labs • 12 students per lab • 90-min lab/week • Teaching fewer tools, focus on content • Writing faculty use media (film, television) as source material • Same writing faculty as year 3

  5. Literacy Goals for Students Students will • use non-textual formats and their position as creative “authors” in the lab to explore the themes and skills being discussed in their writing classes. • be able to search, choose and cite appropriate content for their work. • be able to choose and use appropriate technologies for their goals.

  6. Literacy Goals for Students Students will • understand intellectual property from the perspective of a consumer as well as an author of content including the use of IP for remixing in their academic work. • be leaders among their peers in their understanding and use of available IS resources. • engage in the iterative process around creation, critique, reflection, and revision.

  7. Skill Goals for Students • Image analysis • Search • Project planning • Citation • Digital storytelling • Format/content choices • Specific technologies (Garageband, audio recording) • Peer review and critique • Find library and IT help

  8. Project 1 Timeline

  9. Project Examples • Audrey – Harajuku • Linked to writing class research paper • Jenny Jean – Female Consciousness • Original narrative based on a provided image

  10. Student Outcomes Students • Apply image analysis skills to their reading/writing • Choose employment in IS • elect previously-unconsidered majors • Connect to IS resources in their other course work • Gain confidence – many W+ students go on to be student leaders (e.g. Academic Peer Tutors, First Year Mentors, members of College Government) • We have not conducted a longitudinal assessment of the impact of this experience on academic course work after the first semester.

  11. Instructor Outcomes • Increased our own literacy skills • Modeled successful library/technology teaching partnerships now in place throughout our departments • Prompted changes in campus-wide support for research and instruction (library/technology staff are more aware of the boarder support vocabulary and resources)

  12. Lessons Learned • Quality of digital stories improved with an increase in writing done before and during the projects • Faculty support for the lab (and their students) is better if they have worked with non-textual formats in their courses • It is important for the instructors and the students to see that “critical literacies” are integrated. Team-teaching was essential to this process at Wellesley.

  13. Ongoing Challenges • It is challenging to create completely self-contained lab • Quality of work would be higher if they were able to work outside of class (more time for reflection, revision, etc.) • Have to take class time to talk about things they would otherwise discover on their own • The current model does not scale • We work with only 24 students each year. • Can our “traditional” instruction programs adapt to serve this need? • The writing class/lab link is still incomplete • Common themes are taught, but content is not linked. • Writing classes are working with distinct syllabi.

  14. Questions? Megan A. Brooks madams@wellesley.edu Heather Woods hwoods@wellesley.edu

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