Building a Community of Practice: Teaching science as a second language

1. Building a Community of Practice: Teaching science as a second language

2. Cross Discipline Team C. Cunnington Academic Language and Learning Unit, La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga Campus; M. Fussell Department of Environmental Management and Ecology, La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga Campus; M. Quaglio Equality and Diversity Centre , La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga Campus; B. Bennett: Academic Language and Learning Unit, La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga Campus; P. Brosche: Academic Language and Learning Unit, La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga Campus.

3. Context: Place & Pressures Regional campus, classed as Low Social Economic Status area • High likelihood underprepared students Pressures: • Review of Australian Higher Education (Bradley 2008)

4. Context: Change in Curriculum & Organisational DILEMMA! How and who? Re-structure: • Academic Language and Learning Unit ( ALLU) – collaborate with staff across faculties, embedded to assist underprepared students Design for Learning: • graduate capabilities developed within courses • in subject & explicitly taught

5. Community of Practice ALLU FSTE Forged new, unlikely, partnership MF: Faculty of Science Technology and Engineering ( FSTE) CC: Academic Language and Learning Unit (ALLU)

6. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (COP) Elements: Community of committed people Domain of knowledge Shared practice Wenger. E, McDermott. R and Snyder. W. M; 2000

7. What we did Week 2: (48 students) Mini lecture and written paragraph as indicator of writing level (Barthel 2009) Students flagged : Green: no need to attend (13 students), Yellow: advised to attend (30 students), Red: essential to attend ( 5 students)

8. Improving Academic Writing for Science (IWAS) Timetabled, prior to Lecture, 1 hr, just-in-time approach. Attendance: 28 – 11 students Topics: Academic Reading for Lectures Starting a Laboratory Report Features of Academic Argument Writing for Science Paragraph answers to exam & tute questions Analyse question and plan an answer Edit the answer using a checklist Lab Report Revisited Exam Techniques for short answer questions

9. How we worked together MF: Direction and topic/ lecture notes CC: Presentation (PPt) and activities based on 1st Year Survival Guide (Yucel et al. 2011) MF: Chemistryised language, added subject specific examples Uploaded on LMS for students Reflection and planning 2-hr planning on Friday, for Tuesday workshop

10. COP: an uncomfortable place CC: High cognitive load: new concepts, new vocabulary MF coined phrase – Science as a Second Language (Halliday & Martin, 1993)

11. COP: an uncomfortable place MF: unfamiliar territory - writing, students joining the conversation

12. Tension: Practise skill vs Learn Content MF: “I have no idea of what you are planning, but go for it.” Group-Write Activity Writing a messy process Extending knowledge through reflection

13. PowerPoint Planning tool: Capture the flood of content Shaping content into logical sections for students Presentation tool : How do I show this visually? Language teaching tool: Introducing new vocabulary (hearing and seeing) Model language structures e.g. Hypothesis Consistent terminology eg journal/workbook Memory support

14. MF: “… amazed at the degree of prep CC was prepared to go to..sometimes  thinking ‘Hell no, not another slide!’ Then realising that it was a good thing to be so well planned, compared to … having a mental plan …I know where I want to start and where … to get to ; …what students will find difficult and I target concepts and knowledge they will need. But this area of teaching about writing is new to me, so I had complete trust that CC could show me the way to go. The planning put a fence around what we were going to do and within the fence there was a clear pathway. .. which is very good for the students… they can tie one bit to the next bit.”

15. S: “Sometimes the L is talking about something … very important but there are so many new words I get lost, even though I have done the reading before. I have to just wait, sometimes I am lost for 15 mins. And then L says something and I can catch it and keep up for a while. If there is a PowerPoint it helps because even though I still get lost I can catch up when the new slide comes.”

16. All voices in the room Language Teacher: Pair work, practising silently Listening to model target language Elicited contribution Power of new voices in the room Sustainability issues

17. Elements of effective COP • Shared overall aim – to implement DFL/Graduate Capabilities • Shared educational backgrounds and teaching philosophy – valuing experiential learning • Openly challenged and supported each other • Found new ways of teaching scientific writing in Chemistry • Look at subject material through a different lens, de-familiarising it and showing what needs to be made explicit, that might otherwise have gone unsaid.  • Others in COP – questions to uncover assumptions • Including students – knowledge domain Koeglreitter. G, Smith. R, Torlina. 2008 Turned daunting to enjoyable challenge. 

18. Draft: Collaboration Manual Shared goals – Intended Learning Outcomes Planning – sufficient time together for real collaboration Negotiate a shared vocabulary “Skills” session use subject content & be timetabled Expect discomfort and tension – build trust Co-teaching - shared presenting Reflect together and be prepared to learn from failure Benefits of small campus

19. Questions and Advice How to evaluate an intervention with small numbers of students (10 - 30) How sustainable is this approach to teaching graduate capabilities? What is happening at your institution? Thank you

20. Reference List Barthel, A.,( 2009, November). Life after Post-enrolment language assessment: A case study raising more questions than answers {abstract}. 9th Biennial National Conference of the Association for Academic Language and Learning , University of Queensland. Halliday, M., & Martin, J. (1993). Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Koeglreiter, G., Torlina, L., & Smith, R. (2008). Reaching Beyond the Boundaries: Communities of Practice and Boundaries in Tertiary Education. North Carolina, USA: Information Age Publishing. Medawar, P. B., & Pyke, D. (1991). The threat and the glory: reflections on science and scientists. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, USA. Merzyn, G. (1987). The language of school science. International journal of science education, 9(4), 483-489.

21. Reference List Prain, V., & Hand, B. (1996). Writing for learning in secondary science: Rethinking practices. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(6), 609-626. doi: 10.1016/s0742-051x(96)00003-0 Sankey, M. D., & Lawrence, J. (2008). I'm not alone: first year course leaders helped through communities of practice. Paper presented at the 5th International Life Long Learning Conference, Yippoon, Australia. Viskovic, A. (2006). Becoming a tertiary teacher: learning in communities of practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 25(4), 323-339. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Yucel, R. (2009). A broad-based, grass-roots community of practice achieving curriculum reform in first year biology. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 3(2), A26-A35.