Pam Mort

Embedding Academic Literacy Support Within the Electrical Engineering Curriculum: A Case Study

This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those without the assumed entry standard, into a standard electrical engineering program without compromising any other educational objectives. All students who commenced an engineering degree were tested as part of their first sessions assessment activities. Those identified as having inadequate academic literacy were directed to study a specifically designed credit-bearing course, which is controlled by the engineering faculty but was designed and is taught in collaboration with academic literacy teachers. Students who completed this course responded positively and also demonstrated measurable improvement in their communication skills. The approach has alleviated the skepticism about teaching academic literacy usually found amongst engineering faculty staff and has been adopted by the wider engineering faculty.

Effect of language difficulties on results of engineering students

Weak language ability has a deleterious effect on a students academic performance. This paper reports an attempt to assess how big this effect might be for engineering students. We found that there is a measurable effect - in this case, as big a difference as 17 marks out of 100 - that could be ascribed to language skills. However, it is not clear what fraction of this mark deficit is language and what fraction is due to related issues such as culture.

Engaging Students in Online Learning Environments for Success in Academic Writing in the Disciplines

This chapter focuses on how to develop students’ academic writing through fostering their use of online resources in an e-learning environment. Such an online environment, whether for independent or blended learning, needs to be carefully designed so that students will engage with the learning materials and tasks. Thus, motivating students to use e-learning resources is at the centre of the design, development and implementation of an online environment. This is even more critical when teaching writing in the disciplines, since teaching discipline knowledge tends to dominate both face-to-face and e-learning curricula. Consequentially, the teaching of writing at university can be, wholly or partially, an extra-curricula, independent learning activity. A genre pedagogy for teaching writing can support student engagement since it is strongly grounded in discipline purposes and contexts. This pedagogy can be used as the basis for a social semiotic approach to the design of e-learning resources. However, the success of such an online learning environment for writing is highly dependent upon strategies for implementation, and the degree of integration with discipline curricula.