TLC Working One to One Authentically StudentCentred Learning

TLC Working One to One: Authentically Student-Centred Learning Development Dr Helen Webster Newcastle University UK @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre Explore the possibilities

Who Are We? • Who am I? “Learning Developer” • Who are you? • Common aim: how to have one to one conversations with students about their learning, to help them succeed. @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

How do we envisage these conversations? What’s the slogan on your T-Shirt? @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Shared Values Emancipato ry Collaborati ve Aspirational Social justice Person. Noncentred judgemental Holistic Inclusive Empowering Situate Reflectiv e Non-directive Student-led @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Study Skills Conversations • Avoid abbreviations and contractions. Write words out in full: • • • ‘dept. ’ as ‘department’ ‘e. g’. as ‘for example’ ‘didn’t’ as ‘did not’ ‘they’re’ as ‘they are’ ‘isn’t’ as ‘is not’ • Avoid personal pronouns such as ‘I’/’we’ and ‘you’. Instead, sentences begin in impersonal ways such as ‘it can be seen that…’ • Linking ideas together: • Introducing an alternative viewpoint: conversely; in comparison; on the contrary; in fact; though; although. (Cottrell, Study Skills Handbook) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The ‘Study Skills’ Model ‘The study skills model sees writing and literacy as primarily an individual and cognitive skill. This approach focusses on the surface features of language form and presumes that students can transfer their knowledge of writing and literacy unproblematically from one context to another’. (Lea and Street, 2006). • Study Skills: [Remediation of] Student Deficit. • ‘Fix it’, atomised [transferable] skills; surface language, grammar, spelling. • Sources: behavioural and experimental psychology; programmed learning @ncl_wdc • Student writing as technical and instrumental skill (Robinson-Pant and Writing Development Centre Street, 2012).

Academic Socialisation Conversations Academic writing is clear, concise, focussed, structured and backed up by evidence. Its purpose is to aid the reader’s understanding. Characteristics of academic writing. Academic writing is: • Planned and focused: answers the question and demonstrates an understanding of the subject. • Structured: is coherent, written in a logical order, and brings together related points and material. • Evidenced: demonstrates knowledge of the subject area, supports opinions and arguments with evidence, and is referenced accurately. • Formal in tone and style: uses appropriate language and tenses, and is clear, concise and balanced @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Academic Socialisation Model • Academic socialization is concerned with students’ acculturation into disciplinary and subject-based discourses and genres. Students acquire the ways of talking, writing, thinking and using literacy that typified members of a disciplinary or subject area community. The academic socialization model presumes that disciplinary discourses are relatively stable and, once students have learned and understood the ground rules of a particular academic discourse, they are able to reproduce it unproblematically. (Lea and Street, 2006). • Academic socialisation: acculturation of students into academic discourse • Inducting students into new ‘culture’; focus on orientation to learning and interpretation of learning task, e. g. ‘deep’, ‘surface’, ‘strategic’ learning; homogeneous ‘culture’, lack of focus on institutional practices, change and power. • Sources: social psychology, anthropology, constructivism. • Student writing as transparent medium of representation. (Robinson-Pant and Street, @ncl_wdc 2012). Writing Development Centre

What’s really going on: A contradiction? “The Learning Developer’s role is to respond to this [student] expectation by identifying issues, offering suggestions or solutions whilst at the same time encouraging autonomy” (Caldwell et al, 2018). One (LDer) to One (Student) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Translate: Learning Developer: • “It might be better if you…” • “Do you think it might be worth trying…? ” • “I’m not sure about…” • “I wonder if…” • “What do you think…? ” • “This would be better. ” • “You should do this. ” • “This is wrong. ” • “I think this. ” • “Agree with me. ” @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

What’s really going on: A lack of congruence? “so maybe you, it might be better if you put it at the beginning”. This is a conventionally indirect suggestion, using a mitigator (maybe) and conditional (might) so that the LD appears not to be telling the student directly what to do, but instead makes a hypothetical suggestion. Furthermore, the LD changes the pronoun ‘you’ to ‘it’ to give the impression that the LD has no personal claim in the solution and so that the student can eventually ‘own’ it. @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

What’s really going on: A dilemma? “To pretend that there is not a hierarchical relationship between tutor and student is a fallacy, and to engineer peer tutoring techniques that divest the tutor of power and authority is at times foolish and can even be unethical”. (Carino, 2003). So should we be oppressive or disingenuous? @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

What we’re left with • Identify • Hm, let’s have a look at your essay… • Explain • Examine • Diagnose • Ah, I see the issue, look… • Advise • Prescribe • What you need to do is… @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Disempowering the student “The tutorial is therefore guided by the LD and the student adheres by providing continuers, agreements and minimal responses. Challenge is rare, yet accounts are often provided after LD evaluation to defend, save face or explain” (Caldwell, 2018). @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Academic Literacies Model • Academic literacies is concerned with meaning-making, identity, power and authority, and foregrounds the institutional nature of what counts as knowledge in any particular academic context. It […] views the processes involved in acquiring appropriate and effective uses of literacy as more complex, dynamic, nuanced, situated and involving both epistemological issues and social processes, including power relations among people, institutions and social identities. (Lea and Street, 2006). • Academic Literacies: Students’ negotiation of conflicting literary practices • Literacies as social practices; at level of epistemologies and identities; institutions as sites of/constituted in discourses and power; variety of communicative repertoire, switching with regard to linguistic practices, social meanings and identities, • Sources: New Literacy studies; critical discourse analysis, systemic functional @ncl_wdc linguistics, cultural anthropology. Writing Development • Student Writing as constitutive and contested. (Robinson-Pant and Street, Centre

What would that conversation look like? One that acknowledges: • The place of identity and social context • The multiplicity of perspectives and discourses • Meaning-making and its contested nature • The role of power and authority • The need for negotiation @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Why look to Clinical Psychology? “At some level, it all makes sense” (Butler, 1998) “As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves” (Gross, 1992) “The single most damaging effect of psychiatric diagnosis is loss of meaning as people’s problems are divested of their personal and social situatedness and labelled as ‘illness’. ” (Johnstone, 2017). @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

What is Formulation? A core skill, although ‘there is no universally agreed definition of formulation’ (DCP 2011) • ‘The tool […] the lynchpin that holds theory and practice together’ (Butler, 1998) • ‘A crucible’ (Dudley and Kuyken, 2013) • ‘A shared narrative or story’ (DCP, 2011) • ‘constructed rather than discovered’ (Harper and Spellman 2006) • “The process of co-constructing a hypothesis” (Johnstone, 2017) • “A process of ongoing collaborative sense-making” (Harper and Moss, @ncl_wdc 2003) Writing Development Centre

Characteristics of formulation: Person- not Problem-centred All formulations: • summarise the service user’s core problems; • suggest how the service user’s difficulties may relate to one another, by drawing on psychological theories and principles; • aim to explain, on the basis of psychological theory, the development and maintenance of the service user’s difficulties, at this time and in these situations; • indicate a plan of intervention which is based in the psychological processes and principles already identified; • are open to revision and re-formulation. (Johnstone and Dallos, 2006) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Rethinking Authority “The clinician brings knowledge derived from theory, research and clinical experience, while the service user brings expertise about their own life and the meaning and impact of their relationships and circumstances” (Johnstone, 2017) 1 (LDer) 2 1 (Student) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Whose learning? Lecturer s Learning Develop er Students Learning Outcome s @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Opening up our role. Student Agency Mentor Listene r Tutor Knowledge Student Knowledge Teach er Coach Tutor Agency @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Formulation in identifying the issue Do you hear voices that no one else can hear? “Yes. ” @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Formulation and co-constructing meaning • I have really good hearing • I talk to myself in my head • My flat’s walls are really thin • I live with my grandmother who’s deaf. • I pray. I find it comforting. • I listen to podcasts on headphones a lot • It’s ok, I can hear that too, it’s not just you • Sorry, I thought you were being metaphorical! No, not literally. @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Formulation in identifying the issue “I’m not very good at writing” • What does the problem mean to the student? • Whose problem is it? • Is it a problem? Is it THE problem? @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Internation al student Learns well with video Full of cold today Broke up with boyfriend Changed degree “”You’re bad at statistics” @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Maybe we could learn a thing or two… “In these [study skills] approaches, the distance between tutors’ expectations and student-writers’ understanding of such expectations is problematized as a mismatch which can be resolved if tutors state clearly to student-writers, in written or spoken words, what is required” (Lillis, 2001) “The rat is always right’ (B. F. Skinner, cited in Lindsley, 1990) Discuss…. . @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Writing Process (Coffin, 2002) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The Five Ps of LD Perceptio n of task Pertinent factors Presentin g “Problem” Product Process @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Problematising writing Learning “out come” “this [conduit] metaphor signals the following common sense notions about language: […] that language is a transparent medium, reflecting rather than constructing meanings” (Lillis, 2001) @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Strategies: constructing authorial identity Authority • Who can you be? • Who do you want to be? • Who do you need to be? Authorship • What can you say? • What do you want to say? • What do you need to say? Authorial Presence • How can you say it? • How do you want to say it? • How do you need to say it? ‘Heuristic’ adapted from Lillis, 2001 @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Formulation techniques • Contracting and re-contracting –explaining your role regarding them • Congruent: genuinely open questions and non-directive language • Consensual: explaining why you’re asking or proposing and what you hope it will achieve • Juxtaposition: bringing elements together so the student can negotiate meaning and resolution in the interstices • Two of the 5 Ps, Past and Present, two Perspectives, two Contexts • Inviting the student’s comment, challenge, questions, @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Formulation techniques @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

The difference between Diagnosis and Formulation in Learning Development @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Suggestions for Practice LD Formulation… • may not always be appropriate or necessary • develops learning in its own right – it is an ‘intervention’ • could be used alongside other LD activities e. g. coaching, teaching, advising (care should be taken in contracting) • is an iterative, ongoing process open to revision • is non-linear • could be light-touch or in-depth • could be used to underpin other LD activities e. g. workshop design @ncl_wdc Writing Development • is a rich source of CPD for the Learning Developer Centre

Differences with Clinical Psychology Learning Development Distress and mental ill health are inherently problems Learning is by nature challenging and unsettling Alleviate distress and problematic behaviours Not remedial Treatment More learning! Therapy Not therapy (possibly therapeutic…? ) Achievement and maintenance of wellbeing Exponential and ongoing learning Ongoing treatment process Often one-off or short term Assessment*, Formulation, Treatment No linear or formally staged process – mixed in Clinician - Service User University – Learning Developer – Student @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre

Contact: Dr Helen Webster • Head of the Writing Development Centre, Newcastle University • Email: helen. webster@ncl. ac. uk • Twitter: @scholastic_rat • Blog: https: //rattusscholasticus. wordpress. com/ @ncl_wdc Writing Development Centre