The seminar courses in teacher education - Teachers' presence in the writing process*
Submitted by:
Irit Haskel-Shaham
Abstract:
Academic writing plays an essential role in the seminar course. The seminar course is the arena in which the presence of teachers in the writing process meets the students’ academic writing abilities. Novice writers need the assistance of a skilled writer throughout the process, starting with choosing and framing the research topic, retrieving information, generating, organizing and elaborating on ideas, and drafting, revising and editing their text. Managing such a course requires “juggler teachers”. Not only do they have to be experts in their subject matter and lead the inquiry process logically and coherently, but they have to accompany their students in the writing process to the end goal of an academic paper.
The research aim was to portray models of teachers’ presence along the writing process. Our questions were: A. What is the nature of seminar teachers’ presence in their students’ writing/inquiry process? B. Are there particular aspects of the writing process where the teacher’s presence is more intense or emphasized?
26 teachers were interviewed on the seminar course, in a semi-structured interview including 18 questions. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis of their presence (involvement) was based on an “octopus model” which we created based on principles from Garison and Arbaugh model of COI (2007) and on Rickards and Hawes (2004). Our findings reveal different roles that seminar teachers play: as planners, as consultants, as coaches, as assessors and as models. It is interesting to see the special mixture of each teacher.
These findings mirror the place of the teachers in the seminar course and can also illuminate points of weaknesses in order to allow the teachers to reconsider their involvement in the seminar course.
* This research is supported by Mofet Institute
References:
Garison, D.R. and Arbaugh, J.B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet and Higher Education 10, 157–172.
Rickards, D. and Hawes, S. (2004). Raising writers: the teacher’s role. Educational leadership. Association for leadership and curriculum. 68-71.
Yagelski, R.P. (2009). A thousand writers writing: Seeking change through the radical practice of writing as a way of being. English Education, 42(1), 6–28.