Teaching is crucial for supporting students’ chances of success in higher education, yet often makes limited use of theory to foster contextualized, systemic understandings of access and success. Theorized yet practical ways of empowering university educators are needed to develop their practices and turn access into success for their students. T…[Read more]

In 1984, Stephen North wrote a paper in which he argued that writing centres need to focus on the writer, rather than more narrowly on the writing tasks students seek their help with. This now-famous paper in the writing centre field speaks about an approach to writing support and development that focuses on who is doing the writing, and what they…[Read more]

Peer tutoring in higher education aims to enhance student learning, and confidence. In writing centres, peer writing tutors use critical questioning to make the tutorial sessions student-focused and productive. The nature of questions influences the outcomes of the tutorials, yet research has not devoted sufficient time to unpacking what form this…[Read more]

Much academic development work that is framed by academic literacies, especially that focused
on writing, is concerned with disciplinary conventions and knowledges: conceptual, practical,
and procedural. This paper argues, however, that academic literacies work tends to conflate
literacy practices with disciplinary knowledge structures, thus…[Read more]

Writing, and the thinking, reading and analytical process that writers engage with to make writing possible, is transformative, and doctoral students in the social sciences especially tend to write themselves into their new identities as ‘doctors’ and recognised researchers. Much has been written in recent years about doctoral writing, inc…[Read more]

Writing and reading critically are core academic practices that many South African tertiary students struggle with throughout undergraduate study. This is partly due to a lack of competency in English as a first language, and partly due to a lack of preparation at primary and secondary school level. Critical reading and writing practices need to…[Read more]

This paper discusses the role of a Writing Centre in creating spaces for talk about and change in disciplinary writing pedagogy. It asks how collaborative partnerships between disciplinary academics and Writing Centre practitioners might be established and nurtured sustainably. Drawing on insights from two collaborations with academics in…[Read more]

In South Africa and in other parts of the world, many professions are bemoaning the poor ability of many graduates
to communicate their skills and knowledge effectively once they enter the workplace. Increasingly, pressure is
placed on higher education to do more in terms of equipping future professionals with the necessary critical…[Read more]

Many university lecturers expect students to be able to read disciplinary texts at the appropriate levels, and reflect critically and multidimensionally on those texts, yet are often frustrated by many students’ lack of ability to do so satisfactorily. While there is much research to suggest that academic writing needs to be taught within the d…[Read more]

Teaching and learning is a growing field of research and practice globally, and increasing investments are being made in developing academics as teachers. An inability to adequately account for disciplinary knowledge can lead to academic development inputs that are unable to fully address the needs of students, educators, or disciplines…[Read more]

Peer tutors in higher education are frequently given vital teaching and learning work to do, but the training or professional development and support opportunities they are offered vary, and more often than not peer tutors are under-supported. In order to create and sustain teaching and learning environments that are better able to facilitate…[Read more]

Students’ ability to build knowledge, and transfer it within and between contexts is crucial to cumulative learning and to academic success. This has long been a concern of higher education research and practice. A central part of this concern for educators is creating the conditions that enable their student’s deep learning, as this is an are…[Read more]

John Biggs’ well-known curriculum design approach, constructive alignment, is widely used in higher education in the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. Developed with one dominant account of learning through curriculum, this approach has a gap in terms of accounting for other kinds of knowledge building, and associated knower d…[Read more]

Feedback plays an integral role in students’ learning and development, as it is often the only personal communication that students have with tutors or lecturers about their own work. Yet, in spite of its integral role in student learning there is disagreement between how students and tutors or lecturers perceive the pedagogic purpose of f…[Read more]