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Highlights: [•] Feedback studies, increasing contextual, have missed teacher context. [•] Using activity theory, I implement a case study of 3 first-year composition teachers. [•] Coping tools are goal setting, dividing work, managing criticism, and sharing work. [•] Productivity psychologists have found these same coping tools in academic writers. [•] Researchers need to conduct contextual analyses of writing feedback processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: How university students write from sources has been an issue of long-standing interest among researchers of advanced academic literacy. Previous research in this regard in the context of L2 writing has tended to focus on novices'' textual borrowing; less attention has been given to exploring the potential light that theories from other intellectual domains may shed upon students'' process of source-based academic writing. The study to be reported in this paper used activity theory as an analytic tool to examine three ESL students'' activities of fulfilling a policy paper assignment at a university in Hong Kong. In the paper I present a description of the activity system concerned and its internal contradictions, characterize the sequences of actions that constituted the individual students'' activities, and analyze the students'' source-use practices in terms of their efforts to address a set of source-bound systemic tensions. At the end of the paper I propose a few lines of future explorations using activity theory as a heuristic to study literacy activities in academic contexts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In Ireland and the UK it is accepted practice that agencies with formal responsibility for delivering school examinations allow examination candidates, and in many cases their teachers, to see their examination papers once they have been marked. Returned papers can carry various pieces of information; as well as the total score given for a performance, additional information is included in the form of the annotations left on the examination paper by the marking examiner. As far as we know there has been no research into how this information affects those who come into contact with it. The study uses teacher interview and survey data to explore whether a sociocultural approach to analysis can illuminate the factors that might influence their interpretation of those annotations. These analyses suggest that a key influence on the valid interpretation of an examiner's annotations is a teachers' involvement in examining activity. The analyses support further conceptualisation that these teacher-examiners' interpretative capacity is related to their positioning in a boundary zone between two different activity systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Medical schools have a duty of care to support student wellbeing but there is little guidance on how to translate this mandate into practice. Often schools focus on implementing and reporting individual-level interventions which typically only address one aspect of wellbeing. Conversely, less attention has been paid to holistic school-wide approaches towards student wellbeing that address multiple wellbeing dimensions. Thus, this review sought to improve our understanding of how support is mediated within such school-wide wellbeing programmes. Method: This critical narrative review was conducted in two stages. First, the authors searched several key databases for papers published up to 25th May 2021, using a systematic search strategy and TREND checklist to guide our data extraction process. We later expanded our search to include literature published from the original date to 20th May 2023. Second, the identified articles were critically analysed using activity theory as a theoretical lens to aid explanation. Results: We found school-wide wellbeing programmes emphasize social connectivity and building a sense of community. Tutors take a key role in the activity of supporting students' wellbeing. We mapped out the activity system components to describe the complexity of this tutor role. This analysis illustrated: tensions and contradictions in the system which may open up opportunities for change; the importance of context for influencing how system components interact; and that students' trust underpins the whole activity system. Conclusions: Our review shines a light into the black-box of holistic school-wide wellbeing programmes. We identified that tutors play a key role in wellbeing systems but confidentiality is a recurring tension which may jeopardise a wellbeing system. The time has come to investigate these systems in more detail, embracing and exploring the role of context at the same time as looking for common threads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that learning analytics as a research field can benefit from a theory‐informed shared language to describe sensemaking of learning and teaching data. To make the case for such shared language, first, I critically review prominent sensemaking theories to then demonstrate how studies in learning analytics do not use coherent descriptions of sensemaking, eclectically combining the paradigms that have underlying differences. I then propose a conceptualization of sensemaking that overcomes the differences between these theories and explains how the concepts of activity system, the definition of the situation and affordances can be used to capture individual differences in sensemaking. The paper concludes with a preliminary framework and examples demonstrating its utility in raising new theoretical questions, informing design principles and providing shared language for researchers in learning analytics.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicSensemaking happens when individuals try to explain unknown situations.Learning analytics uses sensemaking as a lens to understand dashboard use.Systematic analysis of sensemaking is essential for learning analytics.What this paper addsThe paper notes that noticing and perceiving are commonly examined in learning analytics on dashboard use.The paper suggests a revision of fundamental assumptions in sensemaking.A paper proposes a toy model of sensemaking that includes operationalization of the definition of the situation, activity where sensemaking happens and processes of noticing and perceiving affordances.Implications for practice and/or policyLearning analytics must examine sensemaking of data about teaching and learning in a systematic manner.Internal perceptions of the social environment and activity that are informed by the data need to be considered in evaluating dashboard use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity theory is a relatively young methodology for researching higher education teaching practices. Beyond systemic analyse of workplace activities and their development, activity theory used in its full interventionist capacity can foster practitioners’ transformative agency to initiate practice change. Nevertheless, this is not an easy process. This paper shares activity theory research into the digital teaching activity of anatomy teachers within an Australian university. Using the lens of this project, the paper exposes several methodological dilemmas experienced by the researcher. Beyond the issue of the methodological level of activity theory used, these dilemmas relate to the authentic determination of both the unit of analysis and the object of the activity, the type of intervention (i.e. full Change Laboratory or modified), and the complexity in analysis using a concept-rich theory. Sharing these dilemmas invites further research to examine inherent contradictions in the human activity of conducting activity theory research focussed on university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]