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In We Need To Talk: A New Method for Evaluating Poetry (2018), Michael Theune and Bob Broad present a study that uses a version of their 'Poetry Dynamic Criteria Mapping' (PDCM) methodology to empirically and inductively investigate the implicit criteria in the selection of poems in creative arts journals. I employ a version of PDCM in my study. I coded and analysed 752 poems from the past three years' issues of nine creative arts journals from liberal arts institutions in the same academic conference. Two important patterns emerged: (1) the vast majority of the poems are outgrowths of confessional poetry: free verse, serious, introspective, and focused on emotion; and (2) few poems seem aligned with other values, including those espoused by avant-garde, slam, and socially and politically engaged poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making scholarly information visible to web search engines is an ongoing challenge, and undergraduate research is no exception. Using a sample of award-winning undergraduate history papers and journals, the authors searched Google, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and the authors' institutional repository to gauge the difficulty of locating these works. Given that many of these works were not easily found, results suggest that libraries and their institutions could be doing more to increase the discoverability of undergraduate research. Based on the success stories observed in this study, we offer strategies to libraries and librarians for increasing the visibility of undergraduate student research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous studies on formal interprofessional education programes, less attention has been focused on informal interprofessional learning opportunities. To provide such an opportunity, a collaborative peer review process (CPRP) was created as part of a peer-reviewed journal. Replacing the traditional peer review process wherein two or more reviewers review the manuscript separately, the CPRP brings together students from different professions to collaboratively review a manuscript. The aim of this study was to assess whether the CPRP can be used as an informal interprofessional learning tool using an exploratory qualitative approach. Eight students from Counselling Psychology, Occupational and Physical Therapy, Nursing, and Rehabilitation Sciences were invited to participate in interprofessional focus groups. Data were analysed inductively using thematic analysis. Two key themes emerged, revealing that the CPRP created new opportunities for interprofessional learning and gave practice in negotiating feedback. The results reveal that the CPRP has the potential to be a valuable interprofessional learning tool that can also enhance reviewing and constructive feedback skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Transformative learning may involve gentle perspective widening or something more traumatic. This paper explores the impact of a transformative pedagogy in a course that challenges learners to “think like a planet”. Among six sources of intellectual anxiety, learners worry about: why Gaia Theory is neglected by their other courses; the removal of humans from “crown of creation” status; Gaia's unfamiliar multibillion-year timescales, comprehending the world system as a whole; the array of weaker and stronger Gaia concepts; and the diversity of viewpoints among classmates. Analysis finds that most learners coped with this exercise although some achieved this by compartmentalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Student journals are a form of 'radical pedagogy' which enable students to engage meaningfully with their work. Using the online journals created by students on a HE course in literary theory, this article analyses student engagement, initial and developing perceptions of literary theory, the students' creation of their identity as 'literary critics', and reflections on their own experience as learners and issues of progression. We argue that journals are a very useful way of developing both theoretical ideas and self-reflection, offering ideas about changing identity. They enable students to engage with or practise theory rather than repeat it, by applying its ideas to the world around them and their lives [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored the use of metaphor within a somatic context as a means to bridge the divide between technique and expression in two undergraduate advanced intermediate ballet classes. Data included surveys, classroom observations, student journal responses and student work, as well as surveys and journal responses, one year after each course. Findings indicate that the metaphor ‘moving is like making out’ helped female students simultaneously realize their expressive and technical potentials through associations with meaningful personal experiences. Students discovered ways to think about their body in relationship to ballet movement and ballet technique became less about the labor involved in ballet and more about creating opportunities to experience pleasure in movement. Ultimately, students were able to formulate their own metaphors and used their imagination to establish personal connections to movement. These findings suggest the power of metaphor, and broader somatic approaches, as tools for ballet educators to help students transcend the dualism between technique and expression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The lived experience of academic teachers as they engage in feedback has received relatively little attention compared to student perspectives on feedback. The present study used an ethnographically informed methodology to investigate the everyday practices around undergraduates’ writing of fourteen UK HE teachers, in a range of disciplines and institutions, focusing on teachers’ perspectives. This paper presents analysis of interviews conducted as part of the study, in which feedback-giving emerged as significant, understood by participants in several potentially dissonant ways: as institutional requirement, as work and as dialogue. Findings suggest participants sometimes managed to reconcile these conflicts and carve out small spaces for dialogue with students, and also indicate that attempts to create greater opportunities for such work, by offering greater support and recognition at institutional level, must take account of teachers’ need for a sense of personal investment in student writing in their disciplinary contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 political studies and law, the article asserts that writing centre practitioners play a valuable role in talking about and changing the way academic writing and literacy is taught in the disciplines. This is shown by working consistently with the understanding that critical reading, thinking and writing are literacy acts rather than generic skills and must therefore be learned and practiced in the disciplines. By supporting disciplinary academics in re-examining course outcomes, materials and assessments, and moving away from a ‘skills approach’ to writing, it is shown that building discipline-specific spaces for writing and literacy development is possible through these collaborative partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge that universities and lecturers face is improving the written output of their students. While many resources are invested in improving tertiary students' writing, lecturing staff and the broader community lament students' abilities. This article reports on a study investigating the characteristics of students' written texts and how they change when students are provided with feedback and an opportunity to rewrite. It reports on changes in both the content of the text (e.g. ideas and analysis) and its form (e.g. the structure of the text) in relation to the demands of the context, and relates the types of feedback provided to the changes observed. It shows that prescriptive text-specific feedback that addresses the integration of content, form, and context is effective in producing positive change in student texts. These findings have implications for universities, disciplinary lecturers, and writing instructors who are interested in improving students' written abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of reflective learning journals to encourage higher order learning outcomes is a growing area in higher education research and practice. However, without a unified and clear definition of reflection, identifying and assessing reflection is problematic for educators. In an attempt to address this issue, in 1999 Kember and colleagues devised a coding scheme based on the work of Mezirow, to identify and assess levels of reflective thinking in students' written journals. We evaluated the usefulness of this coding scheme in a business education context. Findings revealed that the scheme was useful in identifying categories of reflective thinking. Inter‐coder agreement was 0.802 which is satisfactory. On average, 65% of the journal content was coded as non‐reflection and 35% as reflection. A further outcome of the research was to refine the coding scheme and to provide suggestions for its application in teaching practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we review 11 research articles that examine the level of reflection found in student journals in higher education across a range of disciplines. Our review reveals little to no consistency in the research community around the mechanisms and process of assessing levels of reflection in student journals. Our analysis also reveals that the quality of reflection found in student journals varies considerably across studies. In terms of trends, the five of 11 studies found that students or journals were not overly reflective and contained mostly descriptive accounts of events. Four of the 11 studies found that the majority of students or journals were somewhat reflective. Only two of the 11 studies found a high percentage of students or journals were highly reflective. We conclude with a series of factors to be considered when assessing the quality of reflection in student journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freeform written personal development journals are used within the Radiation Therapy (RT) program at the University of Newcastle to promote reflection on practice. The journals are developed by students on completion of each semester based professional placement (clinical placement). To evaluate the level of reflection within journals the Newcastle Reflective Analysis Tool (NRAT) was developed. The NRAT allows for both narrow and broad classification of reflective writing, useful for formal and informal reflective writing assessments. This paper provides validation of the NRAT in the assessment of freeform reflective writing and its use in the assessment of reflection in RT student journals. The results also indicate the need to introduce interventions to foster students' reflective writing ability within the RT program. As a result of these findings the Newcastle Reflective Inventories (NRI) have been developed. The NRIs are short form guided inventories aimed at assisting students with their reflective writing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events of September 11, 2001 provided the author with expanded ways to think about reflective journal writing in her graduate and undergraduate mathematics methods courses. Student journal entries are highlighted which illuminate the relationship among emotions and mathematics learning, the value of community in the learning environment, and the search for pattern and order outside of the mathematics classroom. These powerful reflections offer a view of mathematics learning that is intensely connected to the writers' lives and provide a grounded linkage to the mathematics learning of the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development over several years of an initiative involving student journals that was introduced into a tertiary science education course for pre-service teachers to promote enhanced learning of how to teach science. Very soon after introducing the journals into course work the lecturer began engaging in 'unplanned' informal reflection (reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action) when she witnessed the shallow, often trivial nature of her students' reflective writing and the lack of pedagogical insights they were gaining from the exercise. Motivated by her own ongoing scholarship the lecturer introduced purposeful coaching of reflective skills into her pedagogy to scaffold students' learning and promote more useful reflection. The impact of these interventions on students' reflective capabilities and learning were investigated using a formal action research cycle. Findings indicate that student teachers' reflective skills improved and resulted in deeper and more focused thinking about how to teach science for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how science teachers can use reflective writing to examine students' critical thinking and if they can properly apply knowledge learned during instruction. The authors note how student journals can reveal student misconceptions, help teachers plan lessons and allow students to develop learning strategies. Reports based on student group discussions can reduce teacher workload. Guided reflection papers may also be assigned to students.

This paper explores the design and assessment of reflective journals in a course on spirituality and management in a tertiary institution. The purpose of reflection in education is to develop students' self-awareness and inner leadership. Yet, such assessment poses challenges in terms of design, content and grading. This paper explores the literature surrounding these issues, and then describes the introduction of such an approach through a case study. Two types of assessment were developed to assist students to explore self-awareness. The first was through reflective journal entries completed throughout the course, and the second was a report due at the end of the course, describing the journey of the student's most significant learning. The paper concludes by assessing the effectiveness of such an approach through qualitative measures. The use of student narratives from their journals, with their consent, illustrates the power of the reflective method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on extant pedagogical and research applications of fiction to communication studies, this essay argues that fiction not only engages students and entices them to read, but also builds critical thinking and writing skills. The author used Carl Hiaasen's Native Tongue and Christopher Buckley's Thank You for Smoking as "texts" in an upper-division public relations class to enhance student learning outcomes. Student journals, class discussion, and final exam essays all indicated that the novels helped students reflect deeply on certain ethical issues in public relations and to think critically about course content. The essay includes suggestions for using this "novel" approach to textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suggests that class journals be used as a method by students to keep notes. Problems experienced in the use of class journals by teachers; Reference made to the article written by teacher Paul Pinet; Skepticism over the use of journals by students; Benefits of keeping a class journal.

In this article the author, a science teacher, outlines a journal project he assigned to his physics students as they read the book "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. He comments on the processes used by both he and the students in completing and assessing the journals and discusses how his reading of the journals has helped him forge a better relationship with his students. He also provides a list of recommended science books that may be used for the journal assignment.

The article discusses the use of cloud-based journaling and note-taking in science education. Topics discussed include the use of multimedia by students in their journaling, the use of blogs as a way to start the online journaling process, and the use of tagging by students to allow them to search their online journals in the future.

Introduces publications for students of history. Copies of the first five issues of `The Villanova University Student History Journal,' sponsored by the Tau-Phi Chapter; Volume 3 of `The Upsilonian,' of Upsilon-Upsilon Chapter of Cumberland College; Contact information.