Developing methodological awareness of reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices

TY - ABST

T1 - Developing methodological awareness of reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices

AU - Katan, Lina Hauge

AU - Baarts, Charlotte

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Developing methodological awareness among university students about reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices Integrated acts of reading, thinking and writing comprise an extensive and extremely significant part of the learning processes through which we produce knowledge in the humanities and social sciences. Still, in the sections on method in academic papers we mostly neglect any mentioning of the ways we go about reading, how we further our thinking and move into first draftings of our texts and later revisionings. Likewise we see reading, writing and thinking omitted from most text books on method and classes too. As a consequence students have few chances of encountering the practices of reading, thinking and writing depicted as those imperative parts of knowledge making that we as researchers of the humanities and social sciences know them to be. Subsequently students are not taught to understand reading, thinking and writing as central practices of research nor do they come to develop methododological awareness about them as such. In this paper, we report from our endavour into designing and developing a course offered for under- and graduate students, with the aim of nurturing understanding and method awareness of reading, thinking and writing. The course design was informed by a previous qualitative inquiry into the ways researchers read, think and write and as such extents the findings of this research into the field of educational studies. What we discuss is thus the reasons for availing students to build understanding of those aspects of research comprised by reading, thinking and writing. We reflect on the students’ learning experiences during the course as these were made accessible to us in the form of weekly written logs. Relating to this we discuss what accomplishments and disadvantages our specific course design entail and we propose a number of moderations and improvements. Finally we take the discussion to a more politico-philosophical level, exploring why methodological awareness of reading, thinking and writing has been neglected as a subject focus in the curricular planning of student learning.

AB - Developing methodological awareness among university students about reading, thinking and writing as knowledge producing practices Integrated acts of reading, thinking and writing comprise an extensive and extremely significant part of the learning processes through which we produce knowledge in the humanities and social sciences. Still, in the sections on method in academic papers we mostly neglect any mentioning of the ways we go about reading, how we further our thinking and move into first draftings of our texts and later revisionings. Likewise we see reading, writing and thinking omitted from most text books on method and classes too. As a consequence students have few chances of encountering the practices of reading, thinking and writing depicted as those imperative parts of knowledge making that we as researchers of the humanities and social sciences know them to be. Subsequently students are not taught to understand reading, thinking and writing as central practices of research nor do they come to develop methododological awareness about them as such. In this paper, we report from our endavour into designing and developing a course offered for under- and graduate students, with the aim of nurturing understanding and method awareness of reading, thinking and writing. The course design was informed by a previous qualitative inquiry into the ways researchers read, think and write and as such extents the findings of this research into the field of educational studies. What we discuss is thus the reasons for availing students to build understanding of those aspects of research comprised by reading, thinking and writing. We reflect on the students’ learning experiences during the course as these were made accessible to us in the form of weekly written logs. Relating to this we discuss what accomplishments and disadvantages our specific course design entail and we propose a number of moderations and improvements. Finally we take the discussion to a more politico-philosophical level, exploring why methodological awareness of reading, thinking and writing has been neglected as a subject focus in the curricular planning of student learning.

UR - http://www.aare.edu.au/publications-database.php/10189/developing-methodological-awareness-of-reading-thinking-and-writing-as-knowledge-producing-practices

M3 - Konferenceabstrakt til konference

T2 - AARE 2015 Conference

Y2 - 29 November 2015 through 3 December 2015

ER -