Title: Andrew Johnson Faculty of Arts, Academic Language and Learning Unit, Monash University Andrew'Johnso
1Andrew JohnsonFaculty of Arts, Academic Language
and Learning Unit, Monash UniversityAndrew.Johnso
n_at_arts.monash.edu.au
2Some background questions
Re-grouping Academic Language and Learning in
Arts, following decentralisation
academic or general?
faculty or centre?
3The survey
- September October 2007
- 10 questions
- 25 respondents
- 21 responses per question average.
- surveymonkey.com
- Click Here to take survey
4Survey focused on
- Institutional situation
- Type / nature of teaching
- Particular student issues?
- Research / theoretical approaches
- Challenges / future plans
5ALL and Arts
- special affinities?
-
- content / form distinction?
- A paradox
The paradox (ALL educators and Arts/Humanities
educators generally agree that language and
thought are interdependent, but in practice,
faculty lecturers still treat student writing as
merely a mechanical problem, or expect students
can already write (and need remediation if they
make mistakes).
6Results Institutional situation
- 4 faculty based units
- At least 25 ALL educators with Arts focus?
- Corresponded with AALL units / centres data,
2007. - _______________________________
- Faculty processes (committees etc.)
- 41 56 had participated
- Collaboration with Fac. Staff
- 84 collaborated on teaching
- 50 collaborated on research projects
7Results type of teaching
- General academic skills classes sometimes
(58) -
- Individual consultations frequently
(36) - Drop-in sometimes (58.3)
- Integrated teaching sometimes (66.7)
- Credit subjects Never (78.3)
- __________________________________________________
_____ - 1 exclusively individual
- 1 exclusively credit subjects
- 6 never drop ins
- 3 never integrated teaching
8Results teaching / students
- ESB sometimes (50)
- NESB mostly (34.8)
- IS sometimes (41.7)
- PG Coursework - sometimes (45.5)
- HDR sometimes (52.2)
- _________________________________________________
- 1 exclusively ESB / 1 exclusively NESB
- 0 - never IS or NESB
- 6 - never PG coursework or HDR
- 4 - exclusively IS
- 4 exclusively HDR
9Comparative data
- commencing OS students in Society and Culture,
2006 - 8,625 of 79,412 (total)
- commencing OS students in Management and
Commerce 52,090 of 106,307 (total) - Source DEST - 2006 Full Year student data, 2007
10Results teaching / discipline areas
- Applied linguistics
- Visual art
- Communications
- Sociology
- Community / international devt
- Anthropology
- History
- Politics
- Reasons
- particular expertise of ALL educator
- Particular discourse difficulties
- Large IS / NESB enrolment.
11Results research and theory
- Included in research quantum?
- 58 Yes
- Within research strengths?
- 71 No
- Supported by internal funding?
- 79 No
- Supported by external funding?
- 83 No
- ________________________________________
- 4 - involved in formal supervision of HDR.
12Results research areas and approaches
13challenges
14Future development
15ALL and the Humanities?
- Shared assumptions?
- Shared goals?
- Shared problems?
-
16A post-intellectual environment?
- Intellectuals are working in increasingly
narrow and pre-determined fields of activity,
where the results of their labour are understood
purely in the terms defined by a system of
commodity exchange. - (Simon Cooper, Post Intellectuality
Universities and the Knowledge Industry, 2002)
17Missing the big questions?
- Universities have embraced a research driven
ideal that has squeezed the question of lifes
meaning from the curriculum, limiting the range
of questions teachers feel they have the right
and authority to teach. And this has badly
weakened the humanities. - (Anthony Kronman, Educations End, 2007)
18As ALL educators in Arts, how should we respond
to these larger debates?Are ALL eds merely in
a supporting role, dealing with the problems
on the ground, a stop-gap?Or, do ALL eds
have a role in re-imagining, re-invigorating
education in the Arts and Humanities?