Idea development
Student learning needs to include reflection on their own experiences and emotions.
International students coming to New Zealand are usually accustomed to the lecture style of education, even if they've already done some tertiary study in their home country. What they find in New Zealand, for example at our Auckland International Campus, is very different. How might we help close the gaps for them, to help them succeed in the New Zealand tertiary education system?
One major difference is that they have been accustomed to writing about ideas, but now they are expected to come up with and develop their own ideas. Learning to write for postgraduate study is not a linear progression from writing about other people's ideas. Teaching staff need to support idea development for these students.
Barnaby Pace and Samira Kakh have applied Barnaby's earlier work on cognitive-affective approach to help teaching staff and postgraduate students accelerate the process of acculturation to academic life in New Zealand. As well as the content knowledge, critical thinking and writing skills that the students are learning, consideration needs to be given to their background and foreground experiences and emotions, using self-reflection to scaffold idea development.
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