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Staffordshire lecturer’s illustrated activity book introduces students to analyze techniques

By the time students get to university, it will probably have been many years given that they came across an activity book that is illustrated.

But Writing Essays by Pictures is not any activity book that is ordinary. With a nautical theme, it casts essays as icebergs and sources as sea creatures in a forward thinking try to introduce first-year students to the practice of academic research and writing.

Author Alke Grцppel-Wegener, senior lecturer in contextual studies at Staffordshire University, based the handsomely presented book on her essay-writing sessions with art and design students.

After raising nearly Ј2,000 from supporters regarding the Kickstarter crowdfunding web site to fund an initial print run, the book was released this week and it is hoped that wider distribution will observe.

It opens because of the call for students to think about their essays as icebergs, with a focused argument “above the water” backed up by thinking and research below.

After that it introduces students to reading, note-taking and critical thinking strategies, inviting them to undertake practical, creative activities along the way.

It implies that readers try drawing pictures while they examine sources, in place of taking notes, and encourages students to walk a familiar route at 25 % of these usual speed while taking notes on which they see around them, so that they can demonstrate the level of engagement that texts require.

The book advises students to categorise sources by thinking of them as different sea creatures, also to judge their academic rigour with regards to of the depth of which they live in the ocean.

Other suggested learning techniques include writing poems that condense source material and creating greeting cards as reminders of texts.

Dr Grцppel-Wegener said that she had developed her use of analogies and activities as a way to address, in an engaging and non-threatening way, the lack of confidence around academic writing that she found in first years.

“Giving students images them to remember what they meant and to understand the explanation better,” said Dr Grцppel-Wegener, a bookmaker and printmaker by training that they might remember better, like the fish and the iceberg, will hopefully help. “I was thinking that, it wouldn’t normally you should be a thing that is a reference, it might be their particular and they would want to ensure that it stays. if it was something students could add items to,”

Dr Grцppel-Wegener argued that the book could prove useful across a wide array of subjects.

“People who choose to think visually are not merely present in arts and design,” she said. “There could be more in art and design, but I attempt to explain things for all of us and hopefully there are a essay writer lot of those who can respond to it.”

Dr Grцppel-Wegener rejected the idea that creating a task book represented “dumbing down” of academic practice, arguing in a different way”, and that better critical thinking ability would flow from stronger research skills that she was simply “framing it.

But she acknowledged that her approach wouldn’t normally suit every learner.

“When I am teaching, i realize that this process doesn’t work for everybody; some individuals don’t make use of metaphors after all,” she said. “I always use this as you option.”

Appointments

Nazrul Islam, senior lecturer in management at Abertay University’s Dundee Business School, happens to be appointed to two major international academic positions. He is to take over as editor-in-chief associated with the International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, and also as UK country coordinator associated with interdisciplinary, not-for-profit organisation Business and Applied Sciences Academy of the united states.

The Association of MBAs has made three new appointments to its board of trustees. Marнa de Lourdes Dieck-Assad, dean of EGADE Business School at Tecnolуgico de Monterrey; Angus Blackwood, managing director of HawkCX – a company that aims to help organisations improve customer experience; and Tim Randall, senior business improvement consultant at Lloyd’s Register, will serve regarding the board for 3 years. Mark Wehrly has also joined as company secretary.

Nuala Boyle, currently director of development at the University associated with Highlands and Islands, happens to be appointed assistant principal (development) at Heriot-Watt University. Ms Boyle, who holds an MBA through the University of Strathclyde, has more than 20 years of expertise doing work in development-related areas for public-sector-funded and establishments that are academic. She joins in September.

Adrian Hopgood, pro vice-chancellor and dean of Sheffield Hallam University’s business school, would be to get in on the University of Liиge as director general and dean of this management school. He leaves SHU in September.