Swantje Lahm, University of Bielefeld
Towards Writing Enriched Curricula at Bielefeld University, Germany: An Educational
Design Research Study
Content:
Proposal Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 1
A few words before ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Roadmap to the text: ..................................................................................................................................... 2
1. POINT OF DEPARTURE AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ......................................................... 3
1.1 German Higher Education in transition: context and reason for the study ............................................ 3
1.2 Theoretical ankers................................................................................................................................... 5
1.3 „Decoding the Disciplines“ and other approaches toward curriculum reform and the integration of
writing into the curriculum ......................................................................................................................... 14
2. GOALS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ..................................................................... 15
2.1. Goals .................................................................................................................................................... 15
2.1 Research questions ................................................................................................................................ 16
3. METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH PLAN ............................................................................................. 17
3.1 Methodology.......................................................................................................................................... 17
3.2 Research Plan ....................................................................................................................................... 19
4. LITERATURE ................................................................................................................................................ 22
5. APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................................................... 27
5.1 Institutional Description ....................................................................................................................... 27
5.2 Key theorists and frames ....................................................................................................................... 29
5.3 Glossary ................................................................................................................................................ 30
swantje.lahm@uni-bielefeld.de [12/15/2014]
Proposal Summary
The goal of my study is the development, carrying out and testing of a special format for
faculty development, a Curriculum Design Program. The context is the Bielefeld University
(Germany), more specifically departments which participate in a curriculum design process.
Practical experience at Bielefeld University and recent literature about curriculum
development in Higher Education in Germany have shown that efforts to change contentbased into competence-based curricula often fail. It can be argued that this failure is the
result of a lack of an adequate conceptualization of the curriculum design process which
involves faculty both as disciplinary experts in their field and as teachers. In order to address
this problem my study seeks to develop a Curriculum Design Program which is intended to
initiate a bottom-up departmental process. In this Program faculties reflect upon their
disciplinary ways of knowing, doing and writing as researchers and develop ideas for
curriculum change based on this. It is anticipated that this approach will help to overcome the
resistance of faculty and departments to previous top-down efforts to change curricula. It is
also expected that this approach will help to better integrate writing as fundamental mode of
disciplinary learning into curricula. The study comprises two parts. In the first part of the
study the Curriculum Design Program (CuDesign) will be conceptualized based on literature
and qualitative inquiries. In the second part CuDesign will be tested and the results be
described within a case study framework.
A few words before
The following text is my first attempt to think through a new project. My goal is to develop a
Curriculum Design Program (CuDesign) which will interest and engage departments at the
university of Bielefeld (Germany) in collaborative thinking and planning about how writing
could be meaningfully integrated into the curriculum. Based on theoretical and empirical
research I want to develop an approach which is context-specific and takes departments,
disciplines, and individual teaching beliefs as major variables of influence on the curriculum
design process into account. My overall perspective on the problem is shaped by systemic
thinking, which means that I distance myself from simplistic notions of change which assume
that change in a department can be realized by top-down leadership. Instead I assume that
change processes are „contingent and contextualized“ (Knight/Trowler 2000: 69). It is
therefore crucial to choose a course of action both for the research and the design which is
dialogic, iterative (factors in new information as they emerge) and involves participants.
Educational Design Research (EDR) is a framework which takes account of these
requirements.
As my thinking evolves in the writing process, the text will be lengthy at times and
sometimes the relevance of some sections (especially in the theory part) may not come
through clearly. I nevertheless dare to let my readers struggle with this, because I hope that
feedback will help me to understand connections better myself. Right now I am in the process
of trying to understand what happens in a curriculum design process and to deduce design
principles for CuDesign from that.
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Roadmap to the text:
In 1.1. „German Higher Education in transition: context and reason for the study“ I explain
the larger context for my study and try to show the relevance and need for this project.
Section 1.2 „Theoretical ankers“ is quite long, because I am in the process of trying to
understand how curriculum design processes can be analytically grasped. I detected a huge
body of literature and I am in the process of finding my way through.
In section 1.3 I list some universities in the US which have involved faculty in curriculum
design processes, most of them are aiming at a meaningful integration of writing. This
section is very rough, because I still need to look at the various models and approaches more
closely. I do describe a little bit of the Decoding approach by David Pace and Joan
Middendorf, because already use it with great benefit at Bielefeld University. I also highly
value it for giving faculty the opportunity to develop their own language for talking about
student learning outcomes.
In part 2 I try to define my goals and research questions. Readers do need a lot of patience
until I arrive at this point and may want to jump forward in between and read this part prior to
reading through all theoretical ankers. I nevertheless placed goals and research questions after
the theory section, because the theory very much helps me to refine my questions.
Part 3 tries to develop a research methodology. My home discipline is history and I am
familiar with interpreting qualitative data, but not familiar with methodological approaches
for doing so. I would greatly appreciate advice in this respect.
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1. Point of Departure and theoretical background
In order to argue for the relevance of my study, I will first describe the specific situation of
German Higher Education as it is right now (1.1). I will then point out why addressing
faculty as teachers without considering their role as disciplinary experts and their position in
a department is a serious impediment to curricular change (1.2) Based on the assumption that
discipline matters, I will present in 1.3 approaches to curriculum design which focus on
disciplinary ways of knowing, doing and writing.
1.1 German Higher Education in transition: context and reason for the
study
German Higher Education is in a fundamental process of restructuring and renewal. Together
with other European countries Germany decided in 1999 to become part of a joint Higher
Education System with comparable degrees and structures. This process is usually referred to
as the „Bologna process“.1 As a consequence Germany switched from Diploma and Magister
degrees (6 years of study) to Bachelor’s (3 years) and Master’s degrees (2 years) and new
curricula were designed. New programs had to become accredited. A major criterium for
accreditation was the inclusion of key competencies (German: „Schlüsselkompetenzen“) as
an explicit part of the curriculum. But the shift from content-based to outcomes-oriented,
competency-based curricula proved to be very difficult. Many universities added courses for
key competences as extra-curricular courses and hired staff from outside the disciplines to
teach problem-solving, communications skills and other so called key competencies. The
disciplinary curricula often remained content-oriented and in regular courses key
competencies continued to be taught mostly implicitly.
This overall practice of teaching key competences as generic skills in non subject specific,
extra curricular courses also affected the role of writing in German Higher Education in the
post Bologna educational landscape. Generally, explicit teaching of writing has no tradition
in German universities. In contrast to the US no first year composition exists and the first
initatives for writing instruction at the university came into being only in the 1990s. Their
focus is to provide extra-curricular service and support students who address the writing
center with questions about how to manage the writing process. With the beginning of the
Bologna process writing projects began to thrive, but they remained mostly separate from the
disciplines.
Only in the last years some places have become interested in Writing Across the Curriculum.
But this interest so far had only little influence on the systematic integration of the teaching
of writing into disciplinary curricula. A discourse about writing as being a generic key
competence which does not fall into the domain of disciplinary teaching dominates.
From the perspective of disciplinary learning this is a serious shortcoming. Especially in the
US the effectiveness of writing-intensive instruction for deep disciplinary learning has been
1
with reference to the Italian town Bologna where European ministers of Education met in 1999.
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demonstrated by well-designed small-scale, quasi-experimental studies (Carter, Ferzli, Wiebe
2004) and by several large-scale studies (Astin 1992, Light 2001, Anderson et al. 2009, Arum
and Roksa 2011).
Despite the broad evidence, the potential of well-designed courses which use writing as a
medium for disciplinary learning is not widely acknowledged in Germany. This has several
reasons:
Firstly, the German culture of teaching and learning is highly influenced by 19th century
notions of academic freedom and the learning „in the mode of research“ (Humboldt 1810),
which means that teaching is regarded as socializing students into a discipline and explicit
teaching of procedural disciplinary knowledge is not necessary. Secondly the notion of key
competencies, seen as generic competencies, did contribute to the fact that writing was not
integrated into curricula. Jones’ research on generic skills and attributes and their enactment
in teaching practices shows that in Australian universities faculty rejected the teaching of
generic skills, although they clearly could understand and explain the relevance of these skills
for their disciplinary context when they were asked. Jones interprets this as „consequence of
the top down imposition of statements of generic attributes onto subject outlines. Because
these are not framed as part of the disciplinary content, but are seen as extraneous they are
resisted.“ (Jones 2009: 181). Similarly in Germany, the notion of writing as being a generic
skill, has precluded its integration into curricula. This is a problem, both in terms of learning
to write and writing to learn the discipline.
Research on Writing in Higher Education for a long time has shown the futility of trying to
teach writing as a generic skill (Russell 2002; Beaufort 2007). The notion of writing as a
generic skill oversimplifies the reality of writing as a highly complex activity, which has been
conceptualized as a form of social action within disciplinary contexts (Bazerman 2014;
Gruber 2014). According to Russell the idea of writing as a generic skill corresponds with a
„myth of transiency“, which refers to the idea that writing can be taught in one spot at the
curriculum and students problems will be solved once and forever. Those who stress the
situated nature of writing on the contrary emphasize that it has to be taught and learned
within the disciplinary context and practiced throughout the whole study program. This
notion of writing as disciplinary action has led many WAC initiatives in the US towards
advocating the systematic integration of writing into curricula. Universities like North
Carolina University or the University of Minnesota (Wagner et al. 2014; Anson et al. 2012,
Carter 2002) for example, let departments define learning outcomes for graduates of their
programs both with respect to writing and subject matter learning. Curricula are then
systematically revised and respective writing assignments are included.
The University of Bielefeld aims to integrate writing as a mode of disciplinary learning into
curricula. Hosting the first writing center of a German university (founded in 1994) it has
slowly built a culture which acknowledges the importance of writing as a mode of
disciplinary learning. But for the reasons I have outlined the design of writing enriched
curricula is still a highly ambitious and difficult project. As in other universities writing is
still perceived as a generic skill by many faculty and this difficulty is elevated by the fact that
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traditionally in Germany teaching is regarded as an individual activity and a matter of
freedom of research and teaching. Departments do lack a culture of collaboratively working
on teaching problems.
Until now research on program design and organizational development in Higher Education
has little to offer to guide practical efforts in creating writing enriched curricula in a German
context. My research aims to make a contribution in this respect. In order to address both the
misconception of writing as a generic competency and the lack of collaborative commitment
to designing writing enriched curricula my study employs an Educational Design Research
(EDR) approach (McKenney, Reeves 2012; Plomp, Nieveen (2010). In EDR the design of an
educational intervention and research merge with the aim to both contribute to practical
problem solving and contributing to theories about teaching and learning in specific contexts.
Based on existing research inquiry into local knowledge the problem is defined and the
designer-researcher develops an intervention, the prototype. The prototype is tried out and in
several iterations refined and re-designed until it represents an adequate solution to the
problem. In this process formative evaluation plays an important role. Design and research,
understood as systematic information gathering and reflecting outcomes, complement each
other. Examining the impact of the well-designed and tested intervention can and should lead
to the formulation of research based principles and practices which have relevance not only
in the local context, but in other contexts, too.
For the purpose of this study I intend to develop and test a Curriculum Design Program
(CuDesign) for departments in Bielefeld who work collaboratively on designing a writing
enriched curriculum.
1.2 Theoretical ankers
Before describing the goals of the study in more detail, I will point out some of the
theoretical ankers which are helpful for refining my assumptions, frame my research
questions which I will present in section 2 and help design the Curriculum Design Program.
Systemic perspective on curricular change
In everyday life we often think in linear and causal fashion (“if I will do X, Z will happen“).
This can be an adequate strategy for putting a nail into a wall, but usually fails when we think
about interventions into what Willke calls “non-trivial social systems” (Willke 2005).
Examples for non trivial social systems are individuals, a department, a classroom.
“Individuals and even more so social systems are non-trivial systems in the sense that they
react in quite a complex and usually perplexing way to external stimuli. These units even
define internally what they want to accept as a stimulus.” (Willke 1987: 23). From the
perspective of modern systems theory developed by Helmut Willke any intervention geared
towards changing a curriculum has to part with the idea that it can be changed by a top down
transfer of previously successful models into a new context. For the purpose of my study I
will look at a department or more precisely a group of faculty within one department as a
social system, which means that interactions within this systems are defined by rules, shared
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norms and values. The system is autonomous in the sense it selects and codes information
from the environment in a way to guarantee it’s own survival. This means that even
“seemingly ‘pathological’ behavior of an indicated client or system is precisely functional for
this very system, which means that it serves the survival and operational continuity of this
system (Willke 1987: 24). In my role as a faculty developer I sometimes get frustrated by a
lack of engagement and interest of faculty in matters of teaching and curriculum. In terms of
systems theory lack of interest as a reaction towards external stimuli is a foreseeable reaction.
According to Jay Forrester social systems share four characteristics (Forrester 1972: 200):
1. They are insensitive to most policies or interventions that people select in order to alter the
behavior of the system.
2. Systems resist change.
3. All complex systems seem to have a few “influence points”. If interventions succeed in
pushing these buttons, the system’s way of operating can be changed.
4. Their behavior is influenced by the fact that because of their complexity they develop a
dynamic balance of various and contradicting forces.
For curriculum reform in Higher Education this means that findings which stress that even in
the US “despite long-established traditions in continuous quality development of study
programs, initiatives often fail to permeate the practices of students and faculty” (Jenert
2014: 2) do not come as a surprise. From a systems theory perspective it is to be expected
that both faculty and students do not welcome innovations which come from an external
environment.
From a systems theory perspective it is important to notice that the intervening system cannot
change the focal system, all it can do is to try to support and initiate processes of selftransformation. This is why I chose Educational Design Research (EDR) as an approach for
developing an intervention geared towards change of the curriculum. EDR helps to provide
information which is the basis for departments to make decisions. Faculty are addressed as
and participate as key stakeholders in the research and the design process. They decide
whether to embark on a curriculum design process, what kind of key learning outcomes for
graduates to include, etc. Systems theory also helps to take into account that any external idea
about what might “help” or support the system are hypotheses in the sense that only the
reactions will show what is adequate. For the designer-researcher it is important to be aware
of his/her own constructions in order to be able to revise them if necessary.
My role as a designer-researcher is not to give recommendations in the first place, but to
provide information which will support the system in autonomous decision making. A key
research interest in the process of production of relevant information will be to find out what
is relevant according to the “discriminatory rules of the system” (Willke 1987: 32) and design
the intervention accordingly. Willke characterizes this approach to inducing change in a
social system as guidance. “Guidance may be characterized as the art of intervening in a
complex system in a way which results in patterned reactions and controlled structural
change of that system.” (Willke 1987: 26). Educational Design Research can be understood
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as a form of guidance in the sense that “interventions aim at shaping specific contextual
patterns which facilitate the derivation of new information for a target system.” (ibid. X)
Königswieser/Exner differentiate between intervention at two levels, which they call
„interventions architecture“ and „interventions design“ (Königswiesner/Exner 2006: 45ff).
Interventions architecture refers to the the whole set-up of a change process, which is
intended to secure a smooth flow of information. The architecture has to consider that change
needs extra spacial and social spaces in order to happen. Time is also an important
dimension. Key questions are: What is the goal of the change process? Who will participate?
What social formats (one-on-one meetings, group trainings etc.) are adequate? The
interventions design is the interior architecture of of the different components of the change
process. Here the designer has to decide which methods will be use for working together how
existing resources (again: time, space) can be used best.
The development of CuDesign will factor in both the need of an interventions architecture
and an interventions design. But the general principles formulated by Königswiesner/Exner
to not yet take into account the specific context in which my intervention is going to happen.
To better understand the context and formulate hypotheses for what is relevant for a group of
faculty within a department who are confronted with the idea of a writing enriched
curriculum I can draw on three bodies of literature: curriculum theory, research about filters
which influence teaching conceptions and teaching behavior, literature on the discipline
specificity of teaching, studies about the impact of teaching beliefs and work on faculty as
learners.
Curriculum Theory
In the broadest sense of the term a curriculum is a ‚plan for learning‘ (Taba, 1962 cited by
van den Akker 2010: 37). For the purpose of my study I borrow from the definition by
Huball/Gold, who define the curriculum as „a coherent program of study (such as a four year
B.Sc.) that is responsive to the needs and circumstances of the pedagogical context and is
carefully design to develop students’ knowledge, abilities and skills through multiple
integrated and progressively challenging course learning experiences“(Huball/Gold 2006:7).
But I do replace the end of their definition with through meaningful, multiple integrated and
progressively challenging writing experiences in order to highlight my focus on writing as a
fundamental mode of disciplinary learning.
A curriculum design process is a highly complex process, because various components of a
curriculum such as the rational, objectives, learning activities, location, time, assessment etc.
have to adjusted and brought into balance. Moreover, the design process is challenged by the
many stakeholders involved in the process: legislators, administrators, faculty, students,
central units, grant giver etc. „To sketch curriculum development as a problematic domain is
actually an understatement. From a socio-political stance, it seems often more appropriate to
describe it as a war zone, full of conflict and battlefields between stakeholders with different
values and interests. Problems manifest themselves in the (sometimes spectacular and
persistent gaps between intended curriculum (as expressed in policy rhetoric), the
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implemented curriculum (real life in school and classroom practices), and the attained
curriculum (as manifested in learner experiences and outcomes).“ (van den Akker 2010: 42).
Typology of curriculum representations by van den Akker 2010: 38
Van den Akker’s differentiation between the intended, the implemented and the attained
curriculum (van den Akker 2010: 38) applies to all levels of curriculum design: the macro
level (e.g. national syllabi or core objectives), the meso level (e.g. school-specific
curriculum), the micro level (e.g. textbooks, instructional material) and the nano level (e.g.
individual ideas about teaching) (ibid. 37f.). The focus of this study is the meso level, in this
case the curriculum as is it perceived by a group of faculty of a department for a degree
program. I will not look at the way the curriculum is enacted in the classroom, but inquire
into the meaning and values faculty attach to a curriculum and the generation of a joint
framework of understanding for individual teaching as the result of CuDesign. I am
interested in the curriculum in teachers’ minds.
As Oliver and Hyun point out „curriculum design is a matter of shared governance which
requires mutual respect and submission, effective communication, and the recognition of the
corporate responsibility for curriculum. Curriculum is a corporate responsibility that must be
shared by the collective faculty of the educational institution.” (Oliver/Hyun: 2011: 5). This
is easily voiced as a norm, but hard to realize in practice. I am interested in finding out about
the characteristics of a Curriculum Design Program that will help to bring about cooperation
and collaboration among faculty at the departmental level as a precondition for any
curriculum change in the specific context of Bielefeld university.
Addressing the question of how curriculum change comes into being several authors stress
the importance of involving actors at the meso and the micro level. Instead of assuming that
curricular prescriptions from external sources will be followed, an “’enactment perspective”
has become predominant, meaning that “teachers and learners together create their own
curriculum realities” (van den Akker 2010: 44). Oliver and Hyun call this the postmodern
curriculum: “Curriculum development is not seen as permanent but as creative and fluid.
Postmodern curriculum development does not focus on specific steps in curriculum
development but instead on the relationships of people involved in the process of creating the
curriculum.” (Oliver/Hyun 2011: 1). The Educational Design Research Approach
acknowledges the important role faculty play in the process by letting them actively
participate both in the research and the design process.
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To engage faculty in a curriculum design process has to consider that faculty enter this
process not as a blank page. Their context, their academic socialization as members of a
discipline and their trajectory of becoming a member in the communities of practice in a
department influence they way in which they conceptualize and approach teaching, writing
and curriculum design. To find out more about the „discriminatory rules of the system“ (see
section „systems theory“; Willke 1987: 32) and formulate hypotheses about what the
characteristics of an intervention are, which will help to overcome misconceptions of writing
as a generic competence and lack of collaborative commitment to curriculum design I will
differentiate between the department and the discipline as „filters to practice“ (Fanghanel
2007). Fanghanel uses the term filter „to emphasise the subtle impact on practice, the range
of possibilities, and the notion that a degree of choice can be exerted in emphasising on filter
or another.“ (ibid. 2). Fanghanel’s study is based on semi-structured interviews with lecturers
in fifteen disciplines. She investigated university lecturers’ pedagogical practice with
reference to the context in which this practice takes place and identified seven filters to
practice, which include the pedagogical beliefs at the micro level, the discipline and the
departments at the meso level and four filters at the macro level (the institution, external
factors, academic labour and the research-teaching nexus).
Filters to teaching practice
Departments can be both seen as a specific mode of organization and as a culture. Looking at
departments as an organization the system of rules which bring about the curriculum comes
into view: the module handbook, the examination office, the legal framework, rules for
exams, teaching loads, hierarchies, status and the logistics of teaching (rooms, time,
resources). Looking at departments as cultures brings the tacit knowledge surrounding
curriculum design and teaching into view. “This tacit knowledge includes norms, discourse
and value sets associated with assessment, teaching practices and research culture as well as
our daily work practices.” (Norton 2009: 9). For an outside observer it can be hard to
understand this system of norms and values, but it is important to acknowledge it as a major
determinant of faculty behavior. Knight and Trowler argue that tacit knowledge is acquired
informally through discussion, observing colleagues and through professional practice, and
that this is more powerful than any ‘formal mechanism’ such as a mentor, induction
programmes and so on. (Knight and Trowler 2002). I will get back to this point in the section
on faculty as learners.
Next to the department, the discipline might even be a stronger filter in trying to understand
how faculty perceive the teaching of writing and curriculum development. Jenert argues that
this is especially true for “German-speaking countries where universities do not tend to have
strong organizational identities” (Jenert 2014: 5). Although the departments defines the
framework in which teaching takes place, faculty do have a high degree of freedom when it
comes to designing, implementing and enacting a curriculum. Within boundaries set by the
department as an organization and a culture deep-seated convictions about what needs to be
taught stem from faculties own socialization into the norms and values of a discipline. Jenert
stresses that “[a]s a result of their strong disciplinary affiliation, university faculty tend to
conceptualize teaching from the perspective of their own research discipline.” (Ibid.). This
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might be true for most research universities, especially in German Higher Education. In a
discourse which heavily relies upon the the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the founder of
the modern German university, the university is conceptualized as a pedagogy-free space,
which means that students learn by being socialized into the discipline. The Bologna reform
challenged this conception, when departments and faculty were asked to define competencies
and student learning outcomes at the graduate level. The reactions were mostly negative,
because departments and faculty did perceive learning outcomes as something extraneous,
being imposed on them from outside. Even when they were asked to define their own
discipline-specific learning outcomes, the idea of transmitting content was so prevalent, that
many efforts to implement competency-based curricula failed (see Jenert 2014). From my
perspective the implementation of competency-oriented curricula failed, because faculty are
accustomed to think and speak of their discipline in terms of subject content (Carter 2007).
The procedural knowledge, the ways of thinking and writing in a discipline, are usually
implicit, because faculty as themselves have been socialized into their discipline mostly
without any instructional metadiscourse about the specific specific disciplinary operations
and competencies in their field. Any intervention which aims at curricular change which
integrates writing as a disciplinary practice has to find a method to support faculty in making
their disciplinary ways of knowing, thinking and writing explicit. In section 3.2 I will present
the „Decoding the Disciplines“ approach by David Pace and Joan Middendorf as an approach
which addresses this problem.
Discipline specificity of teaching
Discipline-specific approaches to teaching and their implications for learning within the
discipline, have been areas of inquiry and research for several decades (Andresen 2000,
Shulman 2005, Kreber 2009, Fanghanel 2007). This research helps to conceptualize that what
is usually referred to as “content” of a curriculum is a complex way of knowing which is
based on knowledge on the subject matter, general pedagogical strategies, but also – in terms
of Shulmann (1987, 2004) pedagocial content knowledge (PCK), the specific way subject
matter is taught.
Berthiaume’s research on disciplinary pedagocial knowledge (DPK) draws on Shulman’s
notion of pedagocial context knowledge and presents a new model which was constructed
and validated with the help of a multi-case study of four university professors from four
disciplines (Berthiaume 2007). His model of discipline-specific pedagogical knowledge
(DPK) for university teaching identifies:
1. goals, knowledge, and beliefs related to teaching
2. disciplinary specificity in terms both of teaching, learning, knowing and practizing the
discipline and it’s epistemological structure
3. personal epistemology of faculty which includes beliefs about knowledge and knowing,
knowledge construction and the evaluation of knowledge.
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Berthiaume’s model suggests that each professors teaching is influenced by a specific
combination of these three elements. In contrast do Shulman he explicitly incorporates the
personal epistemology of faculty.
Fanghanel also identifies personal pedagogical beliefs as an important filter for teaching
practice and stresses the interrelatedness with other filters, like the discipline or the
department.
For my study this means that the development of an Curriculum Design Program has to be
based on a systematic inquiry into the filters which inform faculties’ choices about a
curriculum. Approaches which have worked well in other contexts have to be critically
scrutinized for their underlying conceptions about teaching and learning and the departmental
and disciplinary contexts in which they have been used. Elon University (USA), for example,
has started a „Writing Excellence Initiative“ in 2012 and eight departments agreed to
systematically revise their curricula. My hypothesis is that faculty from Elon would have a
very different DPK (discipline-specific pedagogical knowledge) profile than faculty from
Bielefeld. Elon is a college with high appreciation for teaching, Bielefeld is a research
university and teaching is not a priority. This might show at all levels of Berthiaumes model:
in the goals of teaching, in the conceptions of what it means to teach a discipline and beliefs
about student learning, motivation, intelligence etc.
In terms of the development of a Curriculum Design Program the discipline, the department
and individual pedagogical beliefs are also especially important, because they are identified
by Fanghanel as the „levels of practice where individuals/groups have scope for agency“
(Fanghanel 2007: 15). This means that a Curriculum Design Program can have an impact on
these three levels.
Teachers Beliefs and Practices
According to Anderson et al. an increasing evidence suggests „that teachers entering beliefs
about the nature of the subject matter and how it is learned influence the extent to which
teachers value and use new curricula and instructional models“ (Anderson et al. 1991: 2).
Their study examined the classroom practice of 15 teachers who had all participated in the
same staff development activity and learned to work with an approach called „Cognitive
Strategy Instruction in Writing“ (CSIW). Noticeable about their findings is the wide range of
congruence (from very low to very high) of the actual teaching with the principles of CSIW.
In depth interviews showed that teachers beliefs had changed little and adhered to CSIW
principles only when they were was consistent with the teachers’ original thinking.
Beliefs are crucial for understanding the practice of faculty but they are difficult to
operationalize for empirical research and the design of professional development programs.
Swan has taken an important step in this direction in a design-based research study into the
professional development of 24 numeracy teachers. His study very consciously takes beliefs
as the starting point for professional development. He proposes a model which depicts the
relationship between beliefs and practice (Swan 2006: 177). His model suggests „that within
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every teacher’s mental structure there are deeply held beliefs about mathematics, teaching
and learning. There is also a further, broader set of beliefs about the environment one works
in, the reactions of students, one’s self image, and so on. These broader beliefs act as filters
that modify the implementation of the beliefs about mathematics, teaching and learning and
also influence the interpretation of the observed outcomes.“ (Swan 2006: 175/176). In the
professional development program he provides opportunities for reflection about the deeply
held beliefs about mathematics, teaching and learning.
For my study the theoretical model as well as the tools for reflection provided by Swan are
highly relevant. If deeply held beliefs about the discipline, writing, learning and teaching are
not made explicit, the creation of a joint framework for teaching in a department is likely to
fail. As I pointed out before, my intervention mainly addresses the perceived curricuum, the
curriculum in the minds of faculty. For this purpose making the examination of beliefs part of
CuDesign will be a major design principle.
Faculty as Learners
From a cognitive and psychological perspective faculty as learners share characteristics with
other learners. Svinicki points out similarities of student and faculty learners with respect to
diversity in learning styles, motivation („Motivation to learn derives from the learner’s
estimates of the usefulness of the task and the probability of success“), progression of
learning in steps and preconditions for learning like trustful relationships and a safe contexts
(Svinicki 1996).
For the development of a Curriculum Design Program it is important to take into account the
needs of faculty as individual learners. But this is not enough. To engage faculty in a
curriculum design process has to consider that faculty enter this process not as a blank page.
Their context, their academic socialization as members of a discipline and their trajectory of
becoming a member in the communities of practice in a department influence they way in
which they conceptualize and approach teaching, writing and curriculum design. But this is
not enough. Recent studies have criticized that the focus on the individual does neglect the
influence of the context in which faculty learn (Fanghanel & Trowler 2008). For my study
the work of Jawitz (2007, 2008, 2009a, 2009b) is of special interest. He examined how new
academics learn to assess student performance in their departments. His study involved three
case studies in academic departments with significant differences in the teaching, research
and professional dimensions of academic life. Jawitz uses situated learning theory (Lave &
Wenger 1991; Lave 1996; Wenger 1998) which describes „learning as a process of
understanding through participation with others in ongoing activitiy, and knowledge as being
distributed amongst the participants in an activity“ (Jawitz 2007: 186). Jawitz delineates what
kind of communities of practice (CoP) in a department shape the experience of new
academics and differentiates between the Research CoP and the Teaching CoP. In the three
departments studied various constellations exist: In the Social Science department, junior and
middle academics, postgrads and part-time staff form an undergraduate teaching Cop which
has only small overlap with the research CoP, because advanced researchers don’t teach
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undergraduate courses. In the Natural Science department the Teaching CoP is a subgroup
within the Research CoP, teaching is done by research staff only. In the Design Department
additionally to the Research CoP and the Teaching CoP a Professional CoP exists, which is
highly influential in setting standards on how to evaluate student work. Based on the outline
of configurations of communities of practice in the three departments Jawitz traces how
newcomers learn to assess and how their experiences of assessment influence their
trajectories towards memberships in the communities of practice. Faculty in the social
science department for example face a situation of unconnectedness of the Undergraduate
Teaching CoP and the Research CoP. One faculty aspired full membership in the Research
Cop and therefore did see the Undergraduate Teaching CoP only as a transition stage and did
not invest in efforts to reform assessment practice. Another faculty decided that that both
communities were central for her academic identity and found ways to negotiate tensions
between the demands of the teaching and the research community. She very much engaged in
making assessment an explicit topic of discussion in the Teaching CoP.
For my study the research of Jawitz is fundamental, because it provides a theoretical basis for
analyzing the social dynamics in departments which in turn determine spaces of agency for
engaging in curriculum reform. Especially in the first part of the study in which data will be
collected as a basis for the development of CuDesign, his analytical framework will help to
analyze the „social structure“ of change in departments with questions like: What
communities of practice exist in a department? Who teaches? Who does research? What kind
of trajectories for membership in the CoPs exist? How do they affect the possibility for
engaging in reform efforts? Understanding how newcomers learn to assess is crucial in my
study, too, because the curriculum design process will be based on learning outcomes which
are developed in a process of assessing students written papers (see 2.3). It is therefore
important to understand, what the social dynamics of assessment in a department are. Jawitz
for example shows that in the Natural Science department in his study basically only one
trajectory for membership exists and this involves assessment as an highly individualized
activity which functions as a proof of the research qualities of the assessing person (in the
sense that who knows how to do research, also knows how to assess student research papers).
Here the social structure of learning how to assess does leave very little room for agency.
Challenging established practice would mean to risk negative career consequences for
becoming a researcher (Jawitz 2009b: 613). For Jawitz the pratical impact of his study is that
faculty development should focus on „creating learning communities [in departments] rather
than simply providing opportunities for individuals to learn.“ (Jawitz 2008: 1017).
In the section on systems theory I have highlighted that systems strive for balance and that
guidance as a form of intervening into a system should therefore beware of the level of
uncertainty it introduces. If we think about the conditions in which faculty learn, this also
means to acknowledge the larger context, especially academic labour. This is filter that in
which little room for agency exists, but is highly influential. Fanghanel and Trowler point out
that in the UK recent measures of quality management with respect to teaching have
contributed to „sense of disempowerment for academics who iterate between teaching,
research, and quality agendas in which they perceive misrepresent the nature of their work,
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and control their practice in managerial ways.“ (Fanghanel & Trowler 2008: 43). In Germany
and in Bielefeld this is especially true for non tenure-track faculty members who in some
departments do most of the undergraduate teaching. This means that any request for change
runs the risk to destabilize both personal and social systems. For the development of
CuDesign this is a serious issue and the question is whether any intervention can provide
enough stabilization and support for making temporary de-stabilization (which is a
precondition for change) possible.
1.3 „Decoding the Disciplines“ and other approaches toward curriculum
reform and the integration of writing into the curriculum
Since writing enriched curricula at the program level have never been implemented at a
German University before and consequently no prior research about the process of
implementation exists, my study will chart into unknown territory. As part of the first phase
of the EDR process, the problem identification and context analysis, a benchmarking will be
done with interventions developed and implemented at universities in the US. Major points of
reference are:
•
NC State University: Campus Writing and Speaking Program (Chris Anson and
Michael Carter) (Carter 2002)
•
Elon University: Writing Excellence Initiative (Paul Anderson)
•
Seattle University (John Bean) (Bean 2005)
•
University of Minnesota: Writing-Enriched Curriculum Project (Pamela Flash)
(Wagner et al. 2014)
•
Indiana University: Decoding the Disciplines Project (Joan Middendorf, David
Pace) (Pace/Middendorf 2004)
Decoding
The “Decoding the Disciplines” approach (Pace/Middendorf 2004) is a 7-step-cycle for (re-)
designing courses. Faculty start with a clarifying-process that helps them to make
disciplinary ways of thinking and doing explicit. Starting points are so called ‚bottlenecks‘:
points in a course where a majority of students experience difficulties in mastering basic
material. The underlying idea is that faculty are experts in the disciplinary ways of thinking
and doing but are not always in a good position to making these discipline-specific acts
explicit and help others to acquire them. To be able to do this faculty first have to develop a
language to talk about what they do themselves. Accordingly they need help to find a way for
putting these unconscious acts into such words so students can understand and act upon.
The process of reflection starts with an interview in which basically faculty are asked one
question again and again: How do you do this? (Decoding Interview, see 3.2 Methods)
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My assumption is that using this approach could be a button, one of the major influence
points, which according to Jay Forrester (see 1.2) have to be pushed to change a systems way
of operating. Since the discipline seems to be of utmost concern for departments and faculty
when it comes to designing curricula, any reform effort should start with a deep conversation
about how faculty frame learning outcomes in terms of the disciplinary operations they want
students to be able to master.
2. Goals of the study and research questions
2.1. Goals
I would like to find out whether a professional development program for faculty which is
specifically designed to enable faculty to make decisions about teaching and learning in terms
of their disciplinary expertise does:
A. help to initiate a collaborative curriculum design effort in a department in which faculty
are involved who do actual teaching.
B. improve the integration of writing as a key competence and disciplinary mode of learning
into the curriculum
The professional development program, CuDesign, has to be constructed. Based on the
theories and literature which I have incorporated so far, I tentatively formulate that it should
be based on the following principles. CuDesign has to factor in that:
1. Faculty and departments are experts for determining the content and structure of a writing
enriched curriculum at the program level.
2. This expertise is grounded in the fact that faculty are members of disciplinary and
departmental communities of practice and share values and knowledge which are most of the
time not part of the formal, explicit and written curriculum, but crucial for the perceived and
informally implemented curriculum.
3. An intervention aiming at creating a collaborative commitment towards a purposeful
curriculum design process has to find ways to help faculty to make core practices of teaching
and learning in a discipline explicit.
4. Beliefs about the discipline, writing, teaching and learning are fundamental for the
perceived as well as the enacted curriculum. CuDesign therefore has to „[e]stablish an
informal candid culture in which existing beliefs are recognised, made explicit and are
worked on in a reflective non-judgmental atmosphere“ (Swan 2006: 178).
5. In order to match with the informal culture of learning in a department communities of
practice have to be identified before the beginning of the training and the social structure for
change has to be mapped.
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2.1 Research questions
The object of my study is the development and test of CuDesign, an approach to curriculum
design which supports faculty in making the shift from a content-based to a competencebased curriculum. As the fundamental competence to be integrated into the curriculum
writing was chosen, because of the broad evidence for the impact on disciplinary learning.
The study consists of two parts: the development (part 1) and the test (part 2)
Research questions part 1:
1. How can we initiate a curriculum design process in a department which addresses the
learning outcomes of graduates and the role of writing in achieving these learning outcomes?
What design principles can we infer from theoretical and empirical studies?
2. What conceptual tools facilitate the creation of a collaborative culture for a curriculum
design process in a department?
Research questions part 2:
3. What are the effects of applying the aforementioned design principles on faculties’ ways of
thinking and talking about the curriculum and their beliefs about their discipline, writing,
teaching and learning?
4. What is the contribution of the Curriculum Design Program to enhancing motivation and
capability for the collaborative design of a Writing Enriched Curriculum?
5. How can we design long-term professional development to best impact teacher practice
with respect to teaching with writing?
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3. Methodology and Research Plan
3.1 Methodology
My study will be based on qualitative data. I will use a mixed methods approach for
generating knowledge about an intervention that will create collaborative commitment for the
design of a writing enriched curriculum at the program level in a department at Bielefeld
University. Educational design research is not a methodology. It is common practice for EDR
to use mixed methods, which is seen as a special value in order to be able to triangulate data
from different sources (McKenney/Reeves 2012).
Part 1 of the study, the development of CuDesign will be based on problem-centered
interviews (Witzel 2000) with major stakeholders for the curriculum department who also
should be highly appreciated researchers (for details about the interview see 1.3 and below).
After the interview a questionnaire which will be send to all members of a department. This
questionnaire inquires into the courses faculty teach, their teaching experience (How long?
Successes? Challenges?), whether an how they integrate writing into their courses and how
they learn about teaching (from their own socialization, their colleagues, books, professional
development programs etc.). It also announces that the questionnaire is send out as part of a
planned curriculum design process and asks about what would make them want to participate
in this process.
As someone from outside the department, but a staff member of the Center for Teaching and
Learning at the University Bielefeld I will also collect information through informal
discussions, from departmental documents and and reports, and from field notes made during
and after visits to the departments.
Departments and faculty will be involved in a iterative design-research process in which
decisions will be made jointly. The interview, for example, has several functions: it generates
information about graduate learning outcomes framed in the language of the discipline which
can be used as a starting point for discussion. The learning outcomes in combination with the
questionnaire will also be the the basis for a first preliminary mapping of the curriculum in
order to find out, where students are actually taught what they are meant to know after they
graduate. On the basis of this information the department has to make a decision whether to
embark on a curriculum design process or not. The participation is strictly voluntary, but the
decision to participate will include a commitment to fully engage in the process.
One of the departments who commit will be the object of further study. For the work with a
selected group of faculty from the department I will issue a workbook containing a range of
tasks, questionnaires and activities. This workbook will be modeled on the workbook by
Swan (2007) which includes questions about priorities and purposes of teaching, inquiry into
teaching methods as well as opportunities for reflecting beliefs about teaching and learning. I
intend to revise and adapt this workbook for my purposes and also include questions and
activities for reflecting the place of writing in the curriculum and the formulation of learning
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outcomes for the curriculum. The workbook is a practical tool in the professional
development program, but also a primary source of data for the research.
Part 2 of the study, the evaluation of CuDesign will be based on the material (workbook)
faculty have developed in CuDesign (comparing material generated before the beginning of
CuDesign, during and after) and (maybe?)focus group interviews with members of the
department.
In both part 1 and part 2 I will use a case study methodology to interpret data and present the
results.
As an additional method I would like to use autoethnography in order to counterbalance
specific role problems that might occur in the process. „Autoethnography is an approach to
research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in
order to understand cultural experience“ (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011). It is a general
dilemma of EDR that researchers are not only researchers, but designers of the intervention,
too (see Educational Design Research 130). This is valuable in formative evaluation, but may
also produce tensions, for example when participants and the designer-researcher disagree. In
my situation I take even more roles than the researcher and designer, because I also have an
institutional role, being the Director of the Writing in the Disciplines program which is
situated in the Center for Teaching and Learning. My institutional mandate is to facilitate
change within departments and some faculty perceive this mandate as an intrusion into their
very personal affair of teaching. By using autoethnography I will analyze tensions that arise
in my multiple roles as information about the cultural context in which the design happens.
Since I’ve been working at Bielefeld University for more than ten years and also graduated
there, I consciously chose this method (being an enthnographer of my own present and past
experiences) because my past experiences at the institution shape they way I think about an
intervention and how I react to faculty in the departments. Rather than pretending to be an
objective observer, autoethnography will help to carefully consider my role in influencing
and shaping the phenomena I study.
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3.2 Research Plan
Phases in the
EDR process
Time and Working Steps
Winter
2015/16

Summer
2016

Winter
Implementation 2016/17


Test CuDesign
Evaluate on the basis of material from faculty
and focus group interviews
Winter
2017/18

Analyze and interpret data with respect to
research questions for part 2
If necessary: plan Redesign of CuDesign
Write Report
Publish Articles
Part 1
Exploration
Part 2
Enactment
Dissemination






Development of first prototype of CuDesign
based on existing research
Composition of interview guidelines
Interviewing and collection of other data
Data analysis and interpretation with respect to
research questions for part 1
Redesign of CuDesign based on qualitative data
and feedback from members of departments and
expert review
Exploration:
Based on existing theoretical and empirical studies as well a benchmarking with existing
curricuum design models I will formulate design principles for CuDesign. The theoretical and
practical knowledge will also inform the composition of Guidelines for the problem-centered
interview. „Guidelines are a supportive device to reinforce the interviewer’s memory on the
topics of research and provide a framework of orientation to ensure comparability of
interviews. In addition, some ideas for lead questions into individual topics and
preformulated questions to start the discussion are included.“ (Witzel 2000: 3). The problemcentered interview seeks to combine inductive and deductive theorizing. Ideas for questions
are generated on the basis of existing (theoretical knowledge), but at the same time narration
strategies in the interview are used, to determine what is relevant from the subjects
perspective. The problem-centered interview is a useful methodological framework for the
„Decoding interview“ which has been developed by David Pace and Joan Middendorf. Using
the problem-centered interview will enable me to start with some matter questions about prior
curriculum design efforts in the department, the relevance of writing for teaching and general
problems that occur with respect to student writing and learning. In the open-ended narrative
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section of the interview I will then start with the Decoding process, which aims at uncovering
the disciplinary operations that students are meant to learn in a department. On the basis of
two bachelor’s theses, chosen by the interviewee as an example for an excellent and a
deficient piece of work, I will ask the interview to analyze the differences of the two papers
and determine an attribute, a kind of thinking, doing or writing, which any graduate of the
program should master as a result of studying this discipline. Starting with this attribute, I
will ask the interviewee how he/she accomplishes this task. Joan Middendorf points out that
first answers usually provide superficial responses, which become more specific as the
consequence of repeated asking „How do you do that?“ and summaries and probing. The
interview will be videotaped and transcribed. My reason for videotaping instead of just
recording it, is that I plan to use the interview in CuDesign as a model for other faculty in the
department who will be asked to do Decoding with a different method.
For analysis of the transcribed interviews as well as the date generated later by faculty
particpating in CuDesign I will use the qualitative content analysis by Mayring (Mayring
2000). XXX
As one outcome of the interview analysis I anticipate to have discipline-specific writing
expectations, one two three major learning outcomes for writing as a major in the field and
the basic mental operations which are required to master writing expectations in the
discipline.
Based on the results of the interview a short questionnaire will be designed and send to
faculty in the departments asking where and how they prepare students for the writing
expectations defined in the interview. The results of the questionnaire will be put into a map
of the curriculum which shows where and how students are supported in reaching the
learning outcomes for writing. This curriculum map will be send back to the interview
partner and on this basis, the department has to decide whether it wants to embark on a
curriculum design process, how the process will be facilitated and who will participate in it.
The preliminary study with interviews will take as long as at least one department commits
to a curriculum design process. This does not mean that the outcomes as defined in the one
interview will be the basis for the design process, the idea is to take an important learning
outcome defined by a well-respected member of a department as a starting point for
discussion. The defining of learning outcomes for the actual design process will happen
collaboratively amongst members of the departments in a curriculum design
Enactment:
The prototype of intervention will be a Curriculum Design Program (CuDesign) which will
involve members of one department. The prototype will be modeled on a Curriculum Design
Program conducted at Indiana University which has been successfully used for external
review by three department and in which currently 46 departments within the College of Arts
and Sciences are involved (Rehrey, Metzler, Kurz 2014). The model encompasses fours
sessions (3 hours each) in which faculty define program goals, define student learning
outcomes for the program goals, map a curriculum for their program, determine forms of
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assessment for student learning by using evidence and define next steps for the departmental
process of implementing the curriculum. Backward Design (Wiggins 1998 and McTighe &
Seif 2003) and the Decoding the Disciplines approach are the methodological and theoretical
basis for the curriculum design process.
Based on the findings from the exploration phase the Indiana University model will be
revised and adapted to fit the needs of our context. It will then be evaluated by the involved
department in order to meet the criteria of relevance and practicality.
The prototype will also be reviewed by external experts for curriculum design and specialists
in writing pedagogy in order to meet the criteria of effectiveness and consistency.
Implementation
In the implementation phase I will conduct CuDesign for a department which commits itself
to participate in the process. Formative evaluation will take place on the basis of participants’
workbooks which include written materials (student learning outcomes, curriculum maps
etc.) developed by the participants. Observations from my participation in CuDesign will be
included as well as records of one-on-one conversations.
Dissemination
The overall outcomes evaluation will take place in the form of a case-study which portrays
how a departments participates in CuDesign and evaluates the outcome of the intervention.
The steps taken by participating department after the Program will be described and if
necessary a focus group interviews will be taken in order to delineate strengths and
weaknesses of the intervention and formulate suggestions for improvement.
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5. Appendix
5.1 Institutional Description
In the last years teaching with writing has become a topic of interest in Germany. The
Bologna reform spurred a huge process of reconstructing curricula in Higher Education. But
the envisionend redesign from content-based to competency-based curricula proved to be
very difficult. Many universities, departments and faculty perceived competencies as
something extra that had to bee added to the curriculum. As a response at Bielefeld
University the Writing Center (which is located within the Center for Teaching and Learning)
developed an approach to teaching with writing in which writing is seen as an integral part of
disciplinary learning. When in 2012 the government started an initiative for reforms in
teaching in Higher Education the University of Bielefeld decided to work on a better
integration of writing as a mode of disciplinary learning into courses, mostly introductory
courses. For this purpose ten departments received money to hire so called LitKom experts
(Litkom is the acronym for „literacy competencies“). The Litkom experts are faculty
members who received special training in teaching with writing. They design and teach
introductory courses where writing is integrated as a fundamental mode of learning the
discipline. At the broadest level the LitKom project seeks to persuade faculty to alter the
ways they teach and show them how to make that change. The LitKom project seeks to create
this transformation through the work of the LitKom experts, who as a group, advocate, teach,
and model the best practices in writing instruction, assignments, and feedback. The Litkom
project is coordinated by two specialists in writing pedagogy, one of these is my colleague
Svenja Kaduk and one is me. We both work at the Center of Teaching and Learning (CTL) at
Bielefeld University and I direct the Writing in the Disciplines program, which is part of the
CTL.
From the very beginning formative evaluation was meant to play an important role in the
project, the focus being to generate evidence that the best practices developed by the faculty
experts increase first-year students master of course material and enhance their writing
abilities.
The project started in July 2012 and is now in the middle of the overall 4 year funding time.
It has been successful in the sense that the LitKom experts found their role within the
departments, they all developed material for teaching with writing in the disciplines and
continually revise and improve this material. A major success of the Litkom experts is that
they generated a „social infrastructure for change“ (Lahm/Kaduk, article submitted). In
Germany, typically, teaching is an individual activity, ideals of autonomy and freedom date
back to the founding of the modern university by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Formal written
curricula exist, but the way they are implemented (for a typology of curriculum
representations see section II below) is mostly a matter of choice of individual faculty. When
the LitKom project started in most departments no institutionalized space for talking about
the place of writing in the curricula existed beyond the level of the formal curriculum and
informal door-to-door talk. The LitKom experts created these spaces and they host events
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where faculty meet to discuss writing assignments, grading, rubrics, feedback practices and
other issues.
In designing and implementing courses that integrate writing the LitKom project so far has
focused on introductory courses, because this was part of a larger university effort to support
students in becoming successful learners in their discipline. Guidelines for courses that use
writing as a tool for learning disciplinary ways of doing, knowing and writing were
developed and each instructor used these guidlines to develop student learning outcomes
(SLO’s) at the course level and tried to bring these outcomes and the activities in the course
in alignment with the formal written curriculum of the study program. To change the written
(intended) curriculum as formalized in the descriptions of the study program proved to be
extremely difficult. At the same time it became evident, that in order to work sustainably the
LitKom experts need a larger framework for designing their courses, in the sense that the
overall learning and writing outcomes for a study program should be determined so that they
can lay the foundation for a systematically designed curriculum. My study seeks to provide
that framework with the development of a Curriculum Desing Program (CuDesign).
In contrast to the Angloamerican context, mostly the United States, Writing Across the
Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) is not a widespread reform effort at
German universities. Bielefeld University is the first university which seeks to systematically
integrate writing into the curricula. Our work is inspired by research and pedagogical
literature mainly from the United States. The effectiveness of writing-intensive instruction for
deep disciplinary learning has been demonstrated by well-designed small-scale, quasiexperimental studies (e.g., Carter) and by several large-scale studies in the US (Astin1992,
Light 2001, Anderson et al. 2009, Arum and Roksa 2011).
The Anderson study is particularly relevant for reform efforts at Bielefeld. A project of the
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Council of Writing Program
Administrators (CWPA), this survey of over 70,000 first-year and senior students at 80 U.S.
universities not only demonstrated that writing-intensive instruction is associated with greater
self-reported gains in learning and development, but also identified several features that
distinguish more effective writing-intensive instruction from less effective versions of it. The
evidence-based best practices identified in this study form the basis of the LitKom project.
We also profit from practical advice from a U.S. expert for implementing a university-wide
writing program. All this is helpful, but at the same time we do experience that interventions
cannot be easily transfered from one context to another. As a result we learned a lot about the
structures our educational system and the specifics of our context. What we learned is:
1. The term „Writing“ often provokes misunderstanding. In an educational culture where the
teaching of writing was not an issue for universities until 1993 when the first writing center
was founded at Bielefeld University, faculty and departments often hear that the LitKom
project wants to fix students writing problems and that the projects is about additional
courses for students who can’t ‚write‘. As Russell shows, this has been the case in the US,
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too, but the WAC movement started much earlier in the 70’s and the many initiatives at U.S.
universities is an indicator for the fact, that a much broader understanding of writing as a
mode of disciplinary learning has become a shared notion of a large community of faculty,
administrators and writing specialists (Russell)
2. The structure of curricula differ. German universities have no general education at the
beginning, students start studying by choosing one or two majors. General Composition does
not exist. The usual course structure is a lecture (90 min) followed by a tutorial (90 min) or a
seminar (90 min) taking place once a week.
3. Forms of assessment differ. For a long time the „seminar research paper“ was the most
important form of assessment, especially in the humanities and the social sciences. Students
started to write „seminar research papers“ of 15-20 pages from the very first semester. The
papers were written when the course was finished and students autonomously designed their
writing and research process, which usually took about 4 to 6 weeks. In the meantime the
repertoire of assignments is more variable, but the seminar research paper still plays a major
role. With respect to disciplinary conventions it is usually an ill-defined task and - as other
genres, too, students write mostly when the course is finished and regular feedback is not
available. Writing in sessions and in between sessions is not a common practice.
4. Systems of evaluation differ. Although the practice to evaluate teaching is gaining
importance in Germany right now, students do not rate or evaluate courses on a regular basis.
Course evaluations do not matter in the reward system for faculty
In a sum: Although practice and research in the US have generated a useful set of principles
for integrating writing into curricula, we have to find ways which fit our special educational
context. Until now the LitKom experts were able to demonstrate the need for integrating
writing into core courses which they teach themselves. Colleagues are happy and willing to
take their material and learning from them as long as they can see the benefit for themselves,
the promise of saving time is a main incentive for adopting LitKom strategies. Initiatives
which demand collaborative effort, like for example getting together with a group of faculty
in the department and define learning outcomes for writing introductory courses and design
rubrics accordingly, are happening only very slowly and only in some departments. Although
the social infrastructure of change develops, decisions for change are still made individually
and are not a matter of a collaborative effort or a departmental decision. This is not only on
obstacle for the ongoing formative evaluation, but the long run the lack of collaborative
commitment in departments is likely to become a major obstacle for further efforts of the
project to integrate writing into curricula. This is why my study seeks to develop CuDesign
which is meant to foster a collaborative process of curriculum design.
5.2 Key theorists and frames
My approach is characterized by a systemic perspective on curricular change and based on
interventions theory by Helmut Willke. This means that I think of curricular change as an
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open-ended, contingent process which very carefully has to take the context of the
intervention into account.
A body of literature about the role of departments, disciplines and individual teaching beliefs
helps to analyze this context and design faculty development programs accordingly. This
body of literature includes theories of situated learning (Laver/Wenger) and implicit,
procedural knowledge of faculty as experts in their discipline (Pace/Middendorf).
My understanding of writing is shaped by the literature about writing as social action
(Bazerman). This is the theoretical foundation for most WAC programs and Curriculum
Design Efforts in the US. In the last years many Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
efforts in the US have started to focus on integrating writing into curricula. In this process
key writing assignments are identified and/or designed which allow faculty to assess
students’ capability to meet outcomes which were define beforehand. The departmental
assessment is based on a review of students work based on collaboratively developed rubrics.
The results of the review of student work are the basis for continual improvement. For WAC
proponents this “discourse based approach to assessment” (Bean; Carithers; Earenfight 2005)
is a way to show “that a rigorous program in writing in the disciplines may be the best way to
produce students who know their disciplines’ concepts and procedures but who can also use
this knowledge in complex rhetorical environments” (ibid. 20). The basic underlying
assumption is that at an advanced level students’ work in the form of written text is not an
indicator for writing competency only, but also a proof of deep disciplinary learning. At the
level of graduation writing means to perform the discipline, writing is disciplinary action.
5.3 Glossary
Wordle of most frechently used words in the proposal
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Autoethnography
A genre of writing and research that transcends mere narration of self and "displays multiple
layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural.“ (Tingerthal 2013:14)
Backward Design
„The backwards desgin model centers on the idea that the design process [of courses or
curricula, S.L.] should begin with identifying the desired result and then „work backwards“
to develop instruction rather than the traditional approach which is to define what topics need
to be covered. (Source: http://pixel.fhda.edu/id/six_facets.html, retrieved: 13.12.2014).
Bottleneck
A „bottleneck“ is an essential concept or skill in a discipline which is crucial for students to
succeed in their disciplinary studies, but which they consistently fail to grasp.
Curriculum:
„a coherent program of study (such as a four year B.Sc.) that is responsive to the needs and
circumstances of the pedagogical context and is carefully design to develop students’
knowledge, abilities and skills through multiple integrated and progressively challenging
course learning experiences“ (Huball/Gold 2006:7)
For the purpose of my study it is important to keep in mind that this definition of the
curriculum highlights only one level of possible understandings of the curriculum, the formal
level. I am interested in the perceived curriculum, the mental framework which influences
teaching practice in a department.
Decoding the Disciplines
A seven step framework „within which teachers can develop strategies for introducing
students to the culture of thinking in a specific discipline and, in the process, level the playing
field for those students who do not come to college ‚preeducated‘ “ (Tingerthal 2013: 15)
Educational Design Research
Educational Design Research (EDR) is a „research approach suitable to address complex problems in
educational practice for which no clear guidelines for solutions are available.“ (Plomp 2007: 9). EDR
has been used in subject areas like learning sciences, instructional design, curriculum development
and teacher professional development (McKenney & Reeves 2012). Design research has been gaining
momentum in recent years and it’s major goal is to increase the relevance of research for educational
policy and practice (see „Educational Design Research“). The starting point for research is a complex
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problem, the output is an intervention which has been systematically designed, developed and
evaluated. In the course of the research the intervention is tried out in and formatively evaluated with
the participation of the stakeholders involved in the intervention. Using the results of formative
evaluation the intervention is carefully revised and adapted in several cycles of iteration until it
addresses the complex problem formulated in the beginning in a satisfactory manner. Four main
criteria for the evaluation of an intervention are: relevance, consistency, practicality, effectiveness
(Table from: Plomp 2010: 26).
Learning
My study is based on a systemic-constructivist notion of learning which stresses the
experiential aspect of learning: learning happens when a subject acts and is confronted with
its environment. For learning to happen the confrontation with the environment has to result
in a productive irritation. An irritation is productive when the experiences which disrupt
previous conceptions of understanding and acting, lead to an understanding of the situation
which is subjectively meaningful for the learner and adequate for the context. Prior
experiences and knowledge play an important role and can foster or hinder learning. Striving
for an equilibrium and continuity in the subjective understanding of the world and the
individual experience is an important motivation for learning.
Subjective Theories
In the German discussion the term „subjective theories“ is often used interchangeably with
„belief“, but the term is better defined than „beliefs“ in the Angloamerican discussion:
Dann (1990, 1994) define subjective theories as having the following five characteristics:
- Subjective theories represent relatively stable cognitions, but can be change through
experience.
- Subjective theories are mostly implicit, but can be made conscious when a person gets help
in articulating his/her cognitions.
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- Subjective theories have a structure similar to scientific theories, which means that they
contain if-then relations and can be use expain and forecast situations. They fulfill the
functions to
a. Define a situation; b. explain events which occurred; c. predict future events and d.
generate plans or recommendations for action.
Teachers’ Beliefs
„Beliefs are a psychologocial concept, which describes the views and propositions of a
person about the world who accepts these as true. These propositions do not have to be
logical, they are arranged by what a an individual sees as relevant and can conflict with each
other. For the actions of a person beliefs haven an informational and action generating
function.“ (Fussangel 2008: 71f; translation S.L.)
Writing
The WEC (Writing-enriched Curriculum) project at the University of Minnesota formulates
an understanding of writing which is foundational for my study:
1. Writing can be flexibly defined as an articulation of thinking, an act of choosing among an
array of modes or forms, only some of which involve words.
2. Writing ability is continually developed rather than mastered.
3. Because writing is instrumental to learning, it follows that writing instruction is the shared
responsibility of content experts in all academic disciplines.
4. The incorporation of writing into content instruction can be most meaningfully achieved
when those who teach are provided multiple opportunities to articulate, interrogate, and
communicate their assumptions and expectations.
5. Those who infuse writing instruction into their teaching require support.
(Source: WEC Home Page wec.umn.edu; retrieved 13.12.2014)
Writing Enriched Curriculum (WEC) Project
„A three-phase, recursive process in which academic units develop, implement, and assess
discipline-specific Undergraduate Writing Plans. These plans articulate discipline-specific
writing expectations, and plans for curricular integration of writing instruction, writing
assessment, and instructional support. At the center of this process are multiple faculty
dialogues that will allow departmental faculty groups to think collaboratively with specialists
in writing pedagogy and assessment about the effective integration of writing into their
undergraduate curricula.“ (Source: WEC Home Page wec.umn.edu; retrieved 13.12.2014)
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