Supervision and academic writing

1. Supervision and academic writing Professor Kirsti Lonka University of Helsinki, Finland/ Foreign Adjunct Professor, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

2. Our mental models guide our actions • Guide our attention, perception and memory • Not copies of reality, but emphasize things that are important for us • Motivation and emotions play a role • Expertise requires well-developed mental models Picture: Heikki Lonka

3. Literate expertise Expertise in general relies on a body of well-organized and useful domain-specific knowledge structures Developing expertise in any domain usually takes 10 000 hours Literate expertise - the readiness to go beyond the text, and to differentiate between what is intended and what is actually written - taking into account the point of view of both the potential reader and the scientific conventions, which often remain tacit Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

4. A free-writing exercise Think about your own writing activities • What do you enjoy? • What do you dislike? Write about this for 2-3 minutes. Do not think about grammar, punctuation, or style. Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

5. A FEEDBACK EXCERCISE Start with careful reading and listening: what does the author want to say? • present strong and positive aspects about the text present specific questions about the text, e.g. “what do you mean by saying “x” on page 5?“ • do not comment on the writer or writer’s abilities • the author is not supposed to answer orally; but to underline the strong points of the text and to write down the questions – it is her/his task to think through the comments and decide what to take into account. Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

6. Liking/Disliking writing? Positive thoughts Negative thoughts Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

7. Constructive feedback • Start with careful listening or reading • Focus on strengths • Be as specific as possible • Pose questions • Comment on the task, not on the person Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

8. Two modes of thinking about writing • KNOWLEDGE TELLING: Writing is simply listing what you already know - minimizing the cognitive load • KNOWLEDGE TRANSFORMING Writing is an effortful and reflective problem-solving process (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987) Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

9. PREPARING INCUBATION INSIGHT TESTING THE SOLUTIONS PREWRITING DRAFTING, FEEDBACK, PRELIMINARY WORK PRODUCING THE TEXT, REVISING, REFLECTION, TRANSFORMING THE PROBLEM EDITING, CHECKING THE LANGUAGE, RUNNING MORE TESTS, PUBLISHING Creative process and writing Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

10. Writing shapes thinking The act of writing is an aid to students’ learning, a tool to be used in acquiring mastery over new information, and a means of revealing present understanding of a given subject P.Tynjälä, L. Mason, & K. Lonka (2001, Eds.) Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating theory and practice. Studies in Writing, Vol. 7. Dordrecth, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

11. Writing as a social activity • Learning is a process of growing up to be a member of a community • Intelligent activity takes place within a culture rather than merely within the human mind • Teachers and tutors are also role models • The skill of writing is acquired by taking part in social practices and building identities • Motivation and engagement are of importance (Pyhältö, Stubb & Lonka, 2009; Stubb, Lonka & Pyhältö, in press; in preparation) Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

12. An optimal experience - FLOWCsikszentmihalyi (1988), Delle Fave & Massimi, (2005) • High challenge combined with feeling of competence • Engagement • Absorption, loosing sense of time • Promotes intellectual evolution • Part of normal daily experience Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

13. The four channel model of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993) + - ANXIETY FLOW CHALLENGE APATHY RELAXATION/BOREDOM - + COMPETENCE Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

14. Flow and writing (Reed Larson, 1988) • Enjoyment was a great predictor of the grades students received in a major writing project • Irrespective of ability levels, the experience of flow made a substantial difference in the quality of each student’s final paper • Students who experienced flow did not put more time to their work: they appeared to get more out of each hour they worked • Novice writers often put themselves in situations they could not handle • Emotional problems in writing may end up in overarousal (stress and anxiety) or underarousal (boredom), which are cognitively maladaptive states of mind Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

15. Adaptive Thoughts of Writing • Productivity - the feeling that I am able to produce (Boice, 1993) • Knowledge Transforming - I see writing as an act of creating or transforming knowledge Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

16. Maladaptive Thoughts of Writing • Blocks - the feeling that I am not able to write • Procrastination - I cannot get started! • Perfectionism - I cannot stop revising! • Innate ability – writing is a talent that cannot be learned • These maladaptive thoughts are related to experienced stress (Lonka et al., 2010, in preparation) Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

17. How to cure blocks? • Automatization - getting rid of the ”internal critics”, setting the threshold lower for writing • Regimen - constant writing regardless of mood, time, space • Adaptive cognitions about writing - useful beliefs about oneself and writing • Social support - peer groups, feedback, cultural practices Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland

18. Discussion Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, Finland