Sherran Lyn Clarence

Published: Jul 07, 2020 by Journal of Praxis in Higher Education
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

At doctoral level, an original contribution to knowledge is required. Thus, writers need to take on a confident authorial voice in their work. But research shows that many doctoral students struggle with this. This paper argues that writer-focused work needs to look at more than just the technicalities of writing a successful thesis; it needs to engage students in more holistic, critical, and forward-looking conversations about their writing and their own developing scholarly identity.

Published: Oct 01, 2019 by Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

Writing centres are well-established academic support spaces in many universities globally. At times, pressures in their contexts, ideological and practical, can shape the daily nature of their work in ways that diverge from more principled ways of working. Acknowledging and characterizing possible gaps between 'theory' and 'practice' may better enable writing centres to act as a “critical conscience” in universities vulnerable to narrow notions of safety and risk in student development.

Published: Jun 15, 2018 by Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

Student-tutor engagements in higher education are about co-constructing knowledge and creating independent student learners. Yet, tutor development and training tends to under-prepare peer tutors to create participatory, inclusive tutorials. This paper argues that tutor training should model these practices, such that tutors actively learn how to do this. A more interactive approach to tutor training is more likely to make tutorials more participatory, inclusive, shared spaces for learning.

Published: Mar 01, 2017 by London Review of Education
Authors: Sherran Clarence, Sioux McKenna
Subjects: Education

Much academic development work framed by academic literacies is concerned with disciplinary conventions and knowledges: conceptual, practical, and procedural. This paper argues, however, that academic literacies work may conflate literacy practices with disciplinary knowledge structures, obscuring the structures from which these practices emanate. This paper discusses one theoretical tool for conceptualizing disciplinary knowledge structures that can connect these with academic literacies work.

Published: Dec 31, 2016 by Journal of Education
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

This paper offers a complementary tool to constructive alignment (Biggs 2012) to fill a gap in analysing disciplinary knowledges and knowers. Using Specialisation from Legitimation Code Theory, I argue that theorising a discipline’s basis for legitimate achievement can enable educators to align curricula effectively with that basis in different disciplines. The case study used enables us to reflect on practically addressing differential development of disciplinary knowledges and knowers.

Published: Dec 01, 2016 by Higher Education, Research and Development
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

Students’ ability to build and transfer knowledge within and between contexts is crucial to academic success. Educators should focus on creating conditions that enable their students’ to grasp and apply knowledge in different learning areas. Semantics from Legitimation Code Theory is useful in examining the conditions that may be necessary for students to do this more successfully. This paper applies this theory to classroom data to show how these conditions may be created more consciously.

Published: Jul 26, 2016 by Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Authors: Martina van Heerden, Sherran Clarence, Sharita Bharuthram
Subjects: Education

Feedback plays a vital role in students’ learning and enables conversation between students and tutors or lecturers about their own work. Feedback’s work is enabling students to create the ‘right’ kinds of knowledge and become the ‘right’ kinds of knowers within their disciplines. We offer Specialisation from Legitimation Code Theory as a practical theory and a methodological tool for exploring knowledge and knowers in two illustrative case studies: English Studies and Law.

Published: Jun 15, 2016 by Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

University peer tutors are given vital teaching and learning roles, but the training and support opportunities they are offered vary; more often than not peer tutors are under-supported. Tutors need to be offered opportunities for more in-depth academic development to fully realise this role. Using narrative data tutors provided in reflective tutor reports, the paper explores the development that is possible when training is theoretically informed and oriented towards improving practice.

Published: Dec 07, 2015 by Teaching in Higher Education
Authors: Sherran Clarence
Subjects: Education

Academic development (AD) is a growing field of research and practice globally with increasing attention to developing academics as teachers. But if we cannot fully account for the specificities of disciplinary knowledge, we may do academic development in ways that are unable to fully address the needs of students, educators, or disciplines themselves. Semantics, from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), can provide a useful bridge between AD work and disciplinary teaching and knowledge concerns.

Published: Jan 01, 2015 by South African Journal of Higher Education
Authors: Sherran Clarence, Sharita Bharuthram
Subjects: Education

Many university lecturers expect students to read disciplinary texts at the appropriate levels and reflect critically and on those texts. Yet many are frustrated by many students’ lack of ability to do so satisfactorily. This article argues for an overt focus on critical academic reading as part of disciplinary teaching and learning. It shows how an academic literacies and knowledge-focused approach can be useful to lecturers trying to help their students read in the disciplines.