Research on learning by osmosis?

[mamselle]

Well, in word problems, the student isn't being made to look up someone's biography to be able to answer the problem.

It's a sort of tangential or peripheral bit of information that may reinforce their having heard of the person, or make them recognize the name if they run into it again--say, in English class--like a piece of the mosaic that contributes to a clearer picture of the person overall when they are front-and-center in the discussion.

And I definitely build those levels of resonance into every bit of my teaching, all the time. It's what artists do to anchor, say, a tone within a painting: that little bit of blue used to emphasize a cornflower in the center may appear in the shadows near the backdrop, as well as in the shading of the tablecloth below the vase. (see: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/9179BKQWDML._AC_SL1500_.jpg)

In written work, you see it when an image like a bicycle's whirling tires are referred to in passing within a description in one chapter, then in a later chapter, the whirring tires may be invoked as a symbol of time moving quickly forward within the story; at some point near the end, a bike might be dropped in place, its tires slowly turning to a stop, to create an undercurrent of derailed energetic flow that parallels or even symbolizes the series of events within the story.

Inbuilt resonance is just plain good aesthetic practice.

And--teaching being an art form, in which we all participate--it behooves us to practice all the aspects of our art as well and as deeply as we can.

M.

[marshwiggle]

I tried to do my dissertation on the topic of the effectiveness of WAC on remedial college students. I found nothing quantifiable or replicable. Still, everyone thought it was a good idea.

Isn't part of the idea of those programs that the writing students do is supposed to be something typical for the discipline? So for instance in STEM students would write things like lab reports while in other disciplines they may focus on essays. If that's the case, then again it's "organic", in that students are learning to do something in their discipline, but with emphasis on the skill from another discipline that applies here.

[Ruralguy]

In my experience, remedial students don't really have a discipline. They default to something eventually, but focusing too early on, say, lab reports , is probably not useful.

[ciao_yall]

I tried to do my dissertation on the topic of the effectiveness of WAC on remedial college students. I found nothing quantifiable or replicable. Still, everyone thought it was a good idea.

Isn't part of the idea of those programs that the writing students do is supposed to be something typical for the discipline? So for instance in STEM students would write things like lab reports while in other disciplines they may focus on essays. If that's the case, then again it's "organic", in that students are learning to do something in their discipline, but with emphasis on the skill from another discipline that applies here.

Yes. The emphasis is on explicity learning how to write better, while also using the writing process as part of learning the material.

It goes a bit farther in that part of WAC is learning the norms of writing in one's own discipline. The craft of writing a lab report is different than an historical analysis or a business plan.

[ciao_yall]

In my experience, remedial students don't really have a discipline. They default to something eventually, but focusing too early on, say, lab reports , is probably not useful.

Well, remedial students have interests. So if you can get them into a class in which they are reading work about a topic they care about, and writing papers about things they really want to talk about, then maybe that engagement will have the effect of helping build their skills.