Re: WC in Comm. Coll -Reply -Reply

[Jim Bell <jimb@unbc.edu>]

One way to frame this is as the familiar disjunction between theory and 
practice. (For example, language arts consultants emphasize whole 
language and teachers photocopy their favourite out-of-print grammar 
books; historians emphasize epistemology and history teachers ask 
students to match names with dates.) 
 
Reading this thread has made me think: the strange thing about this 
debate, this familiar split, is that we can know what the theory is (all 
the articles are there, the conference agendas are avialable etc) but we 
have a devil of a time finding out what the practice is. I describe to 
outsiders what I hope my tutors are doing or what I trained them to do, 
and I present it as what they actually do. It's not generally conscious 
deceipt but a natural slip of mind: I want this result, I trained staff 
and tutors to get that result, students seem happy with our service, 
therefore I must have achieved that result. 

And how we learn what happens in other centres is as suspect. This spring 
I visited two centres hundreds of miles from here. As I was leaving the 
first (big expansion, more professional staff), I paused by the last 
table where a tutor (instructor) was taking a student's paper and writing 
all over it 
with red pen. That's all I know about that place, but I've made a 
judgement. Pretty bad research, but just about all that is available to 
me. What would happen if we called for several descriptive studies of 
WCs--taped conferences, analyzed transcripts, triangulation by multiple 
researchers etc? Would the WC community be in favor of it? Would anyone 
be interested in doing it?


Jim Bell				Ph. (604) 960-6365
Learning Skills Centre			Fax (604) 960-6330
University of Northern BC		email jimb@unbc.edu
3333 University Way
Prince George, BC
Canada  V2N 4Z9                    =====-=-====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=