title: A dead ordinary woman

authors: Pears, Kim Susan

subjects: Women

abstract: Muriel Murdoch died in 1961 yet she asked  – bullied me more like – into telling her story. ‘Write it all down – all of it,’ she insisted from her an unmarked Essex grave that Mum never let me visit. She was furious to be dead at thirty-five, and wanted me to be her voice. I was reluctant. And curious.  
The veil between us lifted as Muriel shared her childhood losses, and her adult struggles with 1940s Essex as the backdrop. Muriel’s tales mirror, dovetail, and blend with mine. My doubts morph into enthusiasm; irritations settle and across time and space, a loving, playful connection forges between us.

The story needed to be told because Muriel said it did. She was a dead ordinary woman with a life cut short, yet she represented women labelled in 1940s Britain not just as difficult: but as ‘good-time girls’ and ‘home wreckers.’ She was hot-headed, loving, resilient, and principled: she thought that war was stupid; and was unafraid to call out the misogyny of some opinionated men in the chip shop queue: ‘Got herself pregnant? Never heard of that before. You’d better ring the papers.’ 
	I was influenced by Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum, whose protagonist starts her narrative from inside her mother’s womb, providing a poignant, witty story of her unfolding life using the omnipresent point of view. Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones helped me to think about writing about the impact of loss from beyond the grave, and Doireann Ni Ghroifa’s  A Ghost in the Throat gave me a taste of a piece where the author included herself in her journey of researching and writing about a long-dead poet, doubting herself at times. This story was also about a woman who had been forgotten and overlooked.
	The story needed to be told for the adventure of the telling. In its writing, I trusted myself, the process, and the connection with my ancestor. Each day I sat at my desk with the loosest of plans listening to Muriel and putting her words to the page. The more I committed the more the stories came. Why her? Why this? Why now? I agree with Gurprakash, the Dutch, guitar-strumming yogi when he says, ‘The meaning is the experience.’
	Lastly, it needed to be told for my own growth. Writing as Muriel with her flaws and foibles has helped me to accept, love, and even revere, my ordinary self. To accept oneself fully, as Matt Haig writes in The Midnight Library ‘like the way you accept nature, a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. And in so doing you find freedom.’ 
Above all, I wrote this because I wanted people to feel for Muriel, to feel for me, and for themselves.  To feel with compassion. And, as Matt Haig says: ‘Just to say your own truth out loud, is enough to find others like you.’

text: A dead ordinary woman Muriel Murdoch died in 1961 yet she asked  – bullied me more like – into telling her story. ‘Write it all down – all of it,’ she insisted from her an unmarked Essex grave that Mum never let me visit. She was furious to be dead at thirty-five, and wanted me to be her voice. I was reluctant. And curious.  
The veil between us lifted as Muriel shared her childhood losses, and her adult struggles with 1940s Essex as the backdrop. Muriel’s tales mirror, dovetail, and blend with mine. My doubts morph into enthusiasm; irritations settle and across time and space, a loving, playful connection forges between us.

The story needed to be told because Muriel said it did. She was a dead ordinary woman with a life cut short, yet she represented women labelled in 1940s Britain not just as difficult: but as ‘good-time girls’ and ‘home wreckers.’ She was hot-headed, loving, resilient, and principled: she thought that war was stupid; and was unafraid to call out the misogyny of some opinionated men in the chip shop queue: ‘Got herself pregnant? Never heard of that before. You’d better ring the papers.’ 
	I was influenced by Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum, whose protagonist starts her narrative from inside her mother’s womb, providing a poignant, witty story of her unfolding life using the omnipresent point of view. Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones helped me to think about writing about the impact of loss from beyond the grave, and Doireann Ni Ghroifa’s  A Ghost in the Throat gave me a taste of a piece where the author included herself in her journey of researching and writing about a long-dead poet, doubting herself at times. This story was also about a woman who had been forgotten and overlooked.
	The story needed to be told for the adventure of the telling. In its writing, I trusted myself, the process, and the connection with my ancestor. Each day I sat at my desk with the loosest of plans listening to Muriel and putting her words to the page. The more I committed the more the stories came. Why her? Why this? Why now? I agree with Gurprakash, the Dutch, guitar-strumming yogi when he says, ‘The meaning is the experience.’
	Lastly, it needed to be told for my own growth. Writing as Muriel with her flaws and foibles has helped me to accept, love, and even revere, my ordinary self. To accept oneself fully, as Matt Haig writes in The Midnight Library ‘like the way you accept nature, a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. And in so doing you find freedom.’ 
Above all, I wrote this because I wanted people to feel for Muriel, to feel for me, and for themselves.  To feel with compassion. And, as Matt Haig says: ‘Just to say your own truth out loud, is enough to find others like you.’

year: 2022

title: University tutors’ beliefs about and practices in assessing undergraduates’ writing - A New Zealand case study

authors: Li, Jinrui

subjects: assessment feedback

abstract: Although teacher cognition has been explored widely, university tutor cognition of professional activities, such as evaluating and giving written feedback on students’ written work, has rarely been explored. Very few studies on teacher cognition of giving feedback have included data of real practice collected by think-aloud, observation, and stimulated recall. Traditional teacher cognition studies mainly focus on individual teachers’ beliefs and practices without in-depth study on how individual cognition evolves through and interacts with its social context in which individual teachers participate. 

It is the research space above that this thesis seeks to occupy, through an in-depth case study of the beliefs and practices of sixteen New Zealand university tutors who were employed in one of the university’s faculties to provide feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. In addition to exploring the beliefs and practices of this specific group of tutors, and the factors that influence these, the study aims to contribute to both the theoretical and methodological construction of teacher cognition studies by employing a holistic socio-cultural frame work based on Vygotsky’ s key notions of cognition, distributed cognition,  and an activity theory approach.

Data were collected chronologically across an academic year by five methods: preliminary survey for bio-data of participants and their general attitudes to giving feedback across the faculty, individual interviews for beliefs on giving feedback, think-aloud sessions on the actual practice of giving feedback, stimulated recall discussions as reflection in action, and focus group discussion as a means of collective reflection of various factors underlying their beliefs and practices.  Data were firstly transcribed, stored, and open coded by NVivo8 for preliminary analysis and then analysed manually for deeper understanding of themes. Constant comparisons were made through the whole process of data analysis between data from different participants and between different sources of data. 

The findings reveal that there were convergences and divergences among tutors between their beliefs and practices about providing assessment feedback to the written work by undergraduate students. The convergences and divergences were due to the contextual factors in the activity system and tutors' previous experiences. The convergences and divergences of tutors’ beliefs resulted in emotional reactions. Tutors’ emotion interacts with cognition and actions (ECA interaction). The ECA interaction is affected by contextual factors in the activity system. The contradictions of the activity system constrain tutors’ cognition, cause negative emotions, and are often barriers to tutors’ work, but also form the potential of cognitive development. Co-operative effort is needed in the wider context of the activity to facilitate tutors’ cognitive development, promote positive emotions, and achieve a better outcome for the activity. 

It is concluded that a holistic socio-cultural framework of teacher cognition contributes to the understanding of the complexity of teacher cognition. The study is significant for its practical implications for professional practice of assessing disciplinary writing and tutor development; its contribution to the development of teacher cognition and activity theory regarding the interaction between emotion, cognition, and action at both individual and distributed level; and a multi-method approach to teacher cognition studies.

text: University tutors’ beliefs about and practices in assessing undergraduates’ writing - A New Zealand case study Although teacher cognition has been explored widely, university tutor cognition of professional activities, such as evaluating and giving written feedback on students’ written work, has rarely been explored. Very few studies on teacher cognition of giving feedback have included data of real practice collected by think-aloud, observation, and stimulated recall. Traditional teacher cognition studies mainly focus on individual teachers’ beliefs and practices without in-depth study on how individual cognition evolves through and interacts with its social context in which individual teachers participate. 

It is the research space above that this thesis seeks to occupy, through an in-depth case study of the beliefs and practices of sixteen New Zealand university tutors who were employed in one of the university’s faculties to provide feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. In addition to exploring the beliefs and practices of this specific group of tutors, and the factors that influence these, the study aims to contribute to both the theoretical and methodological construction of teacher cognition studies by employing a holistic socio-cultural frame work based on Vygotsky’ s key notions of cognition, distributed cognition,  and an activity theory approach.

Data were collected chronologically across an academic year by five methods: preliminary survey for bio-data of participants and their general attitudes to giving feedback across the faculty, individual interviews for beliefs on giving feedback, think-aloud sessions on the actual practice of giving feedback, stimulated recall discussions as reflection in action, and focus group discussion as a means of collective reflection of various factors underlying their beliefs and practices.  Data were firstly transcribed, stored, and open coded by NVivo8 for preliminary analysis and then analysed manually for deeper understanding of themes. Constant comparisons were made through the whole process of data analysis between data from different participants and between different sources of data. 

The findings reveal that there were convergences and divergences among tutors between their beliefs and practices about providing assessment feedback to the written work by undergraduate students. The convergences and divergences were due to the contextual factors in the activity system and tutors' previous experiences. The convergences and divergences of tutors’ beliefs resulted in emotional reactions. Tutors’ emotion interacts with cognition and actions (ECA interaction). The ECA interaction is affected by contextual factors in the activity system. The contradictions of the activity system constrain tutors’ cognition, cause negative emotions, and are often barriers to tutors’ work, but also form the potential of cognitive development. Co-operative effort is needed in the wider context of the activity to facilitate tutors’ cognitive development, promote positive emotions, and achieve a better outcome for the activity. 

It is concluded that a holistic socio-cultural framework of teacher cognition contributes to the understanding of the complexity of teacher cognition. The study is significant for its practical implications for professional practice of assessing disciplinary writing and tutor development; its contribution to the development of teacher cognition and activity theory regarding the interaction between emotion, cognition, and action at both individual and distributed level; and a multi-method approach to teacher cognition studies.

year: 2012

title: Older adult education in a New Zealand university: Developments and issues

authors: Findsen, Brian

abstract: This article explores a case study of educational provision for older adults in the context of continuing education in one of New Zealand’s universities. It explains how developments in older adult education at the University of Waikato have reflected historical and cultural trends related to the wider field of adult and community education (ACE) inside a higher education setting. It discusses issues of tertiary education policy and funding, what constitutes curriculum and provision for older adults and how university-community partnerships have shaped opportunities for both indigenous Māori and Pakeha (European) seniors. Government removal of funding to all universities in New Zealand for ACE at the end of 2012 ended formal provision but older adult education groups, formerly supported by the Centre for Continuing Education in the University of Waikato, have assumed a more proactive stance in planning and implementing their own programmes.

text: Older adult education in a New Zealand university: Developments and issues This article explores a case study of educational provision for older adults in the context of continuing education in one of New Zealand’s universities. It explains how developments in older adult education at the University of Waikato have reflected historical and cultural trends related to the wider field of adult and community education (ACE) inside a higher education setting. It discusses issues of tertiary education policy and funding, what constitutes curriculum and provision for older adults and how university-community partnerships have shaped opportunities for both indigenous Māori and Pakeha (European) seniors. Government removal of funding to all universities in New Zealand for ACE at the end of 2012 ended formal provision but older adult education groups, formerly supported by the Centre for Continuing Education in the University of Waikato, have assumed a more proactive stance in planning and implementing their own programmes.

year: 2014