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Connections‹ Teacher Accounts | Regression Home In cognitive psychology, learning and memory specialists still muck around on this topic and sometimes refer to as a “working memory” effect. In psychology, Sarah Ransdell at Florida Atlantic has done work in the area if you are interested in a cognitive perspective on the topic. --Richard Colby, WPA-L, 3 October 2005
This message follows up on the lengthy discussion u-shaped learning curves. I was talking with an instructor about this phenomenon just yesterday and received following in a “thank you” email: “Thanks, Joe. The curve is definitely present in my students’ writing, not to mention my own. I see it in my teaching too.” The final sentence raises a slew of issues relevant to wpa’ing. —How can we accommodate the u-curve in the way we prepare and support new teachers? —What are the implications for undergraduates? —How many semesters or sections does a new graduate student instructor have to teach before s/he emerges on the uphill side? My program staffed exclusively by graduate student instructors and has a very high annual turnover rate—40–45%. So what David Schwalm called the “problem of the new” is something I find myself thinking about quite a lot. --Joseph Bizup, 5 Oct 2005
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