Mid Sweden University

Extended education provides possibilities to compensate for gaps within traditional education, bridging school learning with learning in extended education. However, according to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2018), there are challenges, among others, in relation to learning environments, planning and focus on teaching and collaboration with schools (cf Boström & Augustsson, 2016; Klerfelt & Haglund, 2014). New teachers in extended education, who today are extended education teacher students, will play an important role in this work and will need both professional as well as academic skills such as writing to bridge these gaps. This paper explores how extended education teacher students in a Swedish university context reflect upon their academic writing skills. Extended education students in their second year of studies were asked to write a learning reflection (N=14) about their academic writing skills. Questions posed were about students’ previous writing skills, self-assessments of their writing skills and writing processes and what support they perceived that they needed to develop their writing skills. The learning reflections were analysed using qualitative and quantitative Content Analysis (Boréus & Bergström, 2017). The teacher students reported both positive and negative previous experiences of writing in general. Many students noted negative experiences of writing during previous school years. Other students described more positive experiences, or that they in their experience of writing had seen a shift in experiences, either during their schools years or at university. The students also provided reflections on their writing processes. These processes showed wide variation, from trying to find structure in a text to seeing writing a text as building a puzzle. Many students focused on the need for structure, to practice writing and more developed skills in the genre of academic writing as well as support in understanding this genre as well as strong support in this process. However, students also saw the importance of developing their academic writing and the need to acquire this skill for their future studies. For the teacher students in this study support in academic writing is needed. These findings are of importance for teacher students to understand different writing strategies and processes, which come about in the process of learning the skill of academic writing. Moreover, these findings are important for teacher educators who strive to support extended education teacher students in academic writing and provide insights in that general and more specific support students’ needs. Further, these finding may also be of interest for higher education institutions, which seek to support teacher students’ academic writing. How extended education teacher students’ skills in academic writing develop, and later professional writing, may be an important key in bridging the gaps between traditional school teaching in extended education and supporting pupils’ learning. 

References

Boréus, K., & Bergström, G. (2017). Analyzing text and discourses. Eight approaches for the social sciences. London: SAGE.

Boström, L., & Augustsson, G. (2016). Learning Environments in Swedish Leisure-time Centres: (In)equality , “Schooling”, and Lack of Independence. International Journal for Research on Extended Education, 4(1), 125-145.

Klerfelt, A., & Haglund, B. (2014). Presentation of Research on School-Age Educare in Sweden. International Journal for Research on Extended Education, 2(1), 45-63.

The Swedish Schools Inspectorate. (2018). Undervisning i fritidshemmet [Teaching in Leisure-time Centres]. Stockholm: The Swedish Schools Inspectorate.