"TEACHING TABLES:" Real-World Audiences: Finding Ways for Student Scholarship to Resonate Outside the Classroom

Abstract

My session will focus on how university professors can coach their undergraduate students to understand and appreciate the ways that their own research, writing, and scholarship can resonate with ââ¬Åreal-worldââ¬Â audiences outside the classroom and even effect change. Professors from any department or discipline can emphasize authentic audiences for their students by encouraging them to submit work for publication or by implementing a ââ¬ÅWriting to Save the Worldââ¬Â-type social change project. This Teaching Table session will provide ideas and examples of how to do just these things, from assignment design to lesson planning. This session will explore the rewards of helping students look beyond the walls of the classroom while developing their own research, and consider audiences besides merely their professor and classmates. This session will provide ideas of how to balance teaching necessary academic writing skills while also teaching with an emphasis on real-world context. It will outline assignment opportunities that allow students to feel directly engaged with their learning while also developing active critical thinking skills and embodying the ââ¬Åstudent as scholarââ¬Â mentality valued by the universityââ¬â¢s QEP program.