Implementing an institution-wide pedagogical change in an Israeli college: The AWpack advising system in support of academic writing

Abstract

Universities and colleges around the globe struggle to find ways to improve students’ academic writing skills. With the goal of tackling students’ writing skills on an institutional level, we set out on a 6-year journey to seek ways of enhancing the teaching of academic writing on a wide selection of courses. Here we describe and analyze the challenges entailed in implementing an intervention in a teachers’ college in Israel. We found that as the implementation process evolved, a shift from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach resolved three different challenges: (a) The management challenge, which comes into play when leading any type of change; (b) The challenges specific to the academic work environment; and (c) The challenges of providing effective pedagogical tools for the implementation of the change. The one-on-one advising system, constituting the final stage of the process brings about the desirable change in broader terms. Based on the Tpack model, we offer AWpack (Academic Writing—pedagogical and content knowledge) as a strategy for implementing an institutional pedagogic change in the case of academic writing. Moreover, we show that as a working strategy within an academic institution it may facilitate other sought-after pedagogic changes.