Collaborating in the transition to tertiary writing

The Monash Transition to Tertiary Writing Project seeks to produce a web-based resource for first-year students to facilitate their transition to the kinds of thinking and writing valued at university. The background research on which this language and academic skills (LAS) project is based centres on three main types of collaboration. Of key importance was the interaction set up between six LAS lecturers and more than twenty first-year students across ten subjects. Crucial too are the relationships established with thirteen lecturers from four faculties teaching the first-year subjects. In addition, interviews were conducted with Year 12 teachers who made observations about the likely difficulties they expected students to experience. Collaborations with these three groups of stakeholders yield a number of insights about the challenges for students making the transition from school to university. The resulting web-based resource represents an innovation in its attempt to capture both dimensions of this transition: a vertical one (school to university) and a lateral one (moving from one discipline specialism to the next).