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Abstract
The capacity to write sits at the heart of academic work and is crucial to achieving success. For higher degree research students, academic writing calls for various skills, competencies and knowledges, and is experienced as a process of participating and becoming adept in the textual and discursive practices of specific disciplinary cultures. In this chapter, we share our collective experience of experimenting with the genre of ‘drabbles’ as a way to share the theoretical story of our thesis and academic work, and to gesture towards the ways in which higher degree research and writing might become a rebellious pedagogic and performative praxis. Drabbles are short works of fiction of exactly 100 words which explicitly aim to tell a story in a way that is short, sharp and snappy. The drabbles we share here were written while away on a week-long DRAW (Departing Radically in Academic Writing) writing retreat. In 100 words we departed radically from academic writing, to show not tell our thesis stories and our delight and love for words that world. The chapter weaves these together along with our thinking and wondering about our work as a way to, through and for rebellion in thesis and academic writing more broadly.
Abstract
In this commentary, the author describes the activities and the rationale of the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science. This department was active over a long period of time. She writes that the holistic approach of connecting science disciplines to teaching and learning of the sciences in the educational system in Israel is commendable. This approach includes all the components that characterize science curricula: development, implementation to include intensive and comprehensive long term professional development of science and mathematics teachers, research and assessment. It has become a leading example of a multifaceted endeavor encompassing the creation of learning materials, preparation of teachers, and conduct of research on teaching and learning.