Dr Rebekah Sims

Lecturer

Education

Personal statement

My central area of research is higher education pedagogy. Currently, my research focuses on integrating writing instruction into teacher education programmes. Additionally, I'm interested in strengthening reflective practice among teachers and teacher candidates as a part of developing pedagogies that sustain the cultural identities and languages of all students. 

I collaborate with an international group of scholars to develop and assess pedagogies that integrate intercultural competence into writing courses. Our most current article, 'Developing intercultural competence through a linked course model curriculum,' can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tesj.613. More about this work can be found at http://writeic.org

I completed my PhD in English at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA in May 2021. My dissertation, Investigating Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices in First-Year Composition, focused on mixed-methods evaluation of culturally responsive teaching among college writing instructors.

While at Purdue, I worked for the Purdue Writing Lab (home of the OWL) and the Oral English Proficiency Program. Primarily, I taught written and oral communication skills to STEM graduate students. I have an ongoing interest in collaborating with professionals in STEM disciplines, with specific attention to developing metalaguage for STEM writing applications. Metalanguage for writing enables experienced professionals to identify their implicit understanding of writing and articulate how they communicate effectively in various situations. Explicit metalanguage helps experienced professionals mentor students and new professionals on discipline-specific writing skills. 

My areas of teaching expertise include academic writing skills, oral and written English for EAL learners, religious and moral education pedagogy at the primary level, and teacher education courses. I am a faculty advising editor for the journal Young Scholars in Writing

I also serve as an honorary chaplain for the University chaplaincy. More information can be found here: https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/ourcampus/whatsoncampus/faithspiritualitysupport/

Publications

Illuminative evaluation of an intercultural-competence-focused first-year writing curriculum
Sims Rebekah, Banat Hadi, Tran Phuong, Panahi Parva, Dilger Bradley
Writing and Pedagogy Vol 14, pp. 103-127 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1558/wap.21124
Developing intercultural competence through a linked course model curriculum : mainstream and L2-specific first year writing
Banat Hadi, Sims Rebekah, Tran Phuong, Panahi Parva, Dilger Bradley
TESOL Journal Vol 13 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.613
Transnational curriculum design for intercultural learning in writing programs
Panahi Parva, Banat Hadi, Sims Rebekah, Tran Phuong, Dilger Bradley
Teaching and Studying Transnational Composition (2021) (2021)
Review of 'Reading Hebrew Bible Narratives'
Sims Rebekah
Encounter: A Journal of Theological Scholarship Vol 80, pp. 99-101 (2020)
The Proverbs 31 virtuous wife online : networked collective rhetoric in Quiverfull women's weblogs
Sims Rebekah
Peitho Journal Vol 21, pp. 104-131 (2018)
Discursive agency and collective action among Lubavitch Hasidic women
Sims Rebekah
Young Scholars in Writing Vol 10, pp. 58-71 (2013)

More publications

Projects

Analysing Data in Qualitative Inquiry: From Analysing to Writing Up your Research
Sims, Rebekah (Principal Investigator) Landi, Dillon (Co-investigator) Lamb, Cara (Post Grad Student)
This six-session, interactive seminar focusses on qualitative data analysis approaches. We take a hands-on approach to developing qualitative data analysis skills for doctoral students. Our seminar is funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences and the Scottish Graduate School for the Arts & Humanities

Our learning objectives are:

1. To develop participants’ abilities to understand and discuss the goals, strengths and weaknesses of theoretical frameworks and research methods.
2. To increase participant familiarity with a variety of approaches, methods and analysis tools that are referred to as qualitative.
3. To learn how to write up a data analysis and results section to a qualitative research report.
17-Jan-2022 - 21-Jan-2022

More projects