Leigh Anderton is a lecturer on UCOL’s Level 4 Certificate in Art and Design, based at UCOL’s Whanganui campus. Here is Leigh with Art and Design student Ramene Ihaia.
Priming the learners for the Assessment
Students were primed for doing the assessment by explaining to them that the results would give them a realistic idea of their current abilities in reading. They were assured that their results would be discussed with them, and those discussions could help them identify areas to work on that would help them succeed in this programme and prepare for the higher level programmes they are intending to apply for later.
With this purpose in mind, the students were positive about the assessment and keen to discuss their individual results.
Discussing strengths and weaknesses with learners
Jan and Leigh looked over the results with each student and discussed areas of strength and areas for development (for example, there might be strengths in vocabulary, but a need to develop critical reading skills). Individual students were keen to discuss ways they could increase their reading skills.
Learners taking control of their learning
One student, who wants to study photography next year, came out at Step 3 overall. He was keen to find out how he could build his reading skills. Jan and Leigh discussed with him reading material that he might find interesting, and he decided to talk to library staff about photography magazines and books, and begin building a personal glossary of vocabulary relating to photography.
Other students were keen to move on to degree level study in Computer Graphic Design, and they talked about strategies to support the critical reading that would be important at this level.
Following this, Leigh and Jan worked on some active reading strategies that could be introduced in class sessions. Jan suggested that Leigh use ‘Three-level thinking guides’ and ‘Reciprocal reading’ from Teaching adults to read with understanding: Using the learning progressions. This will provide an opportunity to model active reading strategies through a ‘think aloud’ process.
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