Planning and teaching for effective learning
Planning in the face of crisis
Introduction
Students access Specialist Study Skills as and when they need it. The best scenario is when students access at the start of term and can focus on the learning rather than assignment deadlines. This isn’t always the case, and some access the tutorials when they have already fallen behind or have been given a brief they are struggling with, have more than one competing priority or have a resubmission. The first session should be when we discuss study needs with a student, long and short goals and draw up an individual learning plan. This is not always achievable when a student only wants to focus on the deadline and what they need to do to submit the assignment.
Evaluation
While it is important to deliver student led tutorials, being on the PGCE has reminded me how important it is to have a robust time management plan. Delivering crisis management to students is not effective in the long term and often you never see those students again until the next crisis. Neurodiverse students dislike being asked to work under pressure (Grant, 2010) so time management is essential.
Moving Forward
Regardless of what crisis the student presents with I am going to ensure that we have the space and time to take a breath and reflect on how the current situation came to pass. Is it a one off, illness or another personal situation. Or a pattern. I have a vey basic weekly planning grid that I find is invaluable for getting students to think about how they use their time. It acts as a schema, creating a visual model of how they experience time (Mortimore, 2008). Everything they need to do goes in the grid not just academic work. Once university, life, work, family, health, priorities are included, all colour coded, we can look for gaps to dedicate to the assignments. Guilt free time is factored in as students can lose their sense of enjoyment if their studies seem out of control. Prep for lectures and seminars is noted, any admin tasks. Time allocated to the assignments is task orientated. What exactly will they do in the time? I encourage students to visualise themselves sitting down at a desk starting work. Not just say they will spend all afternoon in the library. Once they are sitting down, the time allocated to the task is chunked. Breaks are needed.
As well as planning time more effectively this exercise, if reviewed and repeated weekly start to show patterns related to learning styles and learning preferences. (Mortimore, 2008). How do they work best, where and when in the day? It helps them move away from the notion that time is the enemy and instead developments metacognition to critically evaluate how they use their time (Medina et al, 2017).
References
Grant, D. (2010) That’s the way I think Dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD explained. 2nd edn. Oxon: Routledge.
Medina, S, Castleberry, A. N. Persky, A. M. (2017) Review: Strategies for Improving Laerner Metacognition in Health Professional Education. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih. (Accessed 20 February 2015)
Mortimore, T. (2008) Dyslexia and Learning Style: A Practioner’s Handbook 2nd edn. West Sussex: Wiley & sons.