Six sessions of one hour each, which would run alongside students' other courses running at the beginning of the academic year and which all students attend.
| 1 | Brief introduction Lectures and discussion groups/ seminars |
| 2 | Questions about lectures and discussion groups/ seminars Effective reading 1 (including on-line use) |
| 3 | Effective reading 2 (retention from sources) |
| 4 | Writing (in general) |
| 5 | Writing (essays and reports) |
| 6 | Writing references and bibliography Summary |
Progression according to need: meaning that it starts with lectures and discussion groups/ seminars, with discussions and questions after they have attended some, moving swiftly on to reading where more advice is needed to be effective as students start to read, but a need for depth and so continuation into another week, followed by writing, first in general and then specific, as students start to write work to hand in, completed with advice on consistent referencing and bibliography.
The course would be handout driven, aware that students can consult these throughout different courses they attend for advice. Teaching methods would only illuminate some of the content areas but they would be in handouts.
It is from this material that objectives are derived in terms of teaching - these are not in themselves objectives - and the length of content determines distribution of content over sessions and the extent of handout support:
| All | The need to build vocabulary: technical terms, simplifying presentation whilst knowing technical terms, clarity with development of level of complexity. |
| Reading | Drop some of own habits, do not read in a linear fashion, hyperlink connected internet texts (a method of reading?), skim and focus, previewing first, how to preview on the internet; construct own meanings, engage with the author, compare reading intentions with author's, underlying assumptions, author's balance versus a cause, argument flows and leaps, witting testimony and unwitting testimony (Arthur Marwick, historian); what is retained: note making, a brief 10 minute look at a book to a review (phew!), construct an argument afterwards, rapid review, "knowing" the book, writing a summary, own notes assisting big picture, mental picture of own library of owned books and books to borrow and articles and internet sources, cards on books. |
| Lectures | Give common ground/ guide to syllabus/ summarise syllabus, summarise difficult to find literature, focussing reading, bend a key textbook towards syllabus; why going, what if didn't go; make notes even with handouts, tape recording adds nothing, add to handouts, abandoning lined paper, avoiding rushing notes, noting what is unfamiliar, headings and bubbles and explosion diagrams, sharing notes, evaluating and adding afterwards, revision notes from the lecture notes. |
| Discussions | through the chair and directly to anyone, take responsibility, withdrawing, advancing, avoiding personality clashes, changing seat; discussing online via newsgroups and lists, add in own understanding; preparations to the point, using visual materials (advanced presenting). |
| Writing | Creative phase: build and build, free writing, repeat and develop, "steamrolling"/ "ploughing on"), keep writing; editing phase: cut and refine; titles and headings; written for three minutes reading time, how it would look in an email, varieties of web page, written in 30 minutes reading time, reflective writing in a learning journal, stripping out technical terms. |
| Writing essays | Essay planning; clear introduction, purpose, themes, hypotheses; clear middle, narrative argument, data, linked supports, holding close to requirements, discipline, weighting points; clear conclusion, similar to introduction except hypotheses proved or disproved, denouement restated; length in mind but no slave to word count (unless absolute), if written avoid further waffle, if need to write more write it; flow but formal, tell a story/ narrative, build a style, avoid plagarism; evaluate afterwards, stripping essay into revision notes. |
| Writing report | Highly structured, research/ project/ investigation; reports have genres, lab report, government report, Church of England report, theoretical report, field trip; writing the report during the process and changing the process, keeping all details, refine the presentation afterwards' short paragraphs, prune out excess, audience level for technical terms; title, problem, question, intention, aim, cover page; contents; illustrations, listed; abstract, objectives, summary without giving away the whole plot; recommendations, where the research leads; appendices, notes, additional points; acknowledgements, all who helped; discussion and results in detail, body of work, presented so that another can repeat the method, materials given; summary, focussed results, nothing new; conclusion, succinct, do not repeat summary. |
| References | Quotations: succinct, illustrate a point, flavour of the work, exact words, short quotations in text body in quotes, long quotations separated and indented with no quotes, punctuation, changed emphasis admitted, punctuation unchanged, never present as own, reduce quotation and write around it to introduce; internet, plagarism temptation, reference it by time and date and URL, give other links; bracketed reference, author surname, date, letter after date where two source dates same; footnotes, same page, brief; endnotes, end of chapter, end of book/ article, longer; two authors quote both, three authors Bibliography: Book: author surname, comma, author initials, date of last publication not reprint (bracketed? comma after brackets otherwise before), capitalised italicised title, colon, italicised subtitle not necessarily capitalised, comma, edition if necessary, comma, location (if not London (?)), colon, publisher, comma with pages in range if necessary, full stop, or no punctuation throughout, or consistent alternatives; article/ chapter in reader/ collection: author surname, comma, initials, comma, capitalised title in single quotes, comma, source not in quotes capitalised and italicised, comma, date (unbracketed), comma, issue, comma, number, comma, publication place (if not London (?)), colon, publisher, or no punctuation, or consistent alternatives; footnotes/ endnotes may contain similar bibliographic detail with more detail earliest and page number/s with less detail later, will imply shorter bibliography at end of the other sources. |
The following is a lesson plan based on what is practical in terms of one session of Study Skills: Effective Reading 2 which is guided by what students must know than what students should know or could know. This selection process by group or individual should lead on to creating some practical objectives for the lesson.
Lesson Plan |
|||||
| Name of Teacher | Adrian Worsfold | ||||
| Date | Study Skills | ||||
| Time | 1 hour | ||||
| Place and room | (Exercise) | ||||
| Group | (Exercise) | ||||
| Subject | Effective Reading 2 | ||||
| Resources | OHP, OHTs, many prepared handouts, lecture notes, various text books | ||||
| Aim of Lesson | To enhance reading and retention | ||||
| Objectives | The student will be able to:
|
||||
| Evaluation of Lesson: (to be further developed in Learning Development Journal) |
|||||
| Still to do: | |||||
| Time | Lesson content | Delivery methods |
Assessment method | Resources | |
| Teacher activity | Student activity | ||||
| 15 minutes | Not reading in a linear form: reviews, notes & cards | Questions on existing habits, give out all handouts for later use | Listen, answers, write | From following activity | OHTs with bullet and card examples and a review's main points |
| 10 mins | A page of a relevant book | Hand out extra books, photocopies and tasks, walk around | May use own books, pick any page, rewrite complete paragraphs within the page in summary form | Going around and discussing | Students' own books, extra books and photocopied sections |
| 15 minutes | Writing a book card | Describe task, walk around | Writing a card - author, title, date in a manner to assist indexing, and leave a line and a summary of the whole book in a few lines | Seeing the work done, asking students which books they "know" and where should they look when they don't know | Student's own books, extra books |
| 15 minutes | Book review | Describe, limited to 500 words, mention can be any book, can't take books away (thus only practice on extra books) | Looking at various parts of the book like titles, conclusions, endings (as for card) and also aspects of chapters | Handed in homework | Students' own books, extra books. |
| 5 minutes | Briefest summary | Speak that whole aim is trying to build effective means of reading, using and knowing sources | Students permitted to carry on writing, some pausing to listen before leaving | Evident in own work in other subjects! | Nothing specific beyond existing materials |
Marshall, L., Rowland, F. (1998), A Guide to Learning Independently, 3rd edition, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Own experience
City & Guilds 730 section of the Learning area of http://www.pluralist.co.uk website