Discussion with Locality Manager, Groby

Following the input on Skills for Life on the 14th by Colleen Molloy I have had a conversation with Judith Winter about one of my learners. My learner is a statemented dyslexic but will not disclose her statement to me. The only information she offered is that she was allowed extra reading time in her GCSE exams before. This learner has recently struggled with the maths and graph drawing in some work set. I offered some extra support to the learner and she refused. I spoke to Judith about the situation as this isn’t the first time that this learner has refused extra support. Judith is looking into ways that she can help me to embed some support into the sessions. She has also given me a book to read, Maths for the Dyslexic by Anne Henderson.

Inclusion Reflection

The input into the PCE session on inclusion looked at disability issues. Much of the time was spent focusing on Mental Health as a hidden disability. Where a learner may declare more obvious problems, such as deafness or partial hearing, sight problems or dyslexia, on an enrolment form somebody with mental health issues is not likely to want to declare this information. From personal experience I was not willing to declare the state of my mental health on the occasions that I suffered from post natal depression. As a society, mental health is still very much a taboo subject which can feel quite crippling as a sufferer.

The input into the PCE session was valid, very interesting and worthwhile. However, I did not feel that it encapsulated inclusivity. To me, being inclusive is about including people regardless of age, race, religion, creed, colour, sex, or ability for example. I do appreciate that a three-hour session cannot cover all of these aspects. In the past I have taught people baby signing and some of them may have a PhD whereas others have no qualifications whatsoever. Particularly with babies, I feel that people are on a very similar starting block. Also having a PhD doesn’t make you any more capable at parenting, especially if you have the complication of postnatal depression which is something very few mothers are willing to openly admit.

I feel that inclusivity is not about who checks what boxes but allowing a culture within education of open access. Sadly the tutors see that at an organisational level this utopian view is not possible as management are limited by many constraints, one of which is most often highlighted – funding!

As long as my learners are all achieving their learning outcomes to the best of their ability and satisfaction I am happy that I am being as inclusive as possible. If I go that extra step and offer individual support to help learners to achieve then I am also happy that I am being inclusive. If I do not single a person out for being different then I am confident that I am being inclusive. If I am accommodating different learning styles I am sure I am being inclusive.

GCSE Biology, Groby Community College

As we had a week off for half term I revisited the previous weeks work. The completed text boxes in the PowerPoint presentation were particularly useful memory aids as the learners could remember the discussion once they saw the slide with their comments saved. I intended to use this technique again and I have. I have realised that the boxes do need to be much bigger for a discussion. If I had an interactive whiteboard, or SMARTboard, available then the boxes would be superfluous as I could use the functionality of the board to do the same job with much more space available. e-learning is proving particularly easy to implement in the development of the teaching and learning environment.

GCSE Biology, Groby Community College

Tonight I used the PowerPoint Presentation with the text boxes. Whilst I have some minor niggles with the layout and look of the presentation I am pleased at how easy they are to implement. The learners seemed impressed that they could contribute to the presentation. As this was also an observed session I am pleased that the use of the boxes worked well, and that the observer was also impressed. As the main point of the exercise was to collate opinion the text boxes allowed me to pool these ideas in an accessible and retrievable format.

One point made by the observer was that I do not ask enough probing questions. I am aware that this happens. I frequently ask if everyone understands but I fail to ask leading and probing questions. This is partly down to my lack of confidence; I don’t want to look daft by asking a learner a question that I’ve not prepared them to answer. Also I don’t know necessarily how to ask the right questions, it is a knack I am yet to learn and one area of teaching where I feel I am weakest. I am improving my knowledge of assessment techniques, mainly written assessment as this is what the summative assessment will be for the biology course. I could do with sharing some good practise on verbal assessment techniques. I am also aware that some of my learners are more vociferous than others. Of course, just because someone doesn’t want to speak out in a class doesn’t mean they don’t know the answers. I just don’t know how to tease the information I want out of some of the more introverted members of the class.

Biology Lesson Preparation

I am trying an idea suggesting on the Adult Learning Platform. It is to include text boxes in a PowerPoint presentation to make them more interactive. I look forward to seeing how this idea works in the class.

Adding text while viewing a slide show PowerPoint text boxes using the Control Bar

You can get your learners more actively involved in your PowerPoint presentations by using the text box facility. It lets you add text to a slide during the presentation.

Make sure you have a blank slide.

View>Toolbars>Control Toolbox

Drag the text box to your desired size and shape

Text cannot be entered in edit mode – you need to view the slide show.

For some reason known only to Microsoft (bless them!) the text defaults to one line and no return. So you have to change the settings.

Right-click on the text box and click on Properties.
Change Multiline to True
Change EnterKeyBehaviour to True
Word Wrap should default to True but check to see.

PCE, Longslade

The session looked at providing feedback on assessment. How honest would I be in providing feedback? This seems an odd question to be asking, but the matter was raised that if a learner had performed really badly in an assessment, would I tell them just how badly they have performed and risk demotivating them? Would it be better to focus on the small positive aspects and offer guidance in where they should be going without letting on just how badly they are doing? I think this is a judgement call you have to make as a tutor, based on how well you know your learners as to what format the feedback is provided.

GCSE Biology, Groby

Before the session one of the learners spoke with me to ask some questions about some extra reading she had been doing on the previous topics. She also mentioned to me that she is an alcoholic, albeit a dry alcoholic. I am not sure how I deal with this information, as it would not appear to have any current implications on her learning, or attending the course. However, all the students need to be aware that when we conduct our practical experiments none of them should be under the influence of intoxicating substances. At this point I think it might be prudent just to be aware of the situation without the need to draw any attention to the fact, especially as she is not attending the sessions intoxicated.

I also had a brief conversation with a new learner after the session. She said that she was pleased that I had agreed to her joining the course late as the one she had hoped to attend at North Warwickshire College had been cancelled due to insufficient numbers. She also said how much she had enjoyed the session and how infectious she found my enthusiasm for my subject. After attending this session she is feeling a lot more positive about attending the course as she had had concerns but did not go into detail about these concerns.

Telephone Conversation with Admin

Would I be happy for a new student to start course on Monday?
Yes if student is prepared to do catch up work in own time.
Student is willing to do work, and arrive 15 minutes early for session.

Whilst I am unable to be very flexible with the content of the course I am happy to take new learners onto the course up to the October half term. This has been especially helpful for the numbers as a course that should have run at another college has been cancelled and those learners are now attending at Groby. The course now has 13 enrolled learners. I feel this particularly relates to the FENTO standard B3, enhance access to and provision in learning, as well as supporting the service by enabling more learners to attend up to a reasonable point.

Reflection on comment made following Group Task PCE, Longslade

“Comic Sans 14pt is the font you use for dyslexics”

Further to the reflective writing required for the assignment I have expanded my reflection on font sizes. I appreciate that using a 10-point font was not ideal for readability. I had reduced the font size to enable the text to fit onto one page. I had, therefore, allowed style to rule over functionality and had made the documents less accessible for learners with problems such as dyslexia. Whilst I accept, and uphold this criticism I did disagree with the statement “Comic Sans 14-point is the font you use for dyslexics.” Previously, I have had conversations with a dyslexic colleague in Nottinghamshire, who works within LLDD, about appropriate fonts and document format. Her feelings are that any Sans Serif font is acceptable as long as it is well spaced and has the ‘a’ formed as is found in handwriting rather than most print. Her personal choice in fonts is 12-point Century Gothic and Berlin Sans. She would rarely use 14-point or above, or use Comic Sans as her opinion, shared by other people she knows with dyslexia, is that documents produced in Comic Sans in a large font are seen as patronising. Whilst some of this is opinion I can back some of this up with information from The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) website.

Fonts should be rounded, allow for space between letters, reflect ordinary cursive writing and be ‘easy on the eye’. Look for a font that spaces letters rather than running them closely together. Bear in mind that fonts that have unusual shaped letters can create difficulties.

• Select sans serif fonts such as Arial or Comic Sans. Other suggestions include Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Trebuchet and Sassoon.
• Use a minimum of size 12pt or 14pt.
• Where possible use lower case letters rather than capitals. Using capital letters for emphasis can make text harder to read.
• Don’t write sentences entirely in capitals; this infers that the reader is being shouted at.

Unknown (2006) The British Dyslexia Association Dyslexia Style Guide [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed 30 September 2006].

PCE, Longslade

Mark has suggested a reason why the projector at Groby is not picking up a signal from my laptop. I shall try pressing Function+F10 once the projector and laptop are switched on. It helps to discuss problems with other tutors as they may have come across similar problems and have solutions.

The use of my laptop will enable me to use PowerPoint presentations and effectively achieve FENTO standard D5e, select and develop resources to support learning – use information technology where appropriate. A simple conversation like this is also an example of how easy it is to cover FENTO standard D6, establish and maintain effective working relationships, in particular point f, work collaboratively with colleagues to deliver the learning programme. Also from Mark’s point of view he was addressing D6h, share expertise with colleagues and respond to their needs, for the benefit of the learners and the learning programme. Finally, our collegiality was a good example of H1j, work within a professional value base – work effectively with other others for the benefit of the learners.