Following a screening within the college, it was confirmed that J. did have dyslexia and strategies were put into place to support his future learning such as the allocation of a Learning Support Advisor to work with him when required. This was the initial step in then finding ways that work could be differentiated in ways that suited J.
When developing worksheets for a class, it became important that if separate worksheets were appropriate for different level students, all sets would lead to the same answers or conclusions. For example, higher level learners may be asked to write an answer in a few sentences, whereas J. may be given multiple choice answers or a cloze exercise. The important thing being that when, as a group, we could go through work and J. would feel confident giving answers along with his peers.
Mentoring was also beneficial to J. He would often understand things better if he was helped by one of his peers. Because of this, J. would work well in small groups with particular learners making sure that the groups were chosen carefully.
There has been a definite change in J's self-efficacy. Gross states that “this is brought about best through actual experience in facing previously feared or avoided situations” (Gross, 2009, p.832). J. appears to be developing an intrinsic motivation to learn and is now intending to move on to a foundation level course.
案例2-Case 2
B. has many barriers to learning including behavioural problems and a lack of appropriate social skills. B. knew many of the learners in the group that she was joining and immediately wanted to do the work that they were doing despite the fact that her initial assessment had shown her to be at a lower level of ability than her friends were currently at. It was explained to B. that she needed to work at her literacy skills to attain the level that they were at; after all, they had been on the course for some weeks already. B. did not understand this and refused to do any work that was below the level of her peers. When given the work above her current level, she became disruptive in class due to the fact that she was unable to do the work.
B. had previous bad educational experiences which had, in part, led to her exclusion from school. She had not been in education since the age of 11 and so her basic skills were poor.
B. did not have any further learning difficulties other than her social and emotional barriers to learning and so strategies to motivate her have had to be developed. As with J. differentiation has to be applied to outcomes as well as the work that is devised for B. When work was set for B, it soon became apparent that she responded well to praise when she had completed tasks well. Often she would rush to have her work marked before continuing with other tasks. B. also responded well to kinaesthetic learning styles and she enjoyed games such as bingo and card games. It became obvious that she was deeply satisfied by the feedback she received and that this provided her motivation.
