Case Study - A Skills Map for the Learning Journey

Many adult literacy students bring with them a well-defined and well-defended view of their limitations. To overcome this, teachers have traditionally provided a supportive and nurturing environment, appropriate curriculum of interest to students and reading and writing skills.

And still many students do not move beyond their self-imposed limitations and inabilities. Their defences remain intact. Most of these students have spent so little positive time in classrooms that they are unaware of good learning strategies and unaware that learning skills and strategies can be taught and learned that it is possible to become an effective learner even if you were not ’born’ one. It is necessary to challenge a student’s entire belief system. Only then can the student make the arduous transition from ‘I can’t and I’ve never been able to’…to…’now I can.’ The whole area of learning to learn extends far beyond learning to read, write and spell.

One way to challenge those entrenched sets of negative beliefs is to provide students with strategies to re-appraise their belief system. Students need to know how they learn; what are their strengths and weaknesses; how they can assess their learning and how they can evaluate the studies they are undertaking. Therefore the unquestioned acceptance of an outdated self-concept can be remodeled. The ghosts of conditioned limitations can be left behind as students are able to learn to operate in the present. The shift from acceptance of limitations to the creation of a positive belief in a present ability to learn is probably the most powerful shift a student can make. With this shift it is easier for the student to see the tutor as a facilitator or co-driver. Consequently, the responsibility for learning can shift to the shoulders of the student who is able to create the environment to enhance his own learning.

Study skills are often taught to students returning to study at higher levels of education. It is just as imperative that students with low literacy skills have the opportunity to examine the background learning skills in order to fully utilise the reading, writing and numeracy skills they will be learning. This is not new. Most tutors include activities to assist student learning. This new program ‘A Skills Map for the Learning Journey’ is an attempt to bring together a number of learning outcomes that will underpin literacy learning. These skills are to be placed ‘front and centre‘ in this unit instead of being background skills. They are to be discussed, analysed, debated and made personal. Students will be given opportunities to see themselves ‘then’ and ‘now’. In short, these activities will encourage the students to value their own personal and cultural resources and to take on new learning strategies that they deem valuable.

The setting for this learning to take place is Morrison House, a community house east of Melbourne with a population of around eighty students in an adult literacy program. The students who access the programs at the centre are generally people who do not feel ready to access programs at a TAFE because of a lack of confidence and fears of reentering a formal educational environment. Agencies that access the programs at Morrison House such as Groundwork, YES Personnel, VIP and Centrelink have worked closely with us for many years and their staff are aware of the community environment offered which can suit the fragile and diffident learner who may be reluctantly putting the toe in the water again in terms of learning. The ‘Skills Map for the Learning Journey’ has been mapped against the National Reporting System so that it can be utilised in particular with DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, TRAINING AND YOUTH AFFAIRS funded students accessing the Literacy and Numeracy Program at Level 1 and 2. (A note about the program: the cartographer is still working on some of the details so the ‘Map’ is being shared as a work in progress!)