Gaining Insight Into Students’ Difficulties Using KWL

Abstract

Summary of Teaching & Learning Context Peer Assisted Student Support, (PASS) is an optional 5-credit module available to second year students at TUS: MMW (only Athlone campus currently). Between 30 – 40 students attend two days of training to prepare them for their role as PASS Leaders to run timetabled PASS sessions during semester one. From induction, first year students are encouraged to attend PASS sessions to help ease their transition to higher education. Instructional technologies allow students to submit anonymous responses to a question posed and enables facilitators to collect and analyse data quickly (Bruff, 2009). One of the advantages of identifying where students’ difficulties lie is that facilitators can adapt their lesson plan or structure a discussion in response to the points raised (Bruff, 2009). KWL is used during PASS pre-training (flipped classroom). Students are asked to complete K and W on a shared Word document before watching a video about PASS. They return to the document and compete L. Outstanding questions are noted by the facilitator to be addressed during the face-to-face training.