Vergara A1
1Navitas, Sydney, Australia
As a Student Learning Advisor, my role requires me to design and deliver academic writing support that helps students complete their written assessments such as essays and reports. One of the purposes that our academic study skills workshops also serve is to familiarise students with marking rubrics and the areas of assessment that learners need to identify, understand, produce and demonstrate in their submitted work. One of these areas is critical thinking (or the lack of), which seems to be mentioned quite often in the feedback given to students by their lectures when completing assessments.
One way to help students understand critical thinking that has been utilised at our campus is the delivery of a workshop that mainly focuses on the different levels of thinking proposed by Benjamin Bloom (1956). This session shows students a simplified version of the pyramid used as a visual representation of what each level of thinking entails and how it can be demonstrated through their writing. The pyramid also helps remind and introduce students to general academic writing skills needed in their work such as paraphrasing, summarising and referencing to name a few.
The initial workshop delivered to students to discuss critical thinking in assessments usually runs for 60 minutes where scaffolding around research skills, writing skills, referencing, analytical thinking are discussed. This workshop is followed up by other sessions where further teaching and learning takes place.
Biography:
Andrea Vergara, currently working at the Sydney Institute of Business and Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University, City Campus as a Student Learning Advisor, has over twenty years of ELICOS teaching experience preparing students for academic studies as well as English exam preparation such as Ielts and FCE Cambridge. More recently, has worked in the tertiary sector to support students with their academic literacy needs. Andrea holds a BA in Languages and Linguistics, Grad Dip in TESOL and LOTE, Master of Adult Language and Literacy and a Grad Dip in Mental Health Practice/Counselling.