1. Personal Learning Plans (PLPs)
Training to support the Faculty-wide adoption of recommendations for students with dyslexia (June 2012)
Irene Crow, Vikki Black, Kate Woodward-Harris, Rose Farnhill (Learner Development Service Advisers)
Dr Dawn T. Nicholson (School of Science and the Environment)
Housekeeping – DTN
Introductions
Toilets – no break so go whenever
Coffee and tea – whenever
Anybody NOT from this building? (If yes – no fire alarm test expected, if fire alarm – main foyer and outside Oxford Rd)
Normally, Personal Learning Plans are prepared for disabled students.
These include recommendations specific to the student and their impairment. However, the recommendations for students with mild to moderate dyslexia are identical. Moreover, this group of students makes up the majority of disabled students at MMU.
In EGS over the last year – conducted Pilot Project to remove PLPs for students with mild to moderate dyslexia, and rely instead, upon embedding the recommendations set out in the PLP as standard throughout the curriculum.
Following a successful pilot, it was agreed by Faculty Executive group to roll-out the process across the Faculty.
This training is the result.

2. Students’ experiences of being dyslexic
“I know what I want to say, but I can never find the right word”
“I see things from a different perspective”
“I’ve got all the right ideas but I can’t get them down onto paper”
“It takes me ages to read anything and I can’t remember it even if it read it over and over”
No doubt as academics you may have heard these and more.
Not necessarily SpLD/dyslexia.

3. What is Dyslexia/SpLD?
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills. It is likely to be present at birth and to be life-long in its effects; not linked to IQ, gender, age, social class It is characterised by difficulties with phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory, processing speed, and the automatic development of skills that may not match up to an individual's other cognitive abilities. (British Dyslexia Association, 2007)
Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD)
“umbrella” term used increasingly by Educational Psychologists but the term is less important than the specific effects on the individual.
Semantics – difficulty/disability/difference
Individual should not be identified by their disability e.g. a dyslexic, rather “a student with dyslexia”
Some theories believe there are hereditary links – however it may be difficult to track down as screening and awareness has not always been ready available.
Success can be achieved like any other student through dedication, determination and finding the strategies of learning that work best.
Examples from own experiences …………

4. Dyslexia / SpLD is identified by:
Referral
Screening
Educational Psychology assessment
… and students with dyslexia access institutional support via their
Personal Learning Plan
Numbers:
1186 enrolled and known to LDS … there may be more undeclared
157 students with SpLD in Faculty of Science and Engineering identified as having dyslexia and known to LDS
There may be more ………………………………….
Referrals come via:
FSSO
Academics
Friends
Website, posters etc
Disclosure – see LDS/CeLT websites
What is meant by “Mild/moderate/severe”?
Generally defined according to the amount of adjustments required.
“Standard PLPs” = mild to moderate = “standard recommendations”

5. Activity 1
From what you understand of dyslexia, how do you think it will impact upon a student and their learning, and the work they produce? DTN
Activity One
Use post-its to jot down ways in which you think dyslexia will manifest itself in students with the impairment – in the context of them as students, doing assignments, participating in lectures, learning etc. If you have no direct experience, base it on gut feeling.
Feedback key ideas (one or two from each table) and put on flipchart.
How do you think dyslexia will manifest itself in our students, their learning, and their work?

6. Manifestations of dyslexia
Common weaknesses are:
short-term and working memory,
speed of processing,
sequencing skills,
auditory and /or visual perception,
spoken language, motor skills.
A marked discrepancy between ability and the standard of work being produced.
A persistent or severe problem with spelling, even with easy or common words.
Difficulties with comprehension as a result of slow reading speed.
Poor short term memory, especially for language based information, which results in the inefficient processing into long term memory.
Difficulties with organisation, classification and categorisation.
Note-taking may present problems due to spelling difficulties, poor short term memory and poor listening skills.
Handwriting may be poor and unformed, especially when writing under pressure.
Students often show a lack of fluency in expressing their ideas, or show difficulties with vocabulary.
Some students may have continuing pronunciation or word finding difficulties, which may inhibit them when talking or discussing in large groups.
People with dyslexia are not a homogenous group.
They are all individuals and the impact of their dyslexia will vary according to:
their degree of difficulty
how recent their diagnosis was – how much teaching they have received
their particular strengths
their coping strategies
An individual’s skills may not match their other cognitive abilities.
Common strengths are:
good visuospatial skills,
creative thinking
intuitive understanding
problem solving

7. This means that students will take longer (inter alia) to:
Read
Research
Comprehend and extrapolate key information
Make notes
Order or plan written work
Remember and recall information
Express their understanding accurately in writing
Handwrite
Spell
Proofread, recognise and amend errors
The biggest challenge in HE is reported as “getting through the required reading”, due in part to difficulty in skimming and scanning
Why teaching materials in advance?
Put into preferred format
Allows student to focus on lecture itself

8. Activity 2 VERY ROUGH SIMULATION ONLY!
x4 examples of visual effects of dyslexia
Provide as examples of the amount of effort required to access text

9. The Equality Act 2010 (subsequent to The Disability Discrimination Act 2005)
"Where … a provision, criterion or practice … places the disabled person concerned at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with persons who are not disabled…
… it is the duty of the employer to take such steps as it is reasonable … in order to prevent the provision, criterion or practice … having that effect.“
Before reveal:
Previous activity should have demonstrated why students with dyslexia find access to teaching and learning more difficult than students who do not have dyslexia.
After reveal:
THE AIM OF REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS IS TO REMOVE DISADVANTAGE BUT AT THE SAME TIME TO NOT PROVIDE ADVANTAGE

10. Why is dyslexia classed as a disability?
A person is classed as being disabled if:
“He/she has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.” (Equality Act 2010)
Our context is education, specifically teaching and learning.
Refer back to activity 1

11. Embedding reasonable adjustments as standard
Information sheet for staff and students, includes:
Reasonable adjustments
Student responsibilities
Resources, people to contact
Working with the library
So, it is normally within PLPs that ‘reasonable adjustments’ are made to abide with the Equality Act 2010.
From September, all first year students with mild to moderate dyslexia will not have a personalised learning plan. After disclosure, they will have an assessment in the normal way. If diagnosed / confirmed as having mild to moderate dyslexia, they will be given a standard information sheet and added to a list.
A staff version of the information sheet is provided and is for you to stick on your wall as an aide memoire. On the front – reasonable adjustments. On the back – using the library, student responsibilities, resources and people to contact, including the School DCs and contact details.
The list will be used to identify these students in the Faculty PLP database: You may still need to know who they are in order to negotiate deadlines with them if necessary, CRO need to know so they can factor in extensions to QLS, and exams officers need to know to grant extra times in examinations.
But otherwise, the implementation of those reasonable adjustments will be down to us to implement as standard, throughout the curriculum, with the benefit of being available to all students. As well as avoiding stigmatising students with dyslexia, it also means we are implementing inclusive practice (show quotation).
[For information: RAs for students with dyslexia are about use of language, organisation and time needed to process information. So other students are likely to benefit from a curriculum in which these adjustments are embedded as standard practice – for example, students with English as a second language, hearing impaired students, students with mental health conditions, students with communication difficulties, students with strong learning preferences, and students with a limited vocabulary. So there are positive benefits beyond dyslexia and disability, across cultures, medical conditions, learning preferences, socio-economic backgrounds and so on. This is what we mean by inclusive curriculum].
[For information: CH students who are enrolled on a cross-Faculty programme are excluded].
Inclusive practice is really all about developing policies and practices that reduce barriers to learning and participation for all students (Fuller et al. 2004, Williams and Quinn 2007)

12. Activity 3: PLP recommendations
Identify issues and challenges
Suggest strategies, solutions for embedding ‘as standard’
Extra time (25%) given for timed in-class tests (e.g. timed computer, lab and practical tests)
Engage with students in re-negotiating coursework deadlines (for reasons related to a students’ disability) where necessary
Learning materials and resources provided in electronic format and 48h in advance of session
There are a number of recommendations that are made in the PLP- these are the main ones that we get questions about… (including in the PLP Pilot Project).
The CeLT website has the entire rational document for PLP recommendations (see link in handout).
We’d now like you to consider one of the reasonable adjustments on the information sheet.
First, briefly, identify any issues or challenges associated with that RA.
Then in your groups –
Share good practice and experiences of how you have managed to apply that RA to the satisfaction of all
Come up with solutions or strategies for any of the issues or barriers identified.
Think positively – and outside the box if necessary!
If four tables could look at one of the four in the list above, then the remaining two tables select one from the list (i.e. duplicate) unless there is one on the information sheet that you have a burning desire to address.
REMIND STAFF THAT THEY ARE ALREADY APPLYING THESE RAs (esp. 3 and 4) FOR STUDENTS WITH PLPs
…and that it is actually easier to apply them to all students than it is to single these students out

13. Useful Links
PLP Pilot Project (as above  PLPs) guidelines/plpproject/index.php Centre for Learning and Teaching  Support for Teaching  Supporting Disabled Students celt.mmu.ac.uk/disability_guidelines/index.php Learner Development Service mmu.ac.uk/learnerdevelopment British Dyslexia Association bdadyslexia.org.uk Dyslexia Action dyslexiaaction.org.uk/

14. Here to help: How to contact the Learner Development Service
Learner Development Service Employability Hub Business School and Student Hub All Saints Campus Oxford Road Manchester M15 6BH

15. Any questions
Comments
Problems
Concerns
Suggestions

16. LDS Evaluation of Service
Each year the LDS surveys various stakeholders in our service, including academic staff. May we take this opportunity to ask you to visit the following site: To provide us with your feedback by Friday 29th June 2012?