Background Context
Adrianna contacted MBA Winner because she found increasingly difficult to concentrate in her lectures. In particular she found difficult to follow the trail of reasoning coming from her tutors. As a result she struggled to make good notes during the lecture and she felt that something was continuously ‘missing’ from her learning experience. One of the subject areas that she found particularly challenging was ‘Financial Management’. In this module the MBA Students needed to understand about how to make sense of banking loan agreements. For example, she had difficulty applying rations and for understanding how to use concepts behind ‘equity’ and ‘debt’.
The Challenge
Adrianna contacted MBA Winner at a time when she had to submit one of her scheduled summative assignments but also when she had to undertake the relevant exam. The summative assignment counted 50% of her final grade and the exam counted for the remaining 50%. Adrianna captures her difficulties in the following way
“I had difficulty concentrating during the lectures because of the volume of the information. I felt that I was lost many times. It was stressful sometimes. I thought I could manage it but became more and more difficult.”
The Solution
Our proposed solution was to identify a realistic ‘action plan’ that focused on the difficulties of the assignment as this was the more urgent task that needed to be addressed. We started developing a tutoring plan for the exam and focused on having online tutorials. Our help first focused on identifying keywords from the actual summative assignment. Then we provided explanatory notes that focused on how the assignment should be understood. This meant that we needed to spend time with covering and breaking down information that was already covered in the lectures.
We then started with the actual assignment and by spending considerable time discussing the ‘method’ by which we would approach it. This meant developing certain milestones that were based on the ‘learning difficulties’ Adrianna was facing. In developing the assignment Adrianna had an active involvement with the development in terms of making suggestions and propositions for ‘what’ should be developed and ‘why’. This helped us to develop much better rapport between us. Some sections in the assignment where written by Adrianna. However, some sections were written by MBA Winner and these sections were to be used as exemplars of thought and writing. Adrianna felt particularly frustrated when she had to conform to a different writing style. However, we persisted with her and she felt that she was in the ‘driving seat’. For her upcoming exam we created hypothetical questions coming from the lectures and we created specific answers explaining how and why they could help address the individual exam questions.
Following our working relationship with Adrianna she was able to successfully pass her assignment with a 66% grade but also she successfully passed her exam with a whopping 71%. Adrianna was delighted for the difference we made to her learning experience.
Learning Outcomes
- Understanding that help is required is an important first stage in the process of finding a solution
- Being explicit about what the difficulty is helps to identify the particular knowledge-gaps
- A strong working environment from both parties is important towards finding a successful resolution
- Everyone is able to address various academic challenges through the proper framing of them.
