I NT R O D U C T I O N

T O S C H O L A R S H I P
ODULE CODE: ITS A 5111
M
NOGOBO NTOKOZO
THEME 2: THINKING AND
LEARNING STYLES
 LEARNING OUTCOME 2:
EVALUATE THE BENEFITS OF
VARIOUS THINKING AND LEARNING
SKILLS FOR YOUR OWN TERTIARY
STUDIES.
READING AND REFERENCING
SKILLS
Just 3 weeks into the first semester of his first BA degree, Andile is already
starting to feel pressure – he has no idea how to get through all the
prescribed material, complete assignments, and prepare for tests. His first
SCENARIO
year English module alone have created a pile of 11 books of his desk. He
has no idea how he is supposed to get through all his other modules too. His
best friend KAMINI, Who is in her second year of studies, keeps telling him
not to freak out and that he does not need to study everything in detail.
Andile remains unconvinced though, and is very worried that he is going to
disappoint his entire family by failing his first year.
INTRODUCTION
- The size of curriculum must not be of the highest concern.
- Curriculum is all the information, knowledge and skills you are
expected to learn in a particular course or module to meet the
expected objectives.
- This concept is derived from latin word “currere” which means to “to
run”.
- Tertiary studies are designed to develop your reasoning further,
harder and faster. it requires a lot of hard work and huge amount of
reading.
-Furthermore, the curriculum is designed related to notion hours
to keep academic workload within reasonable timeframes.

- Notion hours refer to the total number of hours that the average
student would need to spend on all learning activities including
reading, attending classes, completing assignments and studying.

- The notions hours are considered when designing courses and

workloads for the modules.
- First year modules may take approximately to 120 credits, implying
that you can spend closely to 1 200 hours studying, attending
lectures, and doing assignments.
- The overall 3 year course can be 360 credits (expected to spend
about 3 600 hours.
- However the notion hours might be longer or less than assumed
and expected
- This is determined by the amount of speed and commitment of
student on the workload.
- You must be able to differentiate between studying for test or
for information of a particular assignment.
- Match a particular style of reading with a relevant task
READING PURPOSES
- To switch-off and relax
- Interest on a particular subject
- The authors views on a topic
- Identify the main elements of something
- Need background information
- Specific information
-To write an essay on a particular topic
-To present a comprehensive argument for or against the topic
- To persuade the topic
- For discussions and debates
- Examine the content
PURPOSE-BASED
READING
•
STRATEGIES
LIGHT-READING – SWITCH-OFF OR RELAX (INTERESTED ON A PARTICULAR
TOPIC)

• SCANNING – FINDING A SPECIFIC INFORMATION IN A TEXT

• SKIMMING – WHAT A PARTICULAR AUTHOR THINKS ABOUT A TOPIC. IDENTIFY
MAIN POINTS OR ELEMENTS OR TRACE THE BACKGROUND

• INTENSIVE READING – ANALYZE A TEXT IN FINE DETAIL TO UNDERSTAND IT

FULLY.

• STUDY READING – IN PREPARATIONS FOR ASSIGNMENTS, TESTS, DEBATES

AND GENERALLY UNDERSTANDING.
LIGHT- READING
It commonly used when reading for leisure purposes. Readers usually do
the following when reading for leisure:
• Choose the most interesting content
• Focus on grasping meaning
• Become emotionally involved in the text
• Skim over the boring, irrelevant paragraphs
• Not much concentration
SCANNING
Scanning is rather limited activity in that you look exclusively for information that is
relevant to your search.
- Know what you're looking for. decide on a few key words or phrases–search
terms, if you will. you will be a flesh-and-blood search engine.
- Look for only one keyword at a time. if you use multiple keywords, do multiple
scans.
- Let your eyes float rapidly down the page until you find the word or phrase you
want.
- When your eye catches one of your keywords, read the surrounding material
carefully
THIEVES READING
STRATEGY
WHAT IS THIEVES?
Thieves is reading strategy that will allow you to get a big-picture view of
the chapter before you begin reading it. Its essentially is priming your brain
to better retain and understand the importance and relevance of the
information within your course. We recommend utilizing the thieves strategy
before beginning your comprehensive read of the content, and especially
before attending your lecture/discussion.
SKIMMING
Skimming is reading a text quickly to get a general idea of meaning. It can
be contrasted with scanning, which is reading in order to find specific
information, e.g. figures or names.
EXAMPLE;
A learner taking a reading exam decides to approach text by looking at the
title, introductions, and any diagrams and sub-headings, then skim reading
to get a clear general idea of what the text is about.
HOW TO SKIM TEXT?
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

• Before you start skimming, ask yourself what you want to get from the book or article
under your nose. think of two or three terms that describe what you want to know, and as
you skim, keep an eye out for those two or three terms. aimlessly skimming with no
particular purpose can cause drowsiness, and eventually, sleep.
READ VERTICALLY AS WELL AS HORIZONTALLY

• When skimming, you move your eyes vertically as much as you move your eyes
horizontally. in other words, you move your eyes down the page as much as you move
them from side to side. skimming is a bit like running down stairs. yes, you should take
one step at a time, and running down stairs is reckless, but you also get there faster by
running.
THINK LIKE THE AUTHOR

• Every article, book, and web page is written to make a point of some kind, and if you can
detect the author’s strategies for making his point, you can separate the important from
the unimportant material in the course of your reading. You can focus on the original,
meaningful material and skip over the material that just supports the author’s argument
without advancing it.

• Detecting the author’s strategies requires you to put yourself in his place. besides
noticing the material on the page, notice how he presents the material. See whether you
can recognize how the author places background material, secondary arguments,
tangential information, and just plain frippery.
PREREAD BEFORE YOU START SKIMMING

• Examine an article before you read it. By prereading an article before you skim, you can
pinpoint the parts of the article that require your undivided attention and the parts that you
can skip.
TRY TO DETECT THE MAIN IDEA IN THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS

• the introductory paragraphs usually express the main idea, argument, or goal of an article
or chapter. read these paragraphs closely. they tell you what the author’s aim is, which can
help you decide early on whether the article or chapter is worth reading in detail.
READ THE FIRST SENTENCE IN EACH PARAGRAPH

• the introductory sentence of each paragraph usually describes what follows in the
paragraph. when you skim, read the first sentence in each paragraph and then decide
whether the rest of the paragraph deserves a read. if it doesn’t, move on.
DON’T NECESSARILY READ COMPLETE SENTENCES

• when skimming, you don’t even have to read complete sentences. if the start of a
sentence holds no promise of the sentence giving you the information you want, skip to
the next sentence. read the start of sentences with an eye to whether they will yield useful
information, and read them all the way through only if they appear to be useful at first
glance.
WHAT IS INTENSIVE READING
A LIMITED VIEW

• As the name suggests, intensive reading refers to reading short texts thoroughly
and with clear goals, such as to answer reading comprehension questions or to
identify how sentences are linked. Unlike extensive reading, the goal of intensive
reading is not to read many texts for fluency, but rather to read a shorter piece of
text to gain a deeper understanding of that text.

• Although reading comprehension can be one goal of intensive reading, its goals
may include learning subject matter, vocabulary learning and studying the
authors’ intentions. in other words, the goal of intensive reading is not limited to
reading comprehension.
A HOLISTIC VIEW

• In intensive reading, learners usually read texts that are more difficult, in
terms of content and language, than those used for extensive reading. To
help learners make sense of texts that may present a significant
challenge in terms of vocabulary, grammar and/or concepts, teachers
should focus on reading skills, such as identifying main ideas and
guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words from context (macalister, 2011).
THE FOUR LEARNING GOALS FOR INTENSIVE READING ARE
(MACALISTER, 2011):
1. Focusing on new language such as vocabulary and grammar
2. Focusing on ideas such as themes and topics
3. Learning new skills such as making inferences and identifying main ideas
4. Paying attention to text features such as genre structure and cohesion.
 LEARNING OUTCOMES 3:
APPLY VARIOUS COGNITIVE
AND METACOGNITIVE
STRATEGIES TO YOUR OWN
TERTIARY STUDIES.
 COGNITIVE STRATEGIES TO USE AT
TERTIARY STUDIES.
Comprehension strategies – will help you to understand different texts
and problems, and also assist you with answering given questions and
problem correctly.
Problem-solving – will be very useful for when you are given more
complex tasks and are asked to find solutions or adapt different scenarios
Writing strategies – are also vital to almost every part of your academic
and post-graduate careers, and so it is essential for you to focus your
efforts on these too
GENERAL COGNITIVE
STRATEGIES
 COMPREHENSION
STRATEGIES
• Monitoring and review of material through reading and checking for understanding
• Using text structure to analyse cues given by writers to help organise ideas as you are
learning

• Summarising helps to choose the most important concepts and express them in your
own words

• Elaborating requires you to find new information and link it to given information
• Explaining means that you need to ask yourself the “why” and so helps you to
understand content.
 PROBLEM-SOLVING
STRATEGIES
FOUR STEPS TO PROBLEM-SOLVING

• Understanding the problem

• Developing plan to solve the problem
• Implement the plan
• Evaluating the plan’s success and taking any necessary actions
- Remember that problems can be complex, so setting sub-goals is also useful to break
more complex problems down into manageable chunks.

- Examining contrasting problems and extremes is also an excellent way of solving

problems – looking at a system that works, for example, can help you to identify what
does not work
 WRITING STRATEGIES

• Plan – come up with a bank of ideas and ways to organise them logically
• Generate sentences using accepted grammatical structure and logical flow
• Revise – Excellent writers revise throughout the process, and do so critically, often
changing major parts of their work if necessary

• Use knowledge transformation, which takes existing ideas and transforms them into
new ideas and structures – avoid telling
 REASONING STRATEGIES
• Generate counter-arguments that oppose your own – this allows you to consider
different perspectives and helps you to tighten your own arguments.

• Be fair-minded – be equally critical of evidence that you favour as evidence you do not
• Consider relevant comparison or control groups
• Consider the sources of the information when evaluating it
• Corroborate information by consulting multiple sources to check facts and arguments