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look I was pretty pretty stressed there for a while
you know I was pretty angry actually
and
but now I'm sort of settling in
and things are going a lot better
yes Nathan seems a lot happier and focused with his studies
he's handling his workload and classes much better
first semester I found a particular struggle, it was pretty difficult
and
it was really frustrating actually
I had a lot of trouble
and I thought I'd just drop out I'd just give it all away
reading at university was a big deal and everything at uni involves
reading unfortunately
now... reading slowly wasn't so much of a problem by when it came to reading quickly
I'd jumble the words and everything would just come out a mess
you pretty much forget if that had to read out anything aloud
or do a presentation
early last semester I set an assessment task
each student needed to select a short passage and read it aloud in front of the class
Nathan's speech was definitely not of acceptable standard
it's not just reading that I struggle with it's also writing
and what makes perfect sense up here in my head
when I write it down on paper it doesn't quite come out the same way
it's often jumbled and a bit of a mess
now
a little upset recently because this big
important essay and I got
a really bad mark
uh... which as you can imagine pretty upsetting
and
to make matters worse I got this feedback from the lecture in the margins
just saying "check your spelling"
"try harder"
so, a bit upsetting
and to make matters worse when it when i get stressed or tired uh...
it really confounds the situation
well the first I knew about Nathan's situation
was when I received an email from his tutor
he outlined some unusual behavior during one of his assignment
presentations
I remember thinking maybe this student is just
lazy or having a joke or something
I wasn't too sure what was going on with him but I do know he did
not pass that task
I let his lecturer know about it
I wasn't sure how to approach the issue so I contacted
student
Campus Wellbeing
so registering with Campus Wellbeing was pretty straightforward
actually
they gave me the option of keeping my whole situation confidential if
I wanted to and
just the fact that I could keep it confidential was really reassuring
some students who receive support
choose
not to disclose this information to their lecturer
in Nathan's case he's ok with his lecturer knowing
after organising support with Campus Wellbeing we met with my lecturer and
we talked about a number of things
reasonable adjustment
well, I understand it's not my role to know the details of each and every
student in my lectures
it is my responsibility to make sure
they receive care and support
a referral for instance or
reasonable adjustment to their assessment items
In Nathan's case, with the adjustment
we allowed him some extra time to read through the text
I did sit down with the tutor and we devised a couple of alternatives but
it was
no great imposition
also, when I'm grading a task
I look for what he is saying rather than
how he is saying it
I look for actual content
not so much grammar and spelling
look it didn't impact much on my teaching or my workload
Nathan's got a note taker in my lectures
and he seems to find it
easier to
read text on blue paper.
so Campus Wellbeing organised a note taker for me. It's a student who comes to my class
and they help me take notes and keep me up to speed with my work
it's actually really useful because they don't give me an advantage as such
but they just keep me on the same level with the rest of the students which really helps out
so I've also got the option of using technology to support me and
help me out reading
there's this great technology which uh... which I can use at the moment which
what it does it that it reads out each word it highlights it as I go along
now I've been using this for a while at home but a lot of the computers on campus have it as well
so it's great support for me and lots of access as well
yeah, the screen reader technology is so amazing
I'm so glad that Nathan was comfortable enough to seek out the help
from uni support services
it has really helped him
is so much easier for him to read
it reduces the pressure of reading
yeah just thinking back
initially I was fairly apprehensive about
asking for support
thinking
I didn't need it I didn't want it
I thought "No, I'll be fine with this. We can get through this". But as it turns out
I did need a bit of help and I'm really thankful that I decided
to get that support
and I was really grateful that it was available for me
I think it's important that we work together
for Nathan's benefit
you only need to look at his more recent assessments to see
how much he has improved
so I got
this really important essay back recently and
I got a great result it was probably my best result to date
so I'm pretty happy with that