The Reading Lab: ‘failure’, dynamic teaching and reflective practice in growing the skill of reading

ABSTRACTUniversity educators have observed the concurrent problems of student attrition, higher than normal or desired failure rates and students struggling to complete assessable and non-assessable work, for instance, set readings. Recent public commentary has pointed to the widening participation agenda with its lowering of university entrance scores and consequent increase in university places as factors contributing to the problem: many students are entering university without the preparation or dispositions that helped their predecessors succeed. University teachers are at the coalface of this problem. These teachers do not set entrance scores or course caps but are tasked with supporting an increasingly diverse student population.This article offers a case study: a university teacher’s encounter with a university’s Key Accountability Measures around failure and attrition, and offers a teaching response to this policy. In response to these changing conditions, The Reading Lab was designed as a large-...