Teresa Johnson is the course lead for Access to Higher Education Pathways at Swindon College, a general further education vocational college in Swindon, England. With a diverse student body including English Language Learners and students with educational gaps, Teresa and her team are interested in creating coursework that honors the varied views, opinions, and writing styles reflected in their classrooms. Turnitin allows Teresa and her colleagues to support individual learners while ensuring that all students are producing original work supported with evidence from objective, credible sources.
“We try to teach alongside Turnitin because we couldn’t do it without Turnitin. [Students] need to be critical thinkers, critical writers, or critical friends of what’s already written.”
Teresa recognizes that her students see their time at Swindon College as a jumping off point for either entering the workforce or university. In order to equip students for this next step, courses must be academically rigorous. Turnitin’s tools aid in establishing that rigor by helping students truly comprehend what they are writing about. If they simply regurgitate someone else’s words, that’s reflected in the Similarity Score. With Turnitin, students learn to hold themselves and their work to an objectively high standard that will serve them in Swindon and beyond.
“I think the objective process of Turnitin enables [student’s] emotional, social, and academic development because you can’t argue with it.”
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