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Study Skills Teachmeet - July 2015: After Lunch Group Discussion

“Measuring the impact of Academic Skills initiatives on academic achievement and the student learning experience”

Organisation

 

Following the morning presentations, attendees suggested a list of topics for further discussion. Everyone seemed interested in everything and did not want to miss out so it was agreed to hold a whole group discussion rather than dividing into groups.

Please click here to view/dowload a MS Word document which summaries the afternoon session.

Academic Skills – Local Community of Practice

Institutional Culture

  • General acknowledgement that institutional culture often means that common issues often require a range of different solutions
  • Alignment – some academic services are centralised, others Faculty/School/Department  based.  Which works best?  Could networking establish effective practices enabling the positives from both structures to be adopted to ensure best student experience.
  • Who makes the decisions?  Management decisions often impact on service delivery.  Academic skills teams need research /ammunition (see above) to try and influence these.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • It was agreed that the best way of getting the message across that our skills are not only available but also important is the opportunity to collaborate with academic staff.
  • Co-delivery seems to be the most effective
  • Importance of involvement in new staff inductions / training / and new curriculum design
  • Joint assignment workshops have had excellent feedback from tutors and students
  • All teams attempting to establish a more systematic approach to skills delivery to ensure contact with the students most in need
  • Attendance at Learning and Teaching Committees essential to raise the profile of the service, influence curriculum design and access to skills resources, workshops and individual appointments

Benchmarking

  • Lack of professional body means no sector wide reports to establish any benchmarking – this could be one of the aims for the newly established Community of Practice
  • Structure / activities / workload varies considerably
  • Need to establish credability
  • Influence factors – could be used to develop new initiatives
  • Whole student experience – holistic overview of student support services and collaborations

Student Input / Liaison

  • Debbie outlined system adopted at Aston for recruiting student mentors (advertisement, selection process, interview including academic writing tasks + training)
  • Student mentors paid – professional role
  • Generic advise (not subject specific) – 30 minute appointments. 
  • Students select either student adviser or full time staff when booking.
  • MMU used mature students / menotrs which are department based
  • Consensus that academic skills do not offer a proof reading service.  At MMU the Internation Office offer to proof read 1,500 words as a one off service to international students only
  • Shared recent NUS Academic Benchmarking Tool with colleagues (attached)
  • Pressure to provide excellent customer service

Links with NUS

  • More work required to ensure Academic Skills teams meet students’ needs.
  • Initiatives to find out “What Students Want”
    • Liaison with student reps
    • Socrative Quiz – reflective self audit
  • Research at Keele indicates a 50:50 spilt with students wanting a balance of social learning and individual appointments

Please click here to view/dowlnoad pdf document of NUS Academic Support Benchmarking Tool

Distance Learners

  • Initial discussion regarding the availability of resources off campus
  • Technology solutions discussed (including Skype and Collaborate)
  • Big challenge – possible topic for future Teachmeet