SEDA Paper 89 - Chapter 16

	16. Encouraging student responsibility for learning through developing skills, profiling and records of achievement
	Pauline E Kneale

Introduction

Geography students are expected to be able to communicate effectively. They need to be able to discuss and argue, and present information and ideas, to groups as small as five and as large as 40, in tutorials, workshops, field class, practical discussions and level-three seminars. They are expected to read widely, research topics independently and organise their own work schedules. Very different from school.

Resources are under pressure from increased group sizes. As numbers rise, there is less opportunity for extended staff-student one-to-one contacts. There is increasing pressure for students to sell themselves well at job interviews. In many cases financial pressures mean that students add part-time jobs to their academic workload. To do well students need to be more independent and self-confident than before. Students therefore need to be good managers of their time and activities if they are to make the most of university life.

It is potentially more time-efficient for staff to teach Transferable Skills to a large class, and let students apply the knowledge in smaller groups. Addressing elements such as time-management, presentation, writing, revision, and other skills, gives the whole class a common skill base.

The programme described here was designed to raise student awareness of how they learn, work and enjoy themselves. It was piloted in 1993-94 with a voluntary group of students and will be used in 1994-95 with the whole first year. Specifically the objectives were:

to help students become more aware of the skills they already had
to develop and improve Transferable Skills
to help them to organise their social and study time effectively
to give students a record of activities at university which would help them write effective CVs and perform well at interviews

There is no doubt that the school-based Record of Achievement (RoA) is a major student turn-off. In discussion with over 140 Geography first years who all must have a school RoA, more than half claimed not to have one, and took some time to recall it. The general, anecdotal view was, "We were told at school to fill them in, but no one at University Entrance was remotely interested." (There was a wide range of school practice from the good, often as part of General Studies, to the less good, the "sit down for this hour and fill out the forms" approach at the end of the year.)

High-achieving "A" level students see the RoA exercise as a waste of good "A" level work time. Asked if they knew anyone who had found a RoA useful, a few admitted that friends who left school at 15, 16 or 17, without GCSE qualifications, had found that employers consulted the RoA. My suggestion that they will be in a similar position in two years' time, ie needing to explain to an employer what they had been doing for the past three years (other than degree work), awoke some small, very small, sparks of grudging acceptance.

Moving away from calling what we were doing an RoA to the "profiling" or "record-keeping" idea gave us the following group conclusions:

The average first-year student is a slow-moving unmotivated individual.
An RoA type record might just be confidence-building.
It could ensure recall of key activities.
It could give a student a documented "leg to stand on" at the end of the course.
It could allow you to blow your own trumpet more effectively to an employer - no one else will.

The group decided that, in our case, where the profile is entirely student-owned and student-developed, with no staff involvement or supervision, it could take many forms. A large cardboard box seemed appropriate since we decided it might contain some written academic work - computer practicals, field reports, group-work reports - but also diaries, photos, video material, paraphernalia from hobbies and holidays.

It is important to record in some way the skills and experiences gained each term. With the new first-year class, we started by thinking about skills gained through previous work and "gap-year" experiences. This session took some time to get beyond the "I do nothing/have done nothing" stage. I found that some practical examples were required to get groups encountering "valuing the skills or processes by which tasks get done" rather than simply measuring the end-product(see Figure 14).

On the benefit side, the more fun the better. Skills such as time-keeping, travel planning, making up schedules and organising groups appeared on most people's lists. There was a positive feel to the group at the end of the session. Each student had a reasonable list of skills they knew they possessed but had not explicitly listed or valued before.

From their time at university, students thought they could usefully record academic and course-based skills, hobbies, travel and work experiences. For example, from a third-year group, a keen backstage drama assistant included pictures of his play-production material - handbills designed and printed and critics ' review - in "the box". For a skier, the important element was a note on skills gained when organising the ski-club trip to Austria - coaxing cash out of colleagues, dealing with coach companies, negotiating with travel agents and keeping calm with the hotelier.

From the teaching point of view, a profile is a means to an end. The idea is to try to get students to take more personal responsibility for their educational actions by raising their awareness of situations. At the same time a package of handouts - on Study Skills and other Transferable Skills - is built in so that students develop self-confidence through the degree course. The aim is to link ideas of personal development - academic and social - to recording activities and CV development.

Students need very clear reasons to engage actively in work. Why should they spend time on this apparently non-geography activity? This is a barrier not easily broken down (rather like convincing students of the value of first-year Statistics courses). "It's good for you" is no answer, and "It will help next year" isn't one either as next year is too far away. The argument I tried runs like this:

University life and work is very different to school. There are lots of adjustments to make, but the first exams are only 12 weeks away. If you are going to make the most of university you want to take advantage of a good mix of academic/social/sport activities. If you want to make the most of three years you have to pass the first-year exams. If you get enough academic work out of the way quickly and efficiently you have bags of time to party. "Life isn't a rehearsal" but to a certain extent the first year is . It' s a year to crack the difference in working styles between school and university. Get it right this year and years two and three will be easier. There is time in year one to look at the "way you work" and make adjustments.

Early in the pilot study a Personal Skills and Qualities assessment questionnaire was used with the group and Action Planning Forms (Figure 15) were introduced. The questionnaire presents an opportunity to review "Where you are now" and to reflect on skills that might be developed. Amongst other things it raised:

Talking and listening skills. How do you rate your ability to listen to others, put your ideas into words, disagree without causing upset and make a contribution to discussions in tutorials?
Non-verbal communication skills
Writing skills. How do you rate your ability to take notes in lectures, write personal letters, write reports and essays discussing some point or question, and include personal ideas and views in essays?
Interpersonal and group skills. How do you rate your ability to work with others, hold yourownpointofviewwheneveryoneelseisdisagreeingwithyou,seesomeoneelse's point of view, accept criticism of your view without getting angry or upset and tolerate other points of view (even if you do not agree with them)?
Creative and intellectual problem solving. How do you rate your ability to think rationally and logically? Do you tackle a problem by breaking it down into pieces? Do you think about things before you decide to accept them for yourself?
Research skills

It is intended to be consciousness-raising. The questionnaire is completed in private. No staff look at the results, so no criticism of the individual is made. This reinforces the idea that development is personal and self-motivated. Interestingly, all the mature students had encountered similar questionnaires at work and thought it was good for undergraduates to have a go at them before encountering them "for real" at work. In the fourth week of first year most students thought, "This isn't what I came to university for, why are we doing this?" In raising questions about personal development the associated thought was "if I do anything about my personal development it will take time from academic work, and time is too short."

Other skill sessions in the pilot year, 1993-94, were:

Time Management: planning weekly and semester schedules, coping, aims, targets, Records of Achievement. How these forms can help. (Figure 16)
Learning Styles. Which way do you work? Identifying other approaches. (Again, for private consumption and linked to Figure 17.)
Presentation skills. Building up confidence in a non-threatening/non-examined situation.
Effective Reading. This was the most popular of the skills sessions, and became the key technique for the later session on Effective Revision.
Effective Revision. The key point raised at the end of these sessions by a 19 year old was: "Why did no one at senior school talk to me about reading?"
What examiners want? Examination suggestions (not the questions!).
Effective writing and essay skills. Descriptive versus discussion essays.
Making notes from articles, use of the libraries, using a computer-based system (BIDs).
Effective CVs. Creating and updating your computer-based CV. CV styles for different purposes.

It is not easy to get students to appreciate the long-term benefits of these skill classes, especially when end-of-semester examinations beckon. One useful carrot proved to be the session looking at examples of modem "reflective" CVs. Most students are looking for some form of employment during their university career and the "skills offered" approach can be very useful when looking for vacation employment (where degree performance is less vital). This session was in the third term and helped refocus the group on the skill elements of the sessions. It also allowed more word-processing practice. However, in the first year, the reality of year-three CV needs are generally too far in the distance, so there were plenty of "Why are we doing this?" questions.

The group was encouraged to keep a diary-style record of activities on computer as well as in a file or "box of work". The practicalities of access to machines ensured this idea fell by the wayside. The group felt that form-filling was an evening, room-based task to be conducted in private. In principle, the most efficient way to prepare information for a CV should be an activity diary on disk, updated regularly so that courses, sports, social activities, hobbies and positions are not forgotten through three hectic university years. I shall continue to advocate it, but expect minimal response.

The forms for monitoring personal activities were introduced early in the semester and re-introduced to encourage end-of-term and end-of-semester reflection on activities (Figure 15 and Figure 17). The forms are intentionally open-ended, non-judgmental and hopefully encouraging. They include social as well as academic development, because it is clear in training for future careers that being secretary of the karate society is as important as learning to manipulate a database, because it involves organising events, fund-raising to finance kit purchases and arranging visits to competitions.

The time-management element generated a number of forms. The weekly planner (Figure 16) includes a prompt at the bottom of the page, and the student is encouraged to accumulate the forms to aid completion of end-of-semester forms. There is also a semester planner sheet which allows students to review the wider picture and gives specific class work deadlines.

Admitting to completing the forms was not always seen as "cool". However some people asked personally for help with filling in the computer version so I know there was some take-up of the ideas. Mature students, in particular, were very positive in using the forms and discussing them openly. They have a wide range of backgrounds and experience and are of course very committed to higher education. The Study Skills work has direct benefits for them and they immediately appreciated that the ideas fed back to the "real world".

These skill sessions are now included in the level-one module called Study Skills in Geography (Figure 18). The workshops for the whole class, 150-200 students, cover the Transferable Skills element. The class then meets in tutorial groups of six to eight to discuss Geography topics. Each student is expected to prepare for the tutorial through directed reading and research. There is a syllabus of about 20 topics from which each group selects five during the year. The tutorial gives the opportunity to practise discussion and presentation skills. The module assessment also includes essays based on two of the topics.

Workshop session five includes some ground rules for discussion and debate. Feedback from the pilot group suggested this as an area where new students were very unclear about staff expectadons. With eight people to contribute to a discussion it is important that everyone knows they have the right to contribute but not to take over a discussion. Some notes on assertiveness are also included.

While the module is still in the developmental stage, the idea of skill provision tied to geographical tutorial work was judged by the pilot group to be very helpful. The new module is a radical departure from current practice. It has advantages in reducing staff time-commitments to first-year tutorial groups. The syllabus of topics makes it more straightforward for new staff and teaching assistants to contribute to the tutorial programme. There is a suggestion that in three years' time peer-group mentoring might be used to chair some topic tutorials. The longer-term benefits of skill sessions with associated recording or profiling should be:

improved levels of student self-management of learning
reduction in staff time-commitment to first-year tutorials
a student-owned record of activities through university life

Correspondence: Pauline Kneale, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds.

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The Geography Discipline Network would like to thank the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) for permission to reproduce this publication.

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16. Encouraging student responsibility for learning through developing skills, profiling and records of achievement

Pauline E Kneale

Introduction

Return to Contents

The Geography Discipline Network would like to thank the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) for permission to reproduce this publication.