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Steve Brierley
Pathways course leader
Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield, S1 1WB
Telephone:
0114 225 6887
Email: s.brierley@shu.ac.uk
About Pathways
Pathways modules | e-learning | academic life | study skills | FAQs
Study skills
Plagiarism
Key skills online
Personal development:
Study skills
Studying at university requires higher level study skills, some of which will be new to you.
You may find it hard because we don't tell you exactly what to learn. This is because we want you to become independent learners, so that you can search for information yourself, evaluate, debate and form your own opinions and ideas. Learning is a skill in itself and is applicable to your professional career as well as studies.
We provide a range of services that can help you with your study skills, for instance help with writing. shuspace provides more information on this. We recommend that you check your current skills (there is a useful checklist in Key Skills Online to help with this), and identify areas where you need to review your skills or develop new ones.
Plagiarism
It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you understand plagiarism and the implications for your studies.
What is plagiarism?
“Plagiarism is when you take someone else’s work or ideas and use it as your own without acknowledging that you got those words or ideas from that source”
Unfortunately some students do this on purpose, while others accidentally do this. However either is considered plagiarism at this university and so must be avoided. You must also avoid copying whole chunks of material even if you do acknowledge the source – this is also considered as plagiarism.
Please read the attached leaflet ‘I didn’t know it was cheating (.pdf ) ’ to find out more. It is your responsibility to make sure you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it. Your tutors will be able to answer any specific queries you have and Key Skills Online provides further help on this topic.
Key Skills Online
Key Skills Online is a university website designed to help you identify and develop your key skills in many areas (or themes), including:
- Communication Skills
- Solving problems
- Working with numbers
- Employability
- Working with others
- IT skills
Themes are sub-divided so that you may choose to work your way through a whole theme or go straight to a topic of interest. When you have chosen a theme or topic to explore, you will be presented with information from a variety of resources: text on screen; references to books, videos, other audio visual (AV) materials; software packages used in the Learning Centres; printed handouts; other documentation. There is also a key skills check to see which areas you might need help with.
Visit the Key Skills Online website. The website can only be accessed once you have a University login and password.
Personal Development
During your studies, you will be expected to take responsibility for your own learning and development. To help with this, you will be encouraged to keep a portfolio of your personal and professional development. This is part of a national initiative in the UK on Personal Development Planning (PDP) that the university supports.
Your PDP portfolio is yours so you can decide on the format. It is important that you choose a format that suits you and you take responsibility for maintaining it throughout your studies.
In Pathways we have incorporated PDP into each module. You will need to participate in this PDP process in order to get your Certificate of Completion for each module.
This section provides more information on PDP including some activities to get you started. There is a printable version of this section in the "Documents" area and also printable templates.
Personal Development: Motives
What do I want to get from my studies?
You'll invest much time and effort in completing your studies. It pays to be prepared at both a practical level (e.g. understanding the activities you'll be undertaking) and at a personal level (e.g. identifying things which can influence your studies).
There are many equally valid reasons why people decide to study at university. What matters is being clear about what you want. Once you've identified your motives, you can work out the best way of making sure you get it.
To help you focus, you can record your thoughts at this stage. Have a look at the first question in the Review template. This is the first in a series of printable templates in the "Documents" area.
You may have some of the following motivations:
Professional and/or work-related:
• career progression
• professional development
• change in career
• upgrade qualifications
• improve performance at work, (e.g. for a project).
Personal:
• taking a break from work
• to be more employable
• life-change opportunity
• getting a certificate - HE degree.
Academic and/or intellectual:
• intellectual challenge
• passionate about the subject
• insight into subject area
• joining a community of learning
• pushing the boundaries
Personal Development: Action Plan
How am I going to achieve what I want?
During your studies, you'll gain knowledge in your subject, and develop your academic, personal and professional skills. You'll be taking responsibility for your own learning and your own development goals, deciding what you want to achieve.
To help you with this, during your studies you'll use a Personal Development Planning (PDP) process, which may also be known as: Continuing Professional Development (CPD), Professional/Personal Development Planning (PPDP), Academic and Professional Development Record (APDR), Appraisal and Development Process. Whichever name it goes by, a PDP process helps you to make the most of your learning experiences, be more successful with your studies and achieve the other goals you may have. Within your studies there are opportunities to help you with this process.
The PDP process helps you to Record, Review/Reflect, Plan and monitor your learning and development, particularly in relation to your academic/ professional development and career management.
It is based on these principles:
• To do well you need to make sure you are learning as effectively as possible, identifying where you need to improve.• Reviewing/reflecting on how you do things helps you learn.
• Recording your achievements helps when applying for a job and articulating your skills, knowledge and experience (e.g. to employers).
• Planning helps ensure you make the most of your experience.
• Monitoring your plans helps you stay on target.
Recording your skills, knowledge and experience
You'll find it helps to create an archive of useful information about your skills, knowledge and experience. This could be paper based (e.g. a ring binder) or electronic (e.g. files and folders, CD-ROM, website, online journal, or weblog) You may already be keeping a portfolio or have an appraisal system at work that you can integrate with your study PDP activities. Your archive could also include:
• assignments (essays, reports, presentations)
• feedback from other students, tutors, employers
• self-assessment reports
• any reflective activities (your learning or skills)
• log/diary
• photos, video/audio tapes of your work
• certificates, references, result letters
• work based appraisal
• work experiences (paid or unpaid) •application forms, letters, your most recent CV
Reflecting/reviewing and assessing your development
Reviewing and reflecting on your progress is a key part of the learning process. It will help you to draw together your learning from across the studies, so you can plan to build on your strengths and improve other areas. Reflection and evaluation skills are needed in employment and are seen as high level professional skills for many professions. Making judgements about your own progress is challenging. To help, you could use:
• your studies - learning activities help you develop your skills in reflecting and often assess it (e.g. you might be asked to do a reflective diary, critical analysis, portfolio)
• workplace appraisal schemes
• feedback from peers, tutors or employers
• marking criteria for your assessed tasks
• Key Skills Online - Reflecting on your Experience.
Plan to develop
Setting goals is a key part of the PDP cycle. Having thought about your learning and progress, you can decide what you're going to do/develop, how and when.
Plans are:
• valuable tools to help achieve what you want
• often needed in employment
• needed for some assessed course tasks
You might create Action Plans about your:
• academic aims and progress
• key/subject-specific/professional skills development
• career/employability goals
• other, more personal targets
Creating an Action Plan
The Action Plan template focuses on three different areas: building on your strengths, improving your performance and improving your employment prospects.
Each asks you to be specific about what you're going to do, how and when, and what support/resources you'll need. During your studies, other goals or new priorities may emerge and you'll want to revise your Action Plans or create new ones.
To help, you could:
• look at the examples in the Action Plan template
• see Key Skills Online - Action Planning
• discuss your plans with others
• print your plans and pin them up as a reminder
Use the SMART model:
• Specific (e.g. 'to structure my essays better' is more specific than 'to improve my essays')
• Measurable i.e. you know when you have achieved it
• Attainable i.e challenging but possible to achieve
• Realistic and Relevant
• Time-bound i.e by when will you have done it?
Personal Development: Strategies
Strategies to succeed :: What do I need to do?
About Skills
Skills relate to your ability to do something well. They include:
• interpersonal skills (e.g. working with other people, communicating)
• personal skills (e.g. improving your own learning, action planning, problem solving)
• cognitive skills - i.e thinking skills (e.g reasoning, reflecting, arguing)
• professional/subject skills (e.g using a computer package/research technique/ laboratory instrument
These skills often overlap, and you'll use them all at some point. You may already be skilled in some areas and feel quite confident. Other skills may need developing.
Academic skills
• critical analysis
• information skills - referencing skills; gathering and evaluating information
• IT skills (e.g searhing databases)
• constructing and communicating arguments (e.g essays, presentations, discussions)
• reflecting on your progress
• subject-specific skills (e.g creativity, mathematics and statistics)
Personal effectiveness skills
• learning strategies
• time management
• organisation skills
• financial management
• work-life balance
• networking and peer support
Subject specific and professional skills
These are specific skills needed by your subject and/or professional area (e.g. developing lesson plans is a professional skill for teachers, using a theodolite is a professional skill for surveyors, safe lab procedures are subject-specific skills for chemists).
Many Professional Bodies specify what these skills are. Sometimes subject/professional skills may overlap with key skills (e.g writing is a key skill for everyone, but it's a professional skill for journalists).
You can find out more from your tutor, website or professional body, careers support staff, colleagues, your employer.
Employability skills
To maximise your emplyability you should consider which skills you need to improve on. The following are equally important for employability:
• assessing your skills (identifying strengths and weaknesses will help you identify any gaps in your skills, knowledge and experience
• deciding what you want
• job search
• presenting yourself
Reviewing your skills
The following templates can be used to evaluate your strengths across the range of skills, and help you consider where you might want to improve:
• Employability attributes
• Key skills reflection
• Subject-specific & professional skills
Taking steps towards employment
The following templates can be used for gathering information, prepare covering letters and record where you've applied:
• Covering or speculative letter
• CV information
• Record and review applications and interviews
Personal Development: Resources
Resources to support PDP
Skills4Study - This website is linked to Stella Cottrell's book "The Study Skills Handbook" which includes useful activities and games linked to study skills, PDP and studying specific subjects.
CLaSS (Cognitive Learning Strategies for Students) - This website offers three learning style questionnaires.
Royal Literary Fund Guide to Essay Writing - This website provides an independent view on essay writing, from the initial stage of preparation and planning, through researching and literature reviews to editing.