'Geography for the New Undergraduate'-a fully resourced programme introducing personal, study and transferable skills to first year undergraduates within a geographical context

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Dyas ◽  
Leo Bradley
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Geographical Context

scholarly journals Academic writing support

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Lönn-Stensrud ◽  
Martina Marcellova ◽  
Ingerid Straume ◽  
Rigmor Soberg ◽  
Anne Gerd Granås
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Pharmacy Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Academic Education ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Transferable Skill ◽  
Master Thesis ◽  
The Right

Higher education across Europe is in transition due to professionalization of the traditional academic education. One response to these changes is to focus on transferable skills (1,2). At the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the vision for the education strategy is that the students shall succeed both scientifically and professionally (3,4). Communication is mentioned as one of the transferable skills important to succeed professionally (4).  Clear and comprehensible communication is a crucial transferable skill for pharmacists. Therefore, pharmacy students are evaluated on written communication throughout a 5-year curriculum, including evaluation of e.g. laboratory reports, essays, exams and a master thesis.   Over the last decade, the proportion of pharmacy students with Norwegian as native language has decreased. A general impression is also that students in general struggle to express themselves in writing. In 2019, the Department of Pharmacy, the Academic Writing Centre and the Science Library initiated a pilot project aiming to strengthen the academic writing of pharmacy students during the first year of study. 8 seminars about assignment interpretation, text evaluation, and structure and compositions of different assignments, were planned. Further, students were to be mentored in small groups by student mentors. The aim was to provide the pharmacy students with the right tools and skills in writing various academic texts.   This presentation will illuminate how University libraries can collaborate with faculties and departments by developing innovative education with the aim for students to gain generic writing knowledge and hands-on skills. We will describe and discuss the series of seminars regarding content, assignments, outcome and progress, from the Science library perspective. The seminars will be evaluated by the students and staff, and the findings will be presented and discussed.

Perceived advantages and disadvantages of taking a psychology professional placement year

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-467
Author(s):  
Helen St Clair-Thompson ◽  
Carla Chivers
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Voluntary Basis ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose It is well established that there are several benefits of taking a placement year, for example, higher academic attainment, the acquisition of transferable skills and enhanced employability. It is therefore important to understand why students choose to take or not to take a placement. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach In the current study, 159 first year students studying psychology were asked about their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of taking a psychology professional placement year. Their responses were analysed using thematic analysis, and the number of participants who provided information relating to each main theme was also tabulated. Findings Students perceived the main benefits of placements as relating to career certainty, future prospects, experience, knowledge and skills. In contrast, they perceived the main disadvantages as practical disadvantages, social/emotional disadvantages, difficulty, and there being no guaranteed benefit of a placement. Practical implications The results are discussed in terms of their potential to inform practices for developing and enhancing psychology placements within higher education. For example, providing further empirical evidence of the benefits of placements may help staff in higher education to further promote placement years. Originality/value The study contributes to the knowledge of perceived advantages and disadvantages of taking a placement in psychology. Placements in psychology are likely to be very beneficial for employability, but are often only available on a voluntary basis.

Strategies for Effective Teaching in Project Management

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Ehsan Gharaie ◽  
Dallas Wingrove
Keyword(s):  
Project Management ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learner Engagement ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Personal Response System ◽  
Interactive Nature ◽  
Class Context ◽  
Management Students

Preparing project management students for their future life and work requires actively developing and evidencing a suite of transferable skills and attributes. This chapter reports on how a student-centered pedagogy, which included the use of guided sequential exercises, and the collection of instantaneous student responses through a personal response system (PRS), was implemented in a large first year undergraduate Project Management course. The students' perceptions of this pedagogy demonstrate that they found the pedagogical approach supported their learning and fostered deeper engagement in the course, with the most useful aspect of the course perceived to be its interactive nature. The chapter affirms the importance of giving life to a learning orientation conception of learning. The chapter has implications for ensuring learner engagement in the particular discipline of project management and for good practice in large class context in higher education.

Beyond problem-based learning: using dynamic PBL in chemistry

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina L. Overton ◽  
Christopher A. Randles
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Real World ◽  
Dynamic Problem ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Real World Problems

This paper describes the development and implementation of a novel pedagogy, dynamic problem-based learning. The pedagogy utilises real-world problems that evolve throughout the problem-based learning activity and provide students with choice and different data sets. This new dynamic problem-based learning approach was utilised to teach sustainable development to first year chemistry undergraduates. Results indicate that the resources described here motivated students to learn about sustainability and successfully developed a range of transferable skills.

scholarly journals Teaching Picturebooks in First Year Literature Courses

2021 ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Danielle A. Morris-O’Connor
Keyword(s):  
Group Work ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
First Year ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Work Activities ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Secondary Sources

In many universities, first year literature courses are required for students in a wide variety of programs, including arts and sciences. These courses are generally focused on teaching transferable skills and strategies, such as critical analysis, essay writing, and research. This article argues that picturebooks are an exceptional teaching tool for these broadly focused first-year courses, because they quickly engage students as learners, encourage participation, and open students to new approaches of critically reading texts while challenging their assumptions and personal biases about children’s literature. Examples of picturebooks, secondary sources, class discussion, and group work activities used in first year literature courses are shared, along with students’ responses to these approaches. The article ends with an explanation of a short, low-stakes assignment that instructors can assign students to help build essential skills with picturebooks, and exercises to do around picturebooks to work on critical thinking skills. Picturebooks are often perceived as being simple and only for children, but many picturebooks are layered texts that make great teaching tools for any literature course.

scholarly journals FACTORS INFLUENCING THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ ADAPTATION TO NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Birzina ◽  
Dagnija Cedere ◽  
Liva Petersone
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
First Year ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Academic Factors ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Study Process ◽  
And Mathematics

The mass-approach in higher education promotes the broadening of students’ number and diversity therefore the question about the young people’s readiness to adapt to studies becomes more and more topical. Students who enrol in the natural science faculties of the University of Latvia (UL) are motivated and have high assessment in biology and chemistry as school subjects. However, the studies already during the 1st term prove that students encounter problems to get adjusted to the study process. In order to find out the key factors that determine the adaptation of the first-year students to studies, an e-questionnaire was developed and 79 students from the Faculty of Chemistry and Faculty of Biology were surveyed. Institutional and personal factors that are focused on the application of transferable skills are mainly those that affect the students’ adaptation in the first term of studies. At the same time such issues of the academic factor as students’ prior knowledge in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics and their skill to learn independently are intrinsic for students’ successful studies. Key words: adaptation to studies, first year natural science students, institutional, personal and academic factors, transferable skills.

scholarly journals Critical Thinking Performance Increases in Psychology Undergraduates Measured Using a Workplace-Recognized Test

2020 ◽  
pp. 009862832095798
Author(s):  
Merce Prat-Sala ◽  
Mike van Duuren
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Longitudinal Design ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Cross Sectional Design

Background: Higher education institutions and universities aim to provide students with a range of transferable skills that enable them to become more thoughtful and effective employees, citizens, and consumers. One of these skills is critical thinking. Objective: The aim of the present research was to examine whether taking a psychology degree is concomitant with students’ increase in critical thinking skills when students are not explicitly taught critical thinking. Method: Study 1 utilized a cross-sectional design and Study 2 a longitudinal design. The Watson and Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA, UK) was used to measure critical thinking. Results: For both studies, the overall scores of WGCTA, as well as scores of the subtest of Recognition of Assumptions, were significantly higher for final-year than for first-year students. Conclusion: From the findings, we conclude that the levels of critical thinking by final-year psychology students may be enhanced. Teaching implications: We propose that teaching other aspects of critical thinking such as Evaluation of Arguments and Interpretation, as measured by this test, could be beneficial in further developing psychology students’ overall critical thinking performance.

scholarly journals Designing escape game activities for language classes

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-32
Author(s):  
Sascha Stollhans
Keyword(s):  
Serious Games ◽  
Leisure Activity ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
First Year ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Educational Potential ◽  
Undergraduate Class

Escape games are an increasingly popular leisure activity involving a group of players completing tasks to achieve a pre-defined goal, which is usually escaping from a room. In this chapter, I briefly outline the educational potential of escape game activities in language classes within the frameworks of gamification, pervasive learning, and ‘serious games’, and in relation to transferable skills. This is followed by a description and evaluation of an escape game I developed for a grammar class on the idiomatic uses of German modal verbs. This was piloted with a first-year undergraduate class at Lancaster University. I conclude by discussing student feedback and considerations for similar activities in the future.

Engineering Teams

2017 ◽  
pp. 106-129
Author(s):  
Jennifer Loy ◽  
Simon Howell ◽  
Rae Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Minority Students ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Educational Environment ◽  
First Year ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Graduate Attributes ◽  
Engineering Teams ◽  
Team Working ◽  
Large Groups

Engineering education increasingly involves working in groups. This is partly because of a growing value placed on graduate attributes relating to effective team working, and partly a response to the practicalities of working with large groups in an educational environment and the emphasis on peer learning. This chapter argues that a superficial approach to understanding the drivers for establishing and managing groups during first year activities can have negative outcomes, including re-enforcing majority dominance. This will potentially contribute to attrition amongst minority students and undermine the outcomes for the engineering cohort as a whole. This chapter provides strategies for building groups in the first year focussing on team building, valuing diversity and cultural awareness. It emphasises the importance of transferable skills for students and of understanding themselves, their heritage, attitudes and values and their contribution to a team, building an approach to support diversity in teams throughout the engineering degree program.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document