GET AHEAD UNDERGRADUATE SUMMER PROGRAMME 2014

1. GET AHEADUNDERGRADUATE SUMMER PROGRAMME 2014 Welcome to Birkbeck Sara Steinke s.steinke@bbk.ac.uk

2. Aims of the workshop • Find out what you can expect in your first year at Birkbeck – and what is expected of you • Explore how you might be feeling about studying/returning to education • Think about the qualities that you bring to your studies • Consider what is meant by academic skills – including a self-evaluation of your academic skills

3. Who we are • BBK welcomes people trying to fit study into a busy life • BBK understands the needs of adult learners • No such thing as a typical BBK student • BBK is here to support you • Two sides to BBK as an Higher Education institution – teaching and research

4. Our approach to education • George Birkbeck founding father – started college in 1824 • Education changes lives – not always in ways that are predictable, but in many different kinds of ways • BBK recognises that education is a social as well as intellectual process – essential to the ways in which we teach and think about the student experience

5. The first year – 3 terms • Autumn Monday 29 September 2014 – Friday 12 December 2014 • Spring Monday 5 January 2015 – Friday 20 March 2015 • Summer Monday 20 April 2015 – Friday 3 July 2015

6. Support services • Birkbeck Students Union (including Advice Centre and Counselling Service) • Birkbeck Careers Service • IT Services • Disability and Dyslexia Support • International Office • Learning support and academic skills • Library Services • Nursery

7. Our expectations • Keep contact details up to date • Be an autonomous learner • Attend lectures and seminars and be on time • Stick to deadlines (especially for course work) • Get organised • Be prepared to work with other students • Develop academic skills and thinking • Be ready to accept new challenges

8. Contact details • Ensure that your details are up to date on the My Birkbeck profile • Check email correspondence regularly

9. Autonomous learner • Take on the responsibility to ask questions and to ask for help • Take appropriate action if experiencing any difficulties (e.g. using College services, MyBirkbeckwebsite) • Only few hours are scheduled as directly taught sessions – be prepared to spend most of your time studying on your own without clear direction

10. Attendance and time keeping • Expectation is that you attend all sessions; some courses have a percentage attendance rate • Erratic attendance and late coming detrimental to learning; expectation is that students are committed to the course

11. Dreaded deadlines • Non-negotiable for handing-in of course work (unless you have mitigating circumstances) • Allow sufficient time for your assignment; note deadlines down in calendar • Seek help on producing academic work or if struggling with your IT skills

12. Being organised • Absolutely crucial to succeeding as a student • How much time can you dedicate to study? • Draw up a realistic schedule • Prioritise – identify what needs to be done • Have a study timetable and use a diary • Organise your study space – have system in place for organising study material

13. Working with others • You are not alone • Studying with peers helps you perform better • Group work common in many subject areas, including group assignments

14. Academic thinking and skills • Reading and researching theories and studies • Understanding and expressing ideas in your own words • Applying to theory to ‘real’ world problems or issues • Analysing information • Thinking critically • Formulating your own thoughts (copying directly from others is called plagiarism) • Presenting your final judgement These skills can be learned!

15. Accept new challenges “The student is perforce required to venture into new places, strange places, anxiety provoking places. This is a part of the point of higher education. If there was no anxiety, it is difficult to believe that we could be in the presence of a higher education.” (Barnett 2007: 147) “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lit.” (Plutarch c46-127AD)

16. Working with Moodle • Some Birkbeck courses use a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) called Moodle • Shows course material, reading/learning material, course work tasks and discussion groups • Check regularly for news and announcements

17. Reflect on your feelings about studying

18. Turning personal qualities into academic skills

19. Cottrell, S. The Study Skills Handbook C - Creative have the confidence to use your individual strategies and styles, apply imagination to your learning R - Reflective sit with your experience, analyse and evaluate your own performance and draw lessons from it E - Effective organise your space, time, priorities, state of mind and resources to the maximum benefit A - Active be personally involved, do things, physically and mentally in order to make sense of what you learn M - Motivated be aware of your desired outcomes using short and long-term 'goals'

20. Useful reading Stella Cottrell (2008) The Study Skills Handbook (third edition)– chapter 1 ‘Preparing for university’; chapter 2 ‘Identifying your skills’; chapter 3 ‘Intelligence and learning’; chapter 4 ‘The C.R.E.A.M. Strategy for learning’ Andrew Northedge (2007) The Good Study Guide – chapter 1 ‘Investing in yourself’; Chapter 2 ‘Taking control of your studies’

21. What are academic skills? • Complex, interrelated, transferrable • Crucial to being an efficient and successful learner • Go hand in hand with academic content

22. Time management and organisation see workshop 14 August Do you: • have strategies to help you plan and organise your time? • know how much time you have available for your studies? • know what makes studying more effective for you (i.e. when and where you study best)? • keep a diary or calendar so you know when to attend lectures and when assignments are due?

23. Readingsee workshop 28 August Can you: • select and use different reading strategies (e.g. skim, scan, in-depth)? • think about what you need to find out before you start reading (are you reading to verify facts, to understand a subject in general or to analyse a particular argument)? • critically evaluate reading? • deal with new vocabulary?

24. Note makingsee workshop 28 August Can you: • make effective notes when reading? • make effective notes when listening (e.g. during lectures)? • use more than one note making technique? • do you have a way of organising your notes?

25. Critical thinkingsee workshop 20 August Can you: • distinguish between fact and opinion? • draw conclusions based on evidence? • account for different points of view and detect bias? • see the wider picture? • do you know the difference between description, analysis and evaluation?

26. Writingsee workshop 1 September Can you: • express your ideas clearly in written form? • make an outline of what you are going to write? • write in clear sentences and paragraphs? • link your ideas in a logical order? • use correct grammar? • develop your own argument? • identify your audience and write in an appropriate register?

27. Expressing yourself in public Can you: • use strategies to engage and influence your audience? • express agreement and disagreement while considering other points of view? • summarise a discussion? • structure an argument properly for presentations? • use PowerPoint to tell your story effectively?

28. Quoting and referencing Do you know: • when you need to quote directly? • when you need to reference? • what it means to plagiarise? • what the difference between in text references and footnotes/endnotes is? • how to construct a reference list? • what a style guide is?

29. Library and IT skills Can you: • use the library catalogue and online database efficiently and effectively? • undertake research, both primary and secondary? • produce documents (essays, dissertations, reports) using Word and Excel? • use Moodle (VLE)

30. Where to get help Books on different academic skills in Birkbeck Library: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/subguides/studyskills/studybooks Academic Development Workshops on academic skills: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/studyskills/course_timetable Centre for Learning and Professional Development: www.bbk.ac.uk/clpd Interactive tutorials on academic skills : http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/get-ahead-stay-ahead Library induction tutorial: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/life/ Library information: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib IT Services workshops and information: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its/ Learning Support Officers in every School

31. Recap of the workshop • Do you have an idea of what you can expect in your first year at Birkbeck – and what is expected of you? • Have you identified your feelings about – and the qualities that you bring to – your studies? • Are you clear about what is meant by academic skills? What has the audit of your academic skills revealed about your academic skills?