Overview

  • Learning skills are integral to student success at university.
  • All students can benefit from the development of their learning skills.
  • ACU's Academic Skills Unit (ASU) can work with you to enhance your students' learning.

On this page

Why work with ASU? How can ASU help? Key Considerations How to contact ASU

Why work with the Academic Skills Unit?

Your students might benefit from academic skills support for various reasons.

Students in your units of study may require support to:

  • understand how to analyse a task.
  • become familiar with assessment types such as reflective tasks and case studies.
  • develop or refresh their fundamental maths skills.
  • incorporate maths to address specific assessment requirements.
  • develop an understanding of statistics for research.
  • improve skills in critical reading and writing.
  • explore alternate problem-solving strategies.
  • increase awareness of correct citation and referencing practices.
  • learn how to produce an academic essay.
  • develop paraphrasing strategies.

As you identify your students' learning needs, the ASU can work with you to tailor support.

How can ASU help?

The Academic Skills Unit can help you determine which type of support would be most appropriate.

 Students in a meeting room collaborating

Academic Skills Advisors support students through consultations, email enquiries and workshops. We can also embed support in your units. We can attend your classes and learning activities, and work with you to develop online resources based on the academic skills required for your assessment tasks. Mapping of resources to unit outlines offers targeted support including for the mathematics required in various courses.

  • Academic writing (including analysing text type structure and identifying formal academic language)
  • Maths for proficiency in core concepts (emphasising fundamental maths skills and problem solving)
  • Academic integrity and referencing (including paraphrasing and incorporating sources)
  • Study skills (including time management, note-taking and reading skills)
  • Exam preparation (including strategies for sitting online exams and answering different types of exam questions)

The resources we develop are interactive and engaging; examples include self-assessment quizzes, annotated examples of academic writing and infographic hotspots. Ensure that you allow sufficient time for resource development.

To view our resources, visit Academic Skills on Canvas.

Key Considerations

An investigation of your learners’ needs enables you to better address them.

Your students

  • What are your student demographics (particularly first-year undergraduate programs)?
  • What are their levels of study?
  • What do you know about their prior learnings and skills?
  • Can you draw on their prior learning?

Your unit requirements

  • What are the skills required for each assessment?
  • When do the students need to demonstrate these skills? How do the assessment tasks build skills over the unit (and across the course)?
  • Are the assessments sequenced? Can students draw on feedback from one task and apply this to subsequent tasks? How can your feedback enable this process?
  • Have the assessment expectations been clarified for the students' level of learning?

How to contact ASU

If you are interested in collaborating with the Academic Skills Unit to develop discipline-specific resources and tailored support for your students, please refer to the Information for Staff page.

Contact the Academic Skills Unit at academicskills@acu.edu.au

Page last updated on 10/01/2024

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