Working with the Academic Skills Unit

The first round of academic skills workshops for 2018 has proven a success with attendance of over 1,000 nationally.

This indicates students’ volition and drive to improve their academic literacy skills as they prepare for their disciplinary learning and assessment tasks. Data relating to views of the resources on the Academic Skills Unit LEO site in the first two months of the year also reflect this with around 3,500 views of the Maths and Numeracy module and 12,000 views of the Writing and Assessment pages alone.

Your promotion of the Academic Skills Unit resources can be a powerful incentive for students to access and engage with these materials. Referring to academic skills resources at key points in delivery of materials in lectures and including links to specific resources in the Unit Outline and assessment materials helps students find the support they need and places that information in the context of their assessments. Incorporating targeted information into tutorial teaching at relevant points can create important links between discipline content, academic language and numeracy development, and learning.

We encourage you to explore the resources on the recently updated Academic Skills Unit LEO site to become familiar with what is available. If you have further ideas on how we might be able to foster students’ drive to develop their academic skills, please let us know! academicskills@acu.edu.au