Skills to Succeed at University: Future Learn course
The Skills to Succeed at University course has been developed at the University of Leeds to support the successful transition of students from further education to higher education. The online course has been designed to last for two weeks, with students undertaking two hours of study per week to complete the task. Students can access and complete the course for free.
Target audience
All students, regardless of educational background, can complete the course. Its developers have two key specific target groups in mind:
- Pre-entry students who are undertaking non-traditional qualifications (e.g. BTEC) and/or students who meet the University of Leeds widening participation criteria
- Current first year students at the University of Leeds who require additional academic skills support
About the course
The course has been developed by Matthew Elliott (Education Outreach) and Daniel Bond (Student Success) to create an online resource that increases students’ understanding of the key academic study skills required at university level study and raises awareness of the support opportunities available at the University of Leeds.
Matthew and Daniel have worked with professional services staff, academics, students and alumni across the University to create a course that supports students from our target audience develop key academic skills for successful university study.
The course has had a significant contribution from current University of Leeds students and alumni that meet our target audience criteria. The learners who join the course will have the opportunity to learn about their different experiences and hear valuable insights into how each student and alumni found and managed the transition to higher education study and life.
The course has been broken down into two weeks:
Week 1 (The fundamentals of university) covers: Time Management, Note Making, What support is available? And a summary of the key skills developed.
Week 2 (Becoming a successful undergraduate) covers: Critical Thinking, Academic Writing, What does it mean to be a university student? And a summary which includes alumni experiences and a recap of the key skills developed.
Evaluation
Matthew and Daniel wanted to ensure the course was able to measure learner confidence with key academic skills and identify how each learner felt about their skill development as they progressed throughout the course. It was also important for the developers to be able to evaluate that the course is reaching the target audience identified. The course has an embedded survey that allows learners to ‘tell us about yourself’ that provides the opportunity to assess who the course is reaching, opportunities to improve the learning material and report on the impact of the course.
Find out more
If you are interested in finding out more about the current evaluation findings of the ‘Skills to Succeed at University’ course please email Matthew Elliott (m.elliott2@leeds.ac.uk) or Daniel Bond (d.bond1@leeds.ac.uk).
