Musings on Study Skills

Often teachers assume that students have more skills than they have, I am guilty of this. Having taught adults and teenagers I know that the knowledge is there, however for many there is a misunderstanding of how to write academically. From showcasing to chat magazine types of essay this misapprehension can lead to teachers wanting to throw laptops out of the window and the criticism can deflate students who have put a huge amount on the line to study.

What’s the solution? I love teaching and seeing people succeed, so a change of career is not in the offing. Teaching study skills discreetly helps with keeping the students interested and motivated. In previous study programmes I have used the first two weeks of a course to introduce study skills, however this did not help with motivation, especially with 16-19-year-old students, as they are so keen to begin on their course. Often relevance is questioned, and when told about the importance the reply I’d get would be “well I did ok in my GCSEs”.

I cannot in all conscience send students off to further study knowing that they will struggle with some of the basic skills, skimming and scanning, note taking and so on. My aim here is to consider alternative ways of embedding study skills into subjects, making it easy rather than creating more work for students.