Supporting Learning: Teaching Study Skills

Last month, I wrote about a series of Study Skills Guides I had produced as part of my work at The Bodleian Libraries in Oxford. They are available online as part of our OxLibris programme.

I have now finished a set of tutorials that take students through the topics covered. These are Primarily designed to help students taking the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) but they are applicable to any coursework or essay research. They are a development of teaching resources we have previously delivered in schools, or to school groups visiting libraries. These units are intended to either be used as a teaching aid in school or college, or for students to work through independently.

The five tutorials form a set covering good academic practice. Alternatively, each can be used as a stand-alone unit. Once a tutorial has been covered, the accompanying study skills guide acts as a handy single page aide memoir for students as they carry out their own research.

Effective Online Research covers how to form a precise research question, the limitations of search engines, and how to use advanced search engine tools for more effective online research.

Evaluating Online Resources shows students how to evaluate the quality of information from online resources, cross-reference sources and spot fake news.

Effective Note Taking covers how to take more effective notes that focus on connecting ideas and concepts to reinforce your learning. The unit uses Cornell Notes as an example of an effective tried-and-tested system.

Avoiding Plagiarism Shows students how to ensure that they acknowledge their sources of information correctly and fulfil the requirement to avoid plagiarism in their work.

Referencing covers how to reference sources of information in work using in-text citations and a bibliography. The unit explores how to use two referencing systems: the Harvard name-date system and the recurrent number system.

I hope you find these learning units helpful, either in your teaching or as resources to support students’ independent learning. Please do let me know what you think of them in the comments. I welcome suggestions for improvements, or for additional topics.

If you’re interested in effective study, you might like my earlier post on music and revision.

Supporting learning: Study Skills

As part of my work in the education team at The Bodleian Libraries we have recently overhauled our resources to support the development of study skills.

In part this has been in response to feedback about our OxLibris programme which supports students researching for their Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). We support local schools in developing their students’ research skills and they visit us to access books, journal articles, and other texts not generally accessible outside of an academic library.

We also needed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because we were no longer open visitors (or anyone else), we needed to move the programme online so it was accessible to schools. This also allowed us to extend the reach of the resources beyond Oxfordshire.

In the first stage of this move, we have produced a set of five study skills guides. Although designed to meet the requirements of the EPQ these also provide useful guidance on researching for any project or essay.

The guides can be accessed on the OxLibris Study Skills page, in the ‘Online Resources’ section.

Effective online searches covers how to use advanced search engine tools effectively to refine your online research.

Evaluating online resources provides advice of assessing the quality of online sources of information, how to verify such information and how to spot fake news.

Effective note taking gives guidance on making concise research notes that focus on making connections between ideas using the Cornell notes system developed by Walter Pauk.

Avoiding plagiarism explains what plagiarism is and why it is taken so seriously. Drawing on guidance from the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), this guide also explains how to avoid plagiarism in assessed work.

The guide to referencing explains how to cite sources of information used in work. There are two versions, one explaining referencing using the Harvard name-date style and the other using the recurrent number style.

Feel free to have a look at these guides and download them for use with your students. They are not for commercial use and copyright remains with The Bodleian Libraries.

I am currently working on a set of presentations on these topics designed for use either by teachers in class or for students working independently.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to David Gimson and Lorna Robinson at Cheney School, Sophie Roach at Gosford Hill School, and Jackie Watson at Oxford Spires Academy for providing feedback on earlier drafts of these guides.