UCC Skills Centre Updates

By Conor O’Driscoll

In the last edition, we provided a recap of how UCC’s Skills Centre can help you to develop the skillsets necessary to excel in university and professional settings. We did this by introducing you to our team of tutors, our peer-to-peer learning environment, and our developmental workshops. In this issue, we will focus on how you can evaluate your academic progress so far.

Each semester, the Skills Centre constructs a roadmap to success which trains students in various academic and professional skills throughout the year. This training takes place in peer-to-peer workshops and one-to-one sessions. So far on our roadmap, we have covered everything from Notetaking to Writing Essays and Presentation Skills. Now, we are focusing on how to develop these skills further by incorporating feedback, reflecting on the effectiveness of your study techniques, and provide insights on what you can do to improve.

By now, most of you should have an idea of what is going well for you in university and what can be improved. For instance, some of you may be struggling with assignments. Assignments are often a new challenge and unlike any form of assessment done before university. Struggling to get the hang of them is perfectly natural, as assignments require you to master brand new skills, such as referencing and academic writing. However, like most things in life, practice and effective training can elevate your performance.

Midterm assessments are a great opportunity to check your progress and evaluate your performance so far. Regardless of whether you exceed expectations or underperform, it is important that you try to receive feedback on this work. In the case of something like an MCQ, the best feedback often comes from the grade itself, because the grade is determined by your ability to tick the right box. Assessment like this is useful because it offers an indication of how well you understand a topic and how effective your study techniques are.

For something like an assignment however, gauging these things is a lot more difficult because there are so many ingredients to consider, such as referencing, writing style, structure, presentation, and argumentative flow. Most schools and departments prescribe a marking scheme and allow you to avail of feedback through office hours and/or tutorials. You can make the most of this feedback by directly probing what you need to do to score better next time.

The core of these marking schemes is consistent across disciplines, and that is where we come in. Specifically, they emphasize a coherent structure, a clear argument, an appropriate flow, and proper referencing. The Skills Centre provides workshops on all of these things. To help you further, we provide Asynchronous Essay Feedback which allows you to submit segments of, or entire, essays for us to review, so long as they are shorter than 1,000 words. This feedback focuses on the fundamentals of academic writing and the core of all marking schemes, ultimately allowing you to elevate your assignments.

On the study side, we also provide workshops on Study Strategies, Exam Prep, and Time Management. These workshops show you how to find study strategies which work well for you, and how to roll out these strategies so that you maximize the odds of success. Additionally, we offer Study Coaching services. This coaching involves one-to-one sessions with a peer tutor whereby you collaborate to build customised study plans and strategies which suit your needs. These services allow you to increase your odds of success in exams.

If you like the sound of any of these services, do not hesitate to contact us. The fastest way to book-in for a workshop or one-to-one session is through our website, just google UCC Skills Centre. However, you can also find us on Q-1 in the Boole Library, just follow the yellow footsteps.

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