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This Week's Topic Academic Skills To foster your students’ learning in academic areas, make academic skills a regular part of your classroom activities. Even adult students need your guidance and assistance with academic skills. This week’s Teaching Tips provide you with guidance to help your students. This Week's Tips Identify Students Who Need Help (Monday) You may have a student whose writing ability is inadequte for the level of work involved in your course, or a student whose reading skills are weak. By identifying these students early, you can direct them to writing clinics or other assistance programs. Follow these tips: Take a writing sample the first day of class. Give a reading comprehension exercise. Ask students to talk about themselves and their work experience. Incorporate Academic Skills into Course Material (Tuesday) Whether you are teaching a speech class, a biology class, or an English composition class, students should be required to do college-level work. Papers for a computer science class should be as carefully written as those for an English course. It is up to you, the instructor, to emphasize the importance of academic skills in your classroom. Before giving an assignment, identify for students the academic skills they will be using and graded on. Use Assessments that Require Academic Skills (Wednesday) Regardless of what assessment tool you use, your assessments should require and incorporate academic skills. By reinforcing academic skills in your course, you are helping students to be successful in other academic areas. For example, hold students accountable for adhering to the principles of public speaking when giving a presentation in a pre-law course. Tell students at the beginning of your course that you will only accept work that meets the highest academic standards. Tie Academic Skills to the Workplace (Thursday) Help students understand there is a direct correlation between academic skills and their success in the workplace. Remind students that the ability to express themselves clearly both in speaking and in writing are vital assets in the world. See this week’s Download Depot for a handout to help students make the connection between academic skills and the rest of the world. Discuss specific jobs students hope to hold and the academic skills required.
Encourage Cooperative Learning (Friday) Teamwork and cooperative learning groups help students become aware of their own academic skills and provide them with an opportunity to grow those skills. Cooperative learning groups also provide an opportunity for students to both give and receive reminders about improving their academic skills. Try the following: Assess the skills of students as a group, as well as assessing individual student skills. |
