Our Working in Partnership Approach

The Academic Engagement teams are committed to developing our students’ academic literacies and study skills in partnership with academic staff. We can help you to support students in building key EFL Skills and Attributes most relevant to their discipline and future.

What the Academic Engagement team will do

• offer advice to help you identify your students’ information and academic skills needs, and how these might be addressed in a sustainable, accessible way
• design learning opportunities that meet your students’ specific needs and that are built around the core pedagogic principles of the Leading Edge Curriculum, to be delivered by us or by you as mutually agreed
• align skills teaching closely with module and programme learning outcomes and assessments
• work collaboratively to co-design and co-teach sessions with you
• support the development and application of research skills in line with Encounters with the Leading Edge and considering cross cutting themes
• review teaching sessions and embedded online learning material each year to continually improve them in conjunction with feedback from you and your students

What academic staff can do

• engage with us in early dialogue to plan ahead for teaching, and ensure our availability when submitting a request to timetabling services
• discuss with us the context of the teaching sessions or online learning material, where it sits in the programme/module/curriculum, and when and how it is linked to assessment or learning outcomes
• help us understand and target student learning needs by discussing with us any issues commonly arising in your assessment, or feedback from students
• work with us to embed a teaching session at the optimal point in the module so that students can reflect on and put guidance into practice in a timely way in the context of their current work
• provide examples of research topics or samples of authentic text to enable us to tailor workshop materials to the level and discipline as appropriate
• promote our teaching sessions, along with our VLE materials, to enable your students to develop and apply skills and competencies in context.
• provide us with feedback on the impact of our provision on your students, to enable us to improve and refine our offer

What students can do

• take responsibility for and reflect on your learning
• participate fully in teaching sessions, offering input and asking questions
• decide how to make the best use of the sources of help available to you for your needs, whether in person or online
• provide us with feedback on Library teaching provision (whether face-to-face or the use of VLE materials), enabling us to improve and refine our offer to you and other students.

The scheduling of teaching is dependent on resourcing and availability. Due to high demand for teaching sessions and our other activities, we may not be able to accommodate all requests, therefore, we aim to prioritise sessions which are fully embedded in modules.