Skills course enhances accessibility
The School of Extended Learning has just made its “Skills for Success in University Study” course (SEL 149) a permanent fixture of its calendar.
Designed to enhance student study and writing skills, time management, motivation, and information literacy, the course is mandatory for failed students but is also open to newly registered mature and independent students, as well as students registered in credit programs.
David Gobby, director of Concordia's Student Transition Centre — which has the mandate to provide academic advising and other support services to all such students — says by far the largest cohort in the course consists of students who have failed for the first time, but he would like that to change.
“Most courses like this in North America are for first-year students,” he says. “Our research shows that incoming mature and independent students struggle more than any other cohorts. It seems to me we should give them a course like this at the beginning to give them a boost.”
Five hundred and eighty students have registered for the course this fall, and another 250 are expected to do so this winter. Many of the course sections are reserved for students in specific disciplines, part of an overall strategy to parallel what they’ll need in their other courses. Teachers focus on individual students’ process of learning, and get them to reflect on their learning style. “We’re turning them from passive learners into active learners,” says Gobby.
The course’s four-credit structure is unique: In addition to the standard three credit classroom format — designed by Juliet Dunphy, manager of Student Learning Services at Concordia Counselling and Development, and editor of the customized course textbook – the course includes a one-credit lab component in information literacy, designed by Concordia Information Literacy/Liaison librarian Cameron Hoffman, and taught by librarians. Information literacy is the ability to find, validate, correctly cite and use information. To Gobby’s knowledge, theirs is the only such course in North America where librarians are delivering academic content.
Gobby says students obliged to take the course are often skeptical at first, but come to appreciate its value. Some express the wish they’d been told about it sooner.
Teachers, for whom the one-on-one approach means more work than many lecture- based courses, enjoy it because they see academic careers turning around, and hear back from students saying ‘I got my first A’. “They’re great teachers and they love this course,” he says. “I get a charge out of that.”
And SEL submitted the course to experts John N. Gardner and Mary Stuart Hunter of the University of South Carolina for evaluation. It was given a very positive assessment and they felt SEL should review its decision that the course cannot be used for credit toward a degree or Faculty certificate. But Gobby insists that would do a disservice to students and “take away from the depth and breadth of their degree.”
Most important for Gobby, the course addresses two key aspects of Concordia’s mission: Enhancing accessibility to university studies, and maintaining high academic standards.
To those who would argue the two objectives are at cross-purposes, Gobby responds: “It’s a false dichotomy. We can do both. This course and SEL are what really allow Concordia to do both. There’s a lot of value added here.”
Related links:
- Course description
- Student Transition Centre
- School of Extended Learning
- Concordia Counselling and Development
- Concordia Libraries
- National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (University of South Carolina)