Sponsor/year: Faculty of Health, 2014 – 5.

Project leads: Dr Selma Macfarlane, Alan Jenkins, Sophie Goldingay.

Aims: Develop students’ academic skills to improve their success at university and also use later in their later professional lives

Underpinning theories/literature:

• The ‘academic literacies’ model: theory and applications: article explaining the concept of academic literacies.
• Effective teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds: Practical advice for teaching staff (PDF 1.1MB): key research with recommendations for teaching LSES students.

• Realistic approach to meeting students’ needs: The process of embedding academic skills has not decreased academic rigour in the unit. Rather, in the process of thinking deeply about students’ learning needs in the unit and assumptions that were being made, the unit has been streamlined to define expectations more clearly, and match these better to learning tasks and authentic assessment activities.
• Research-based design: The embedded literacies approach was developed after considerable research and consultation with other academic, Equity and Diversity, Library, and Study Skills staff, resulting in a carefully mapped, customised and integrated set of activities.
• Non-deficit approach: Students’ learning of academic literacies is treated as a mainstream activity that is beneficial to all students, not a remedial add-on for 'at-risk' students. Self-assessment activities are designed to normalise the experience of having some academic/professional skills but lacking others.
• Assumptions surfaced: Students are asked to articulate and discuss their own theories of learning, reflect on their source, and consider the impact of theories on practice at a personal and professional level.
• Demystifying academic discourse: Activities invite students to recognise a range of discourse groups, and then identify the discourse of academia in their study requirements and the discourse of their chosen profession. They are also encouraged to reflect critically on cultural processes that limit positive change in various discourse groups.
• Learning task and assessment variety: Assessments and learning activities include reflective activities such as journals and self-assessments; group work and rubric-guided peer assessment; oral tasks and discussions; and scaffolded researching, reading and writing tasks.
• Ongoing improvement: Each trimester, the curriculum is improved in response to the Unit Chair’s own judgement, her ongoing research into embedding literacies, and student eVALUate responses.

• Student success: The gap between success rates for LSES students and all students in this unit is continuing to narrow: it has gone from an 8.5% difference in Trimester 2 2014 (before intervention) to a 5.7% difference in Trimester 2 2015, to just 0.9% difference in Trimester 2 2016. In addition, in Trimester 2 2016, LSES students had a 5% higher mean grade than the mean grade for all students in this unit (SIPU). Over this period, the main changes to the unit were just ongoing improvements to the intervention described (interview).
• Research publications: The Unit Chair continues to research embedding literacies, and publish in international journals on this subject (internal report).

• Macfarlane, S, Jenkins, A & Goldingay, S 2015, ‘Bridging today and tomorrow: embedding skills in curricula’ (DOC 500KB), Proceedings of HERDSA Conference, Melbourne.
• HSW219 detail of weekly activities (DOCX 21KB).