ICT supported scaffolding of generic skills acquisition by first year students

A collaborative approach

Abstract

Students arrive at university with diverse backgrounds, expectations and levels of curiosity and varying abilities to cope with their first semester. The generic knowledge, skills and attitudes to learning acquired at secondary school, at vocational training institutions or in the workplace, are sometimes inadequate for the demands of successful university study. To do well and to lay a firm foundation for their professional development, students need to enhance and expand their abilities to work and learn effectively within the more demanding university context - fast! This poster describes a collaborative approach to scaffolding the development of first year students’ generic skills: information literacy, information communication technology [ICT], critical thinking and teamwork skills, and the negotiation of their university’s Learning Management System [LMS]. Collaborations between the lecturer and specialist support staff: an educational designer, academic skills advisers, a campus librarian and an instructional designer, resulted in a number of carefully structured ICT-supported learning tasks in a first semester, first year unit. Importantly this approach ensured access to the highest available levels of expertise for scaffolding the development of each particular skill and for embedding developing knowledge and skills in a discipline context. Class activities and assessment tasks, often ICT-supported, provided an opportunities for students to embed their newly enhanced skills in a realistic manner. After giving an overview of these activities and tasks, this paper provides insights into both the students’ and our own reflections on this experience. It presents our conclusions about the benefits offered by this approach and briefly describes plans for future research.