Students develop skills for academic success

February 05, 2007

Students from around NSW, and from as far north of the Queensland border as Rockhampton, are "tuning up" their academic skills in a week-long program at the University of New England designed to prepare them for university study.

The program, called tUNEup, focuses on academic writing, information technology skills (particularly those necessary for online learning), and important aspects of study such as time management and concentration. It also includes tours of the Library, the Information Technology Building, and the academic Faculties. This week's course is the second of two this year.

The course coordinator, Frances Quinn, said that the popular program was now in its seventh year. "In response to students' requests," she said, "we have extended tUNEup this year from four days to five. Another new feature this year is a series of sessions, called 'Putting it into practice', in which students can practise particular skills of their own choice."

Ms Quinn, from UNE's Teaching and Learning Centre, said that the program was particularly useful for those re-entering the education system after an absence of some years. "Such students often have relevant skills that they have developed at work and at home," she said. "Now it's a matter of applying those skills to university study."

One of this week's students, Carrie Caruana from Rockhampton, is studying by distance education towards a combined Bachelor of Commerce / Bachelor of Teaching degree. Carrie has already completed part of her UNE degree program, but has come to Armidale for tUNEup because she wanted to improve her assignment-writing skills. Another student, Rhys Wilkie from Port Macquarie, is about to embark on a Bachelor of Laws / Bachelor of Economics program at UNE while living in Armidale. Rhys, who finished school in 2005, said he was doing the course to "get back into the swing" of study after a year's deferral. (THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows, from left, Frances Quinn, Rhys Wilkie, and Carrie Caruana.)

The tUNEup program, developed in consultation with staff and students throughout the Armidale campus, won for UNE an Australian Award for University Teaching in 2002, and contributed to the award last year of a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (one of 10 such citations that went to UNE in 2006).

Ms Quinn said demand for tUNEup had been such that the Teaching and Learning Centre was planning an online version ("tUNEup from Home") to make the program more accessible to students unable to travel to UNE.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at February 5, 2007 03:26 PM