Academic Skills for Your Students

The Skills for Learning team is a part of Library Services, made up of 7 Skills Librarians trained in 
supporting general assignment skills such as academic writing and referencing. Many of our team 
are certified members of the Higher Education Academy and we have a wealth of experience 
instructing students. 

Why work with us?

Our offer can be used to complement your teaching. Feedback for our support is 
consistently positive and we have many colleagues across the university who we work with year-on-year. 

What we offer

Other topics we support:

• Paraphrasing (Bitesize – 30 mins)
• Reading and note-making (Bitesize – 30 mins)
• Reflective writing
• Presentation skills
• Preparing and researching a dissertation
• Literature reviews
• Microsoft Office Essentials

Recommendations for teaching staff:

1. Embed our support in your teaching – As early as you think appropriate, get in touch to invite us into your lecture. During these ‘embedded’ sessions, we can cover the above skills and align them to upcoming assignments (where possible).
2. Consult us – Every assignment is slightly different, and we are in a better position to support your students if we discuss your assessment criteria beforehand. Examples of different approaches to support might include the following:

     + Skills Certificate – a series of workshops, ending with a Canvas quiz and, when completed, a digital certificate of completion. 

     + Module drop-ins – We can set aside time during your teaching hours to speak with your students about their assignments (provided you don’t mind them dipping out of class to see us).  

3. Use our online resources – We have a selection of short video tutorials which you can build into your own course pages. Have a request? Contact the Skills for Learning manager (see below). 

Extracurricular support:

• If you do not have time for an embedded session, please refer your students to our in-house workshops, found here: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills-for-learning/skills-workshops-sessions/
• We also have in-person drop-ins, which run throughout the week., available at all our libraries. See here for our schedule: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills-for-learning/one-to-one-support/

Parameters of the service

Whilst we will endeavour to assist learning within our capacity, in some cases the Skills for Learning team is not the preferred mode of support. Please note the following:

• SfL is not a subject-specific service, although we can adapt our materials to use the terminology of assessments.
• SfL cannot complete ‘marking’; however, we can manage Canvas quizzes provided they are automatically graded.

Key contacts and links:

Staff enquiries: Joe Carey (Skills for Learning Manager), j.carey2@wlv.ac.uk

Student appointments/referrals: Contact the Skills Team at skills@wlv.libanswers.com  Workshops: Students can book at www.wlv.ac.uk/skills