In 2021, the Student Learning Support Service (SLSS) reached a new milestone, with the embedding into assessment project now in 75 topics across all six Colleges, impacting more than 13,000 student enrolments. This project helps put academic skills in context for students as they prepare their assessments.
In addition to this, the SLSS have also embedded the Learning Toolkit into topics impacting 8,000 student enrolments. This gives context for students’ entire learning journey, helping them proactively prepare, compile and reflect on their assessments.
Building on this momentum, the SLSS will pilot two new proactive support programs in 2022 to further support students in developing the academic skills required for assessment.
The first program will embed links to short self-paced FLO modules directly into rubrics to help students develop the academic skills required for topic assessment. This complements the current resource embedding work, providing students with further guidance and support, should they need it. By engaging in these modules, students will be directed to appropriate channels of support, and it will encourage them to recognise the power of feedback and reflection in their work across their learning journey.
The second program focuses on supporting students who fail an assessment piece and meet the criteria for a resubmission. The SLSS will proactively reach out to these students to provide them with an opportunity to meet with a learning advisor. The advisor will work with the student to help them understand their assignment feedback and rubric, and to develop an individual study plan to resubmit the assignment, and to develop study goals going forward, to get back on track.
It is well known that students predominately engage in help seeking behaviour around assessment, and these new programs give them an opportunity to gain additional support in this area. The goal is not only to improve student success in relation to specific assessment work, but to increase student retention, by ensuring students feel supported and empowered with confidence to succeed at university.
The programs will be piloted initially in two non-Semester nursing topics, with a view to roll out more widely in Semester 1 2022.
If you would like further information, or if you are interested in embedding the new programs into your topic in 2022, please email slss@flinders.edu.au