#personal literacy

The Managing Business Projects Module introduces students to Planning a Business Project. The process involves collecting information from faculty staff through interviews to formulate plans whilst coping with the ambiguity of project planning and the vagaries of organisational working. The project plan is subsequently used by students to monitor their progress in producing the project plan as an assessed piece of coursework against the submission deadline set by module tutors.

In parallel with this, students learn techniques of project planning and management to support their work whilst tutors act in a coaching capacity to help students learn and help them resolve difficulties.

The learning process also requires students - acting in the role of project managers - to monitor the implementation of the project they have planned and reflect on their learning from the process regarding project management techniques and managing others within a project team context.

For the last few years, we have brought actors in to workshops to teach Business Faculty students presentation skills.  Most final year and Master's students have access to at least one workshop. This work is now being extended to use other arts based training in a business setting e.g. poetry and art to teaching Human Resources and Marketing

Two stand-alone study skills workshops have been designed and delivered. These focus on the techniques that, provided they are consistently used, should materially help students to better perform and thus earn higher grades. Both workshops have been well attended and feedback has been encouraging, so they will be repeated. 

Staff and students on the BA Philosophy have been working together as part of their PETAL (Peer Enhancement of Teaching, Assessment and Learning) activities. This includes extra-curricular activities such as dissertation discussion groups, debates, reading groups, and visiting speaker events such as Why Philosophy Matters @ Ashmolean Museum. Also creation and maintenance of Twitter and Facebook pages for Philosophy Students. The impact of these activities is demonstrated in high NSS (National Student Survey) scores relating to personal development and learning resources.

Peer reviews are included in two modules of the MSc Project Management in the Built Environment. These make sure that students have the opportunity to see how their peers responded to the assessment brief and to develop their ability to provide constructive feedback. 

On University English courses (GVS1 and ALD2) reflective journals and vocabulary notebooks have been introduced. In GVS1, some students have been producing the journal in the form of a blog.