Hi All
 
I have to say that I agree with Pat.  I also work as an Academic Skills tutor within a School and this has allowed me to develop my 'add-on' study support seminars and one-to-one sessions with particular reference to the student courses.  Students, moreover, have spoken most vociferously in various institutional fora about how useful they have found the 'add-on' service.  In fact, I really wasn't prepared for student reactions before I started this work and was so taken aback by their comments that they have inspired some research I am conducting at the present moment. When I started the role (I have come into student support after being a Spanish lecturer for about 14 years), I thought about academic support in rather narrow terms and focused purely on the academic aspects of the provision.  However, it was also the development of the personal, affective aspects of study which the students kept mentioning in their feedback.  Of course this is nothing new to people working in learner support, but it hadn't really taken centre stage with me beforehand, even though I knew that issues of confidence etc were fundamental to learning.  
 
The upshot of all this is that I believe that the add-on learner support space offers something that mainstream learning spaces cannot: they offer a place where issues of power can be addressed in a way in which they simply cannot within the subjects.  At the end of the day, although I still represent the University and thus am a 'face of power', I do not give the students marks, I am not a subject expert and, often, I do not know as much about the subject as the students.  The power dynamics of the tutor-student relationship are thus changed and this is noticeable in the staggering differences in the feedback I get from students from my academic support service and that from my Spanish students.  To compliment work undertaken by those working within the Academic Literacies approach to student writing, I have started to research into the issue of power dynamics in learning and am focussing on silent students in seminars.  If anybody has any useful suggestions regarding any research which has been undertaken, specifically with students in seminars, or any other suggstions for reading, I'd be very grateful.
 
Lisa
 
 
________________________________

From: learning development in higher education network on behalf of Pat Hill
Sent: Wed 14/02/2007 10:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 



Hi 
'Add-ons do not work.' 
Can I tentatively ask if we're on the verge of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water' again? It seems to be a trend in educational circles that we do something for years and then decide it doesn't work and go headlong into another cul-de-sac. I know there are limitations, but those of us who have worked in study skills for a number of years, where it was inevitably 'add-on', must have had some successes! 

As an Academic Skills Tutor, now working within a school rather than cross-university, I can see the value of embedding development into the curriculum but I don't feel that necessarily negates the value of targeted sessions on specific aspects of writing. Lisa Ganobscik- Williams, in her very useful report on academic writing, came out in favour of using a variety of approaches and I think that we need to be wary of narrowing our options too much. 

I do one-to -one work every day and give bolt-on lectures where I feel it will help. As long as these are tailored in some way to the students' requirements I feel that they can be very effective in making expectations explicit and reinforcing strategies that they are exposed to within the module.

Best wishes 
Pat 
Pat Hill 
Academic Skills Tutor 
School of Music, Humanities and Media 
Tel 01484 472170 
Room WG20 West Building 
University of Huddersfield 

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