Developing Academic Skills Assignment

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Developing Academic Skills assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module, you should be able to:

1 Identify and explain the key resources available to facilitate own learning and studyand reflect on the development of personal academic skills

2 Apply time management techniques to study planning

3 Identify, summarise and evaluate credible information from a range of differentacademic sources

4 Explain and demonstrate how to avoid plagiarism through correct referencing Your assignment should include: a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and a word count; the appendices if relevant; and a reference list in Arden University (AU) Harvard format. You should address all assessment criteria set out below in assessing your work.

There are 4 Tasks. All tasks need to be submitted in a single (One) Microsoft Word document. There are further instructions on how to submit at the end of this assignment paper.

Create a timetable of study, covering the duration of the module. You should apply time management techniques and record what time you will spend on studying for the module and assessment writing. You should also include other commitments, such as work, family and leisure time. Your timetable needs to be realistic (nobody works 24/7). Try to be specific (how exactly will you spend your time – what will you do within the given time frame, i.e. research a journal, a book, write task 2, 3, 4 etc). You could also use different colours to show different activities.

Following this, produce a written explanation of the time management techniques chosen and how you will use these to complete the module and assessment.

A) Imagine that you had to give advice to future students studying this module. What advice would you give concerning the key resources that can be used to help study and learn about this module? What have you found useful and why? Create a 300 word podcast script, covering this topic.

B) Write a diary, on how your academic skills have developed over the course of this module. This diary should be reflective and detailed. In particular, you should describe:

• What you have learnt during this module
• How you have felt throughout this learning journey
• Strengths AND weaknesses of the approach(es) you have taken
• Ways forward, i.e. how could you adapt your approach(es) to study in the future
• A conclusion (summarising the key points)

c) Create an annotated bibliography, which documents what resources you have used during the first four weeks on this module. You should utilise AU Harvard Referencing to reference the sources. For each source, discuss how recent the text was written, and evaluate them in terms of their accessibility, their scope, currency and credibility. You should outline how each of these sources have helped you to learn. You can use the diary for reflections in your writing. You can access a template for this from your tutor.

Identify 3 sources of information; one paper based, one freely available online and one from an academic database, that explores the issues of climate change. You should provide a full reference (using AU Harvard Referencing) for each source, summarise the key arguments presented using a different note-taking technique for each one, and evaluate each source in terms of its credibility (using the CAARP guidance, which is documented on ilearn).

Produce a poster that provides guidance concerning how to uphold academic integrity, how to avoid plagiarism and how to reference correctly using AU Harvard Referencing. You should ensure that the poster is visually attractive and includes appropriate and meaningful images and examples to highlight your explanations.