We asked university staff to share some of their best advice to students about studying and issues such as time management or organising work. Here’s what they said:
Organisation
- Be organised! It’s just as important to know your way around your online environments as it is to know your way around the physical campus. – Lesley Kelly, Academic Developer, IAD
- What you put in, you get out! So be organised and explore LEARN pages, the relevant website pages and don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, whether that’s to your Personal Tutor or SSO! There is always help available.– Sahara Choudhury, Student Support Officer
Engagement
- Live sessions are live for a reason: we want you to interact and ask questions! You (and we) get so much more out of them when they are interactive. – Ben Morse, Postgraduate Programmes Manager
- I would say keep up the hard work! Try to interact as much as possible whenever you attend any events. It can be easy to be left behind and feel like you are always catching up, so don’t hesitate to ask for help! – Maria Tovar Gallardo, Student Learning Advisor within the School of Mathematics
Time management
- I think a really key issue is time management. Almost everyone I talk to this year (staff and students) has struggled with decrease in attention span and concentration. So more than ever for students time management is a key skill, planning for the difficulties in concentrating and using the time through the semester wisely – spread out your learning and plan it out, pace yourself, plan time for breaks, be kind to yourself! – Dr Stuart King, Director of Teaching, School of Mathematics
Structure
- Try to maintain structure in your day and set reasonable and meaningful goals for both your studies and your non-university life. If you have the opportunity to connect with other students or members of staff, then take it. If you have a hobby, make sure you keep doing it. But I also think we have to be kind to ourselves when working in this new environment. It is hard to adapt, and sometimes it will feel awful. Acknowledge those feelings, don’t beat yourself up for having them, and if you can share your worries with others. – Dr Chris Perkins, Director of Learning and Teaching, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
- It’s classic advice, but do not try and learn everything right before the quiz or coursework deadline. Students who paced themselves, watched some lectures every week, and started early on the coursework overall did better. I ran some statistics for my course and found that students who only watched lectures directly obviously associated with the coursework overall did worse in the course than those that took a more comprehensive approach to lecture watching. – Kami Vaniea, Lecturer, School of Informatics
This text was originally posted on September 21st 2021 and was titled ‘What one piece of advice would you give students for hybrid learning?’. The above is an updated and modified version of the original post.
