Effective Study Skills for Higher Education: A Comprehensive Report

This report delves into the crucial topic of study skills within the context of higher education, examining strategies for students to enhance their listening abilities and exploring effective teaching methods to facilitate student understanding. The report identifies and evaluates various techniques, such as predicting content, signposting language, inferring meaning, listening to gist, and listening to details, to improve student listening comprehension. Simultaneously, it assesses how teachers can support student learning through teacher and student-centered learning approaches, adapting lectures to different learning styles, employing clean signposting, utilizing concept questions, and structuring lectures clearly. The report concludes with recommendations for both students and teachers to optimize learning outcomes, emphasizing the importance of these skills for achieving academic goals and navigating the challenges of online learning environments, such as Zoom classes.

Study Skills for Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Evaluation of the strategies that could be used by students to improve their listening ability 1
2. Evaluation of the way in which teachers can help students to understand their lectures........2
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Study skills are the qualities of individuals that are required by them for scoring higher
marks in the examination. While planning to meet all the academic goals and objectives it is very
important for all the individuals to acquire these skills. Some of the specific study skills are
effective reading, note taking, memorisation, time management, testing etc. These are important
for students to attain all their career goals and objectives (Assiter, 2017). Main aim of this report
is to understand importance of study skills for all the students. This assignment covers various
topics such as evaluation of strategies that could be used by students to improve listening
abilities. Apart from this, different strategies which teachers can use to help students to
understand their lectures.
MAIN BODY
1. Evaluation of the strategies that could be used by students to improve their listening ability
It is very important or all the students to make sure that they are able to listen all the
topics that are taught by teachers in zoom classes as it can help them to remember all of them for
long term. There are various types of strategies that could be used by the students or the purpose
of improving their listening abilities. All of them are listed below along with detailed analysis of
each one of them:
Predicting content: It is a type of strategy which is used by students to utilise the
information from the textbook material that includes diagrams, headings, titles and pictures and
personal experience so that they can anticipate the content which will be studied by them. It is
very important for students to improve their learning skills as it can help them predict the content
which could be taught by the teacher in future and it will help them to be prepare for the same
(Chowdhury and Nizam, 2018).
Signposting language: Under this type of strategy different types of specific phrases and
words are used by the teacher so that they can guide the listeners through out the whole lesson. It
is used for the purpose of making clear about the event which has happened recently and the
events that are going to happen in future. It is an important strategy for students as it can help
them to follow the guidelines that are said by teacher and make improvements in listening skills
(Signposting language, 2020).
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Inferring meaning: Under this type of strategy students can use their own observation
ans background for the purpose of reaching a logical conclusion. While planning to improve
listening skills it could be used by students as with the help of it they will be able to understand
the content which is taught by teacher in zoom classes with the help of their observations. It is
very important for students as it can help to facilitate the understanding of difficult subjects in
zoom classes.
Listening to gist: According to this strategy is an individuals will listen to gist then it
will be very easy to understand about the whole topic. While planning to develop listening skills
it is one of the essential strategy which should be used by the students as it will help them to get
brief knowledge about the topic. It is very important for all the individuals because by using it
they can gain understanding of the topic which is taught by the teacher in the zoom class. Apart
from this, with the help of it learners can try to understand the topic even if they are not able to
understand each and every sentence of teacher (Cottrell, 2019). If it will be used by the students
then they can make guess of the meaning of whole topic by picking up some specific words,
intonation and other clues.
Listening to details: In this type of strategy all the students can listen the topic in detail
which can help them to understand the topic properly. With the help of this strategy they will be
able to gain knowledge of the event appropriately which can lead towards attainment of all the
study related rules and regulations. It is very important for students who are willing to enhance
their listening abilities because by using it they can get proper information about the topic.
By using all the above described strategies the students can improve their listening
abilities and reach to the desired academic goals and objectives. If they are focused with
attainment of improved listening skills then they are required to make sure that they are using
these strategies properly which will help them to lead towards success (Thompson, 2017).
2. Evaluation of the way in which teachers can help students to understand their lectures
Nowadays all the students are attending zoom classes because of pandemic and in this
situation all the teachers are required to make sure that they are helping students to understand
their lectures. Some of the strategies which could be focused by them for this purpose are
described below:
Teacher and student centred learning: Under this type of strategy teacher as well as
the learners evaluate the learning ability of all the students so that effective way of teaching
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could be determined (Dawson, 2018). It is an important issue to be focused by teachers that they
are facilitating students to understand their lectures or not. By using this strategy they can
evaluate their ability to learn and then teach in the same way.
Adapting the lecture to suit different learning styles: All the students have different
learning styles and the teacher must teach in such manner that can suit each and every learner.
This strategy is an important issue because if teacher will not have knowledge of various
learning styles of students then it can affect the adaptability of all the learners. In order to deal
with it teacher can engage the students in conversation, question them, ask for oral summaries,
read material loudly etc. which will help the learners to understand lectures (Hargreaves and
Crabb, 2016).
Clean signposting: Under this type of strategy teachers can use specific words and
phrases which will guide the students to understand the content easily. It is one of the important
strategy which could be used by teachers to help the learners to understand the lectures. It makes
the speech more fluent that results in proper understanding of students (Sera and McPherson,
2019).
Concept questions: These are some of the specific questions that are used by teachers to
check understanding of students about the topic. While making sure that all the learners are able
to understand the lecture it could be used by teachers as it will help them to analyse that students
are able to understand the studies content or not.
Clear structure of lecture: According to this strategy the teacher is responsible for
creating clear structure of whole lecture so that students can get aware of all the key points of
lecture. With the help of it, teachers will be able to provide brief about the topic which will be
taught in the class room. It can help the students to understand the lecture properly. It is very
important for teachers as well as students because with the help of it ability of students to
understand the lecture could be improved (Husmann, Barger and Schutte, 2016).
RECOMMENDATIONS
Several recommendations which could be focused by teachers to adopt the strategies to
facilitate students to understand the lecture easily are as follows:
 Teachers can evaluate the learning ability of all the students by analysing their skills to
grab the content which is taught in the class through zoom.
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 In order to make sure that all the students are understanding the matter shared in
classroom the teachers can analyse their learning style and try to teach them in the same
manner they want to study (Kneale, 2019).
 Teachers can use specific words or phrases while teaching which will help the students to
learn properly and understand the lecture properly.
 While making sure that all the students are able to understand the lectures the teachers
can ask concept questions to evaluate their understanding. It will help them to know that
the content which is taught by them is understandable for the students or not.
 Teachers can develop a clear structure of the lecture which will facilitate them share the
key points of whole lecture with the students (Mason, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been concluded that for all the students it is very
important to improve their study skills as these are required to attain all the long as well as short
term objectives. There are various strategies which could be focused by students to develop their
listening skills. These are predicting content, inferring meaning, listening to details, signposting
language and listening to gist. Teachers can also use different strategies while planning to help
students to understand lectures. These are teacher and student centred learning, adapting the
lecture to suit different learning styles, clean signposting, concept questions and clear structure
of lecture.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Assiter, A. ed., 2017. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
Chowdhury, V. and Nizam, N., 2018. Religiosity, Gender, and Study Skills. College Student
Journal. 52(3). pp.315-328.
Cottrell, S., 2019. The study skills handbook. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Dawson, C., 2018. 100 Activities for Teaching Study Skills. SAGE Publications Limited.
Hargreaves, S. and Crabb, J. eds., 2016. Study Skills for Students with Dyslexia: Support for
Specific Learning Differences (SpLDs). Sage.
Husmann, P. R., Barger, J. B. and Schutte, A. F., 2016. Study skills in anatomy and physiology:
Is there a difference?. Anatomical Sciences Education. 9(1). pp.18-27.
Kneale, P. E., 2019. Study skills for geography, earth and environmental science students.
Routledge.
Mason, H. D., 2019. Evaluation of a study skills intervention programme: A mixed methods
study. Africa Education Review. 16(1). pp.88-105.
Sera, L. and McPherson, M. L., 2019. Effect of a study skills course on student self-assessment
of learning skills and strategies. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 11(7).
pp.664-668.
Thompson, P., 2017. Communication technology use and study skills. Active learning in higher
education. 18(3). pp.257-270.
Online
Signposting language. 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<http://blog.lovespeaking.com/how-to-give-a-presentation-signpost-language/>
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