Student Resources
Learning gives humility, from humility worthiness comes, from being worthy wealth is obtained, wealth enables the performance of duty, and from that happiness results. (From Hitopadesh)
Down this page you will find a series of ideas, information and links ranging from those with very broad application down to some very specific items:
Please suggest further ideas and resources to be provided on or linked from this page by using the email link below.
Learning Enhancement Programs
UNSW@ADFA has developed a range of academic learning enhancement programs (LEP) available to all enrolled students at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. These programs will enhance the educational experience of students through the provision of services that will provide specific support in areas of difficulty and in the overall development of general academic skills.
Students taking part in a LEP activity gain an increased chance of academic success, will enjoy their educational experience more, and may be able to complete their programs closer to if not in minimum time.
LEPs have been developed to encourage academic success in the specific disciplines of Physics and Mathematics. In addition a further program focussing on the development of generic academic skills has been established. The programs available to students have been divided into Academic LEPs and Student Support Programs.
Academic LEPs
Academic Language and Learning (ALL)
The ALL Unit online learning resources webpage has recently been updated at http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/all/resources/resources.html.
The purpose of the ALL unit is to enhance the student learning experience at UNSW@ADFA by providing students with opportunities to: develop their academic skills; master academic language and literacy strategies; clarify academic expectations and enable students to achieve their academic potential whilst developing the graduate attributes of UNSW. To achieve its purpose, the ALL unit provides courses and workshops, individual consultations, online guides and learning resources.
Contact ALL:
Telephone: 02 6268 8545
Email enquiries: knowALL@adfa.edu.au
http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/all/index.html
( View PDF document )Mathematics Bridging Program (for mature age entry students)
During semester 1 the mature age students in Engineering Mathematics 1 are given an additional tutorial each week. This tutorial emphasises the essential high school mathematics skills these students are often weak in. By the end of the semester the work in this tutorial progresses to University level material.
Engineering Mathematics Support Program
In 2007 the Engineering Mathematics course in first semester will be divided into two groups; those with weak skills from high school and those with good skills. The weaker group will be offered a different course with additional tuition, greater emphasis on essential skills and more continuous assessment.
Mathematics Catch-Up
During the May mid-semester break students enrolled in Mathematics 1 are invited to spend a week working on high school and first year mathematics material. This involves up to 20 hours of tuition in a small class environment.
Mathematics / Physics Refresher Course for Advanced Students
Prior to the beginning of semester 1, Mathematics/Physics Refresher courses are run over a three week period for mature age students coming into first year. Since these students have often not studied mathematics or physics for several years, if at all, the courses are designed to reinforce the essential mathematics and physics skills from high school. In the case of Mathematics the course involves a series of tests, individual tuition and take-home booklets.
Physics Support Program (PSP)
PSP is the Physics component of an UNSW@ADFA initiative, to help those first-year BE and BTech students who are experiencing difficulty with the mathematically-intensive components of the semester 2 service courses ZPEM 1504 Engineering Physics 1B and ZPEM 1506 Electrical Engineering Physics 1B . The support is seen in part as a response to reduced coverage of Mathematics (and probably also Physics) in year-12 courses and to increased willingness to accept officer undergraduates without full year-12 Physics (or equivalent). The program will target both cadet and mature students according to their need.
Contact for Mathematics/Physics LEPs:
Telephone: 02 6268 8801,
Email: info.pems@adfa.edu.au
http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/pems/
( View PDF document )
Student Support Programs
Information Technology Literacy Program
Library and Research Skills Programs such as EndNote and Enabling Library Information Skills for Everyone (ELISE)
Other support networks are in place, including less formal support in individual courses as well as induction programs for international postgraduate coursework students. These will be incorporated into the overall Student Support Program as this becomes further developed.
Additional discipline-specific support activities are currently under development within various Schools at UNSW@ADFA.
Understanding the Academic World
What do students need to know about the nature of learning and teaching (and academic life in general) that would help them to succeed at UNSW@ADFA?
The Teaching and Learning Committee invites you to submit your ideas to enable a meaningful segment to be added to this page. Attached is a thought provoking suggestion to initiate discussion about the nature of academia, from Dr Himanshu Pota.
Lecturers and students , please contribute your ideas to the online discussion in WebCT, where you will find a link to the attached article.
Lecturer is your greatest resource
Problems and essays are ways to test if students understand the principles behind them. Students should always keep the main principle in mind and if there is difficulty in understanding it they should seek help from lecturers. Most principles are hard to understand from textbooks. A discussion with someone who has understood and digested the principles helps greatly in understanding those principles. Most lecturers are actively involved in research which extends those principles or invents new principles so they are ideally suited to impart those principles to students.
Students rarely seek help from lecturers and when they do they confine themselves to asking how a particular problem can be solved. Once they learn how to solve a particular problem they feel satisfied. This chokes the learning process. Instead of concentrating on problems always seek to understand the principles, which lecturers will be all too happy to explain to you, and then independently solve problems to test your understanding of the principles.
In short, keep your focus on principles and use the most precious resource, your lecturer to understand them.
Learning from the history of great ideas
Carefully following the history of a few great ideas provides a most valuable lesson in how great intellectual progress can be made from simple ideas. For originality one will find it hard to surpass the work done by Nobel Prize winners. It's most educational to read the acceptance speech of the prize winners.
The exact count of Avogadro's number is a good example. Avogadro's number gives the number of molecules under certain conditions. The number is 6023 followed by twenty zeros. How does one arrive at these figures? Some clever scientist got the noble prize for literally counting particles and arriving at this figure.
A simple idea, that of literally counting the particles, but pursued with determination is all that separates us from these immortals. Be original, learn one simple idea, personalise it, and don't leave it until you have exhausted it - this is the secret of all learning.
Learning versus passing
Sadly, it is sometimes possible to pass a course without having learned very much but but most people will point out that it is both more personally satisfying and more professionally rewarding to have really learnt what each course has to offer.
Students who just aim to ‘get through’ a course usually adopt surface learning approaches, whereas those who really get involved in the course, or for whom the content becomes personally meaningful, tend to use deep learning approaches and these contribute to better learning.
Interestingly, the surface learning approaches sometimes feel like harder work. It's all that trying to memorise facts even though you don’t understand how they relate to each other, and staying up all night to cram for an exam the next day. For some people its an attempt to get by without putting in any effort, so they resort to plagiarising or copying someone else’s work outright (which has pretty severe penalties these days!). It's asking lecturers for infinitesimally small bits of information about what you are supposed to do instead of focussing on how it all fits together. The outcome is usually very short term learning – you forget it after you walk out of the exam room.
Deeper approaches feel easier and make learning seem enjoyable. It's to do with getting interested in the subject, finding connections between what’s presented and what you already know, thinking what it would mean for you in different situations, and working out how you could use it. Deep learners ask themselves questions, they draw diagrams and write things out in new ways, they follow up leads, and they’re often not satisfied with the ‘easy answer’. Its not just remembering, but mentally testing out and applying what you are learning. Deep learners end up with a mental web of interrelated ideas, skills, and feelings that they can pull out and use in different situations for years to come.
Do you want to check if you are a deep or surface learner? Check out this quick test from the University of Central Lancashire
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/science/psychol/fdtl2/CLASSsite/deep_learning_strategies.htm
For a more academic perspective on research into the field you could start with the simple summary at http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/deepsurf.htm and follow your own interests from there!
For a different perspective on how people learn you could read the information and try out the How do I Learn Best online quiz at http://www.csus.edu/uccs/training/online/strategies/s_styles.htm
Information and communication technologies and learning
Any tool that is used in the teaching and learning process can be thought of as a technology. Some technologies, like printing, while totally revolutionising teaching and learning when first introduced, have become so much a part of the landscape that often they are not seen as 'a technology'. ICT is a general term for the current wave of technologies (including computers and internet) that impact not just teaching and learning, but all our activities. However, it must be remembered that, rather than let this phenomenon overwhelm us and drive teaching and learning, this group of technologies are still just tools to help us teach more effectively and efficiently and to assist students to learn and be more motivated in their desire to learn.
The design of the curriculum and instruction, and the skills of the teacher still underpin the quality of the teaching and learning process. However, the careful and appropriate application of technologies can make the experience more positive, effective and efficient for all those involved. Good application of technology moves beyond being able to use a computer or design a simulation. It requires a cultural adjustment to move with change in discipline and student cultures.
For a more detailed overview see Ehrmann, S. 2004 'Beyond
Computer Literacy:
Implications of Technology for the Content of a College Education', Association
of American Colleges and Universities, available at http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa04/le-fa04feature1.cfm
Simple but effective techniques for learning
This resource list emphasises practical sources of information, advice and assistance:
- Academic Language and Learning Unit at UNSW@ADFA for international postgraduate students
http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/all
- Plagiarism and academic integrity
- UNSW assistance site http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism/index.html
- UNSW@ADFA policy http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/student/misconduct/index.html
- Online academic skills. This is a great source of ‘how to’ information.
http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/olib.html
If you can think of other sources that would be useful to students, please send your suggestions with a two line description of the resource to h.pota@adfa.edu.au. You could even consider sending in tips on popular (and/or free) software packages!
Discipline specific material
We would like to add specific resources to this section. Lecturers and students may contribute ideas and sources of information and assistance to help newer students understand the similarities and differences in ways of thinking and studying in particular fields:
For instance, the intellectual effort required for research in science and humanities is about the same but one can successfully argue their position for a marginal advantage of one or the other. Is it sufficient for students to know that a sustained intellectual effort is essential to learn well in any discipline at the university? Or, would specific information about what defines good research in each area provide students with an advantage?
A scientist may open up and spread hidden information, e.g., electrons and protons in an atom, whilst an artist may bring to focus what is scattered all around, i.e., give a cohesive account of seemingly diverse ideas and events. Both need tremendous intellectual effort and a fruitful contribution comes after a long incubation period. Students should be prepared for this mode of intellectual journey.
Educational Technology Services
Through its co-ordination of the postgraduate coursework off-campus program, ETS provides support to UNSW@ADFA postgraduate students who, through choice or necessity, study away from the campus. The Off-campus program Manager (l.smith@adfa.edu.au) acts as a contact point for distribution of materials.
Through the Flexible Learning Team, ETS provides online information for:
- Off campus students (particularly distance mode)
- Online learning (including WebCT, webct@adfa.eduau)
- Useful tools and links for everyone learning with technology
ETS also provides a limited range of cost effective copy/print, design, and audio visual services on a fee for service basis (see http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/ets) and assists with the resolution of WebCT issues for all students and staff.
Content coordinator: g.collins@adfa.edu.au, ACME.