Evaluating individual teaching on the road to embedding academic skills

Abstract

Based on an evaluation of one-on-one student consultations in The Learning Centre at USQ, this paper argues that there is an important place for individual consultations in a university context, but that this should be seen as part of a number of learning enhancement strategies on a continuum. Embedding academic skills development into discipline-specific curricula would be placed on the ideal end of this continuum, but the insights gained from one-to-one consultations are crucial in this process. An evaluation of one-to-one consultations shows the complexity of student needs, and this paper has identified four levels of this complexity: conceptual ‘stuck places’, student scaffolding for learning, affect and development, and course and assessment analysis. The arguments are supported by case studies in mathematics and academic writing, in conjunction with survey data.