Firm Foundations: equipping new students to succeed at Napier University

1
Firm Foundations equipping new students to
succeed at Napier University

• Critical Thinking, academic writing skills and
  avoiding plagiarism
• John Revuelta, School of Marketing Tourism

2
Background to the workshop

• John Revuelta Programme Leader of BA/ BA (Hons)
  Marketing Management with Business Studies with
  Community College of City University of Hong Kong
  (CCCU)
• This is part of the student induction programme
• Top-up degree entry to Year 3/ Level 9
• Profile of Typical student
• 2 year Associate Degree (ABA) in Marketing at
  CCCU
• Grades not quite enough to enter Marketing/
  Business at University conventionally (limited
  capacity in HK)
• Most students poor/ middling family background
• Borrowing the money (full cost programme)
• Assessment to date group courseworks and exams
  the most common

3
How can this help you?

• Parallels with direct entrants from FE
• Variety of cultural backgrounds of UK entry
  cohorts
• Explores the link between
• Critical Thinking
• Developing expressing own point of view
• Using evidence of others work in this
• Learning to quote, paraphrase and summarise
• Referencing conventions
• Could you use this approach?
• Might it be relevant to other levels of Entry?
• Well evaluate it at the end
• NB Some material based on Helen Godfreys
  Bridging Course for Direct Entrants

4
Evaluation

• Merits of the approach?
• Disadvantages?
• How could they be overcome?
• How can you operationalise the link between
  critical thinking, academic writing and avoiding
  plagiarism?