Welcome to Skills for Learning
Skills for Learning is a collection of resources to support the learning and teaching of study skills. In addition to the website, these resources are available on CD-ROM.
We also offer Skills for Learning workshops and tutorials on academic communication, maths and IT skills.
Off-campus access: If you are accessing the site off-campus, you will be asked to log in using your user id and password from your student card. For more information, see our Frequently Asked Questions page.
What you'll find on Skills for Learning
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Academic Communication
Learn about writing essays and reports; how to reference your sources correctly; what plagiarism is; how to make a mind map; how to read and listen more effectively; what critical thinking is; and test your grammar and spelling.
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Assessment, Learning & Teaching
Learn about the difference between formative and summative assessment; different methods of assessment such as peer assessment; how to become an independent learner; and successful language learning.
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Enterprise
Learn about what makes an entrepreneur; the different legal formats describing types of business; what you need to start a business; and how to do market research
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Group Skills
Learn about why group work at University matters; how to organize a meeting; effective teamworking; and team development theory.
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Information Technology
Learn about how to use your PC more effectively; the meaning of technical terms in the IT glossary; and download IT self study booklets covering a range of topics, including Office 2007.
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Maths
Learn about how to calculate percentages; express proportions as ratios; use different types of charts; and test your maths skills.
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Personal Development
Learn about developing your self-confidence; becoming more creative; improving your time management skills; how to write a good CV; and how to cope with culture shock.
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Reflection
Learn about why reflection is important in academic study; different ways of reflecting on your experience, such as critical incident analysis; or writing a reflective journal; and different models for structuring reflection.
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Research
Learn about the research process; ethics and research; finding information; evaluating websites; and analysing and presenting data.
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International Students
A collection of our website resources that are especially useful to our international students while studying here.
PDF copies of the timetable for printing can be found on the Workshop and Tutorials page.
What's new?
- International Students
A selection of our resources that are especially useful to our international students while studying here.
- Sources of help
Find out what sources are available for helping new businesses.
- A global outlook
Consider your own global perspective and how to improve it. Understand something of how the world looks from different national and cultural perspectives.
- Dissertations based on a product
Guidance on planning and writing a dissertation based on a product.
- Microsoft Office 2010 training videos
The tutorials offer a comprehensive guide to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The tutorials are broken down into main topic areas which are further divided into a set of sub topics.
- Language learning - Developing your listening skills
Develop your listening skills, gain understanding of what can make listening difficult and learn how to make effective use of listening material for practice.
- IT self study booklets - Office 2010
These booklets are designed to be used for self learning as well as in the classroom. They cover various topics within Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- Your business plan
Explains what a business plan is, how to collect the information you need, how to draft your business plan and where to find out further information.
- English as an international language
Explains how people of many nationalities use the English language and how to adapt your own use of English when speaking to non-native speakers.
Popular resources
- Essay writing
Learn to analyse essay questions, to write your own questions and to plan, prepare and write essays using the appropriate style and presentation.
- Getting started with IT
Identify key IT skills and learn some techniques to use your PC more effectively.
- Developing an effective and flexible CV
Understand the purpose of a CV, what employers are looking for and how to prepare an effective CV for a number of different purposes.
- The research question
Explores how to take research ideas and form them into 'research questions', 'aims', or 'testable hypotheses'.
- "Quote, Unquote"
"Quote, Unquote" is an authoritative source on author-date or 'Harvard' referencing. It contains the details of how to reference many types of sources and also gives advice on how to cite sources in your work.
- Learning styles
Understand what different learning styles are and which apply to you.


