Student Learning Support Service
Our purpose is to help all students be independent and successful learners by being caring, integrated, innovative and flexible in our work.
What we do
The Student Learning Support Service (SLSS) helps students achieve academic success through the development and implementation of innovative, proactive, and ‘just-in-time’ study support programs, resources, and interventions.
How we can help you
This page includes information about the support services provided to students and how the SLSS team can assist with the provision of study support resources and programs for your students.
Student Academic Support Services
The Learning Lounge is a safe study space for students on campus (located in the Central Library), staffed by learning advisors on weekdays. Students are encouraged to make use of the space to study. If they have a question or need help, a learning advisor is there to provide guidance on matters including academic writing, understanding assignment requirements, referencing, numeracy, and other general study skills.
Students can be encouraged to visit the Learning Lounge during opening hours for support with their assignments.
Studiosity’s services include 24/7 access for students to engage with a learning advisor online. There are two main services offered via Studiosity:
- Connect Live: students can speak with a learning advisor 24/7 via audio or text chat for support with English, maths, science, and general study skills.
- Writing Feedback: students can upload a draft assignment (up to 1,500 words) for comments, suggestions, and encouragement about how they can improve their work (turnaround generally between 2 – 6 hours)
Studiosity is embedded into all topic FLO pages for easy student access.
For students requiring extra academic support, extended consultations can be offered. These are referral only, one-on-one sessions of up to an hour duration with a senior learning advisor, focused on academic skills. Academic and support services staff are able to refer students to the SLSS for this additional support by emailing the team.
To support students in resubmitting a failed assessment piece, the SLSS has developed the Back on Track Program; a step-by-step guide to successfully develop assessment resubmission. Back on Track links students with resources to help with study skills that often cause students to lose marks in their assessment (e.g., paraphrasing, referencing, integrating evidence, analysing the task, and interpreting feedback) and links to online and in-person learning support. If you would like more information about this program, or templates to embed this into your assessment feedback, please email the SLSS.
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is the most recent version of the opt-in English language support program (formerly known as the English Language Program) delivered by the SLSS. In 2022, the SLSS delivered a series of EAP sessions during the mid-semester and mid-year breaks, as well as at lunchtimes during Semester 2, trailing new availabilities to fit in with student schedules.
Content for the sessions is themed around common assessment tasks including essay writing, oral communication and presentations, reflective writing, paraphrasing and referencing, case studies, and report writing.
Resources and targeted interventions (such as workshops) are provided to support undergraduate students who may experience learning anxieties for STEM literacies.
The SLSS has worked directly with several Topic Coordinators to pilot ‘reducing maths and test anxiety’ content into topics. Furthermore, the team has recently collaborated with Health, Counselling and Disability Services to develop a series of ‘Exam Preparation and Managing Procrastination’ sessions to help students overcome ‘exam anxiety’.
For more information, please email the SLSS directly.
The SLSS delivers short hybrid (in-person and online) Ready2Go academic preparation sessions during orientation including ‘balancing university and life’, ‘understanding assignments and grades’, and ‘essential study skills for university’. These sessions were designed to assist students in areas they have indicated they want to know about when starting university. For example, in the most recent orientation survey (commissioned by the Student Experience team), 52% of students said they were concerned about study related issues, including study/life balance, managing workloads, and achieving academic goals. In addition to this, the sessions are available as online modules, year-round, via the SLSS FLO page.
Academic Resources for Students
The SLSS works directly with academic staff across the university to proactively get study support resources to students in a variety of ways, as outlined below.
The SLSS works directly with academic staff across the university to proactively get our study support resources to students in a variety of ways. One of these ways is by “embedding” hyperlinks to study resources (e.g., study guides and videos) into assessment rubrics. By packaging our resources in this way, the SLSS is helping students develop the specific skills required for assessment, at their critical point of need.
The value for students in doing this is that they get just-in-time support (when completing assessment), they receive guidance on how to develop each skill and it improves their self-confidence and self-efficacy. Furthermore, SLSS do all the embedding work, meaning there is no additional workload for academic staff.
If you would like resources embedded into your topic assessment rubrics, please email the SLSS.
The process of embedding resources within rubrics helps unpack the skill needed for assessment. However, each resource details a specific skill. The Learning Toolkit has been created to provide contextualization of skills for students in the preparing, doing, and progressing stages of their assessment. Students can also view a final product exemplar of common assessment types (e.g., an essay, scientific report, or reflective piece) with direct links to study resources that will assist them in creating these pieces of academic writing.
If you would like the Learning Toolkit embedded into your topic/s, please email the SLSS.
Early in 2022, the SLSS developed a pilot series of Assessment Game Changers, which are short, self-paced FLO modules designed to build students’ academic skills for specific assessment types. The first three developed and piloted were Writing Tasks, Case Studies, and Report Writing. A further suite of Assessment Game Changers is currently in development for launch in 2023.
If you would like further information, please email the SLSS.
The SLSS helps support students to meet their Academic Integrity requirements, including the development and maintenance of Academic Integrity resources for students including the FLO module and quiz, PDF and videos guides. The SLSS has also recently developed of a suite of animated videos to further demystify the concepts of Academic Integrity in an engaging manner for students. These videos are shared via the FLO site, YouTube, social media, digital screens across campus, and are also available for embedding directly into topics.
The SLSS created a Study Habits Quiz that helps increase engagement with, and awareness of, learning support and contributes to a sense of academic belonging. The power of the quiz lies in its ability to overcome the initial barriers preventing student engagement. The quiz requires minimal student investment and is a low stakes challenge to learn more through a call to action (completing the online quiz). The quiz helps students understand their academic strengths, directing them to SLSS resources to further develop their study skills.
The Team
Sturt Rd, Bedford Park
South Australia 5042
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CRICOS Provider: 00114A TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12097 TEQSA category: Australian University
