Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE DBS1002

 
TITLE Study Skills for Disability Issues

 
UM LEVEL 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course

 
MQF LEVEL 5

 
ECTS CREDITS 6

 
DEPARTMENT Disability Studies

 
DESCRIPTION This study-unit focuses on practical and proven strategies for supporting students in achieving greater academic, professional, and personal success by taking full ownership of, and an active responsible approach towards, their own learning. Participants in this study-unit will use stories of disabled persons, their own personal stories, and other assigned readings, to reflect on the choices that can help them succeed in their education and in their personal and professional life.

Through guided journal writings and a journey of self-discovery, students will explore alternative strategies to deal with life choices and take on board those strategies that work for them, while learning to express themselves more effectively in writing and orally, developing their own preferences to learning, and taking charge of their own academic success. Students will be supported to set their own learning targets for the study-unit and to work towards their own targets.

Participants in this study-unit will be exposed to a variety of highly effective learner-centered methods that appeal to various learning preferences and motivate students to take charge of their own learning in:
- Accepting greater personal responsibility
- Discovering self-motivation
- Mastering self-management
- Employing interdependence
- Gaining self-awareness
- Adopting lifelong learning
- Developing emotional intelligence
- Believing in themselves
- Learning effective study strategies
- Developing critical and creative thinking skills

Study-Unit Aims:

The study-unit aims at providing students with the opportunities and support to experience, learn, develop and integrate in their lives the strategies and skills necessary to:
- Achieve greater success in their education and in life: The success strategies that students learn and apply will improve the outcomes and experiences they create in the Community Access for Disabled People programme of studies and in all areas of their lives.
- Develop increased motivation and class participation: Once students see improved results, they become more involved with their reading, writing, and classroom experiences. As students become personally involved, they learn firsthand the value of an active learning style.
- Improve their written and oral communication skills: Journal writing offers students extensive practice in effective writing skills. Class conversations and presentations stemming from activities designed around students’ life experiences provide students with extensive practice in expressing their ideas orally to individuals, small groups, and the whole class.
- Attain stronger critical thinking and problem-solving skills: Through reading about and practicing critical thinking skills, students become better at solving problems that interfere with their success, as well as constructing and deconstructing persuasive arguments.
- Accomplish a sense of empowerment: By learning to make wise choices that can dramatically improve their lives, students learn to take control of their outcomes and experiences.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Knowledge & Understanding:

By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:
- Understand how to take greater personal responsibility for their own learning in the Community Access for Disabled People programme of studies and in gaining more control over the outcomes and experiences in university and in life.
- Articulate one’s own personally meaningful goals and dreams to create greater inner motivation.
- Utilise numerous strategies for taking control of one’s time and energy, allowing one to move more effectively and efficiently toward the accomplishment of one’s goals and dreams.
- Develop mutually supportive relationships with people who will help one achieve one’s goals and dreams as one assists them to achieve theirs.
- Understand and revise one’s self-defeating patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion as well as one’s unconscious limiting beliefs.
- Identify different learning styles and develop one’s own preferred learning style, thereby becoming an effective lifelong learner.
- Use effective strategies for managing one’s emotional life, decreasing stress while increasing one’s inner sense of well-being.
- Describe and explain self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-respect, self-love, and unconditional self-worth, and implement personal strategies to enhance one’s self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-love and unconditional self-worth.

2. Skills:

By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:
- Employ improved writing skills through the extensive writing practice offered by guided journal entries.
- Apply enhanced critical and creative thinking skills essential for analyzing and solving problems in one’s academic, professional, and personal life in general and in the Community Access for Disabled People programme of studies more specifically.
- Exercise reasoning skills that will help one construct persuasive arguments and deconstruct illogical arguments.
- Utilise test-taking strategies, utilise library resources for information and research, use effective textbook reading techniques, develop memory strategies and review tools, employ a study schedule and strategies to manage procrastination, and apply note-taking strategies.

Main Text/s and any supplementary readings:

Downing, S. (2012). On course, study skills plus edition: Strategies for creating success in college and in life (2nd. ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture and Independent Study

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Assessment Due Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Reflective Diary SEM1 Yes 30%
Presentation SEM1 Yes 30%
Written Exercises SEM1 Yes 40%

 
LECTURER/S James Bugeja

 

 
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints.
Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice.
It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years.

https://www.um.edu.mt/course/studyunit