The Guide to Effective Learning (GEL) website aims to assist you in developing study support skills. The site has a number of resources that will either: link to useful information; guides; or support tools, which can be downloaded and used to support your learning.
Resource materials are accessible via the link below:
Study skills help you to complete your degree programme more effectively and are sometimes referred to as academic skills. They cover a range of areas such as:
If you spend time developing your study skills you will become a more effective and efficient learner. This will mean that you are more likely to enjoy the academic elements of your degree programme more thoroughly, lecture and group work will be easier, and you should feel less stressed about completing assignments, projects, dissertations, examinations etc.
Study skills are usually part of a degree programme; however, it may be that because they are not signposted to you as a “study skill” you have not realised what they are. For example, you will be introduced as part of your programme to “information literacy” but you may not have realised that this will help you develop elements of essay writing skills as it helps you to locate, review, evaluate and reference the materials that form your essay and help you form your academic arguments.
This website aims to make these skills more explicit and perhaps, serve as a refresher to you during your time at Birmingham.
There are a number of ways to use this site. Firstly we recommend that you go to the left-hand tab that refers to your student or staff group, and that you review the additional information and resources housed there.
Alternatively, you can go directly to the resources via the link at the top of this page. You can then either dip in or out of the elements that are useful to you at different times of the year or work through each set of resources from start to finish.
Some of these resources cover similar information which is presented differently. Take your time to explore these materials, finding the ones that appeal to you the most.
Enquiry based learning
At Birmingham, we are committed to enabling all our students to profit from a culture of learning, aligned with our research ethos, which is based upon critical enquiry, debate and self-motivation.
Find out more about Enquiry based learning.
Essential Guide - to IT Services, Library Services and Learning/Teaching Support. (PDF - 1330 KB)
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