Module Information
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 11 x 2 Hour Seminars |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Bibliographic Review Bibliographic Review (individual work) - 450 words | 15% |
| Semester Assessment | Information Design Project Information Design Project (team work) - 750 words per person | 25% |
| Semester Assessment | Information Design Presentation Information Design Presentation (team work) - 20 minutes per team | 20% |
| Semester Assessment | Essay Essay (individual work) - 1200 words | 40% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Identify and appropriately interpret university and departmental statements and style guides for academic practice, in relation to use of citations, quotations, summarised and paraphrased ideas, referencing and use of bibliographies in written documents and oral seminars/presentations.
Work independently and in teams with the planning and drafting of a range of written and oral academic assignments.
Work effectively with the delivery of presentations and seminar discussions.
Identify differing structures, patterns of argument and language style for essays, online projects, seminars and presentations.
Aims
The aim of this module is to enable foundation level students to identify and work with the specific academic skills required to undertake a degree level programme in Computer Science. These skills include aspects of reading, listening in lectures, participation in seminars, note taking, planning and time management, delivering presentations, project development and academic writing.
Brief description
Through a range of activities and assignments students will work towards acquisition and refinement of the specific study skills needed for studying Computer Science. This will include individual work, team work and self and peer review of skills based learning units.
Content
1. Academic practice 1: Citation, quotation, referencing and bibliography with use of selected sample Computer Science texts.
2. Academic practice 2: Approaches to paraphrasing and summarizing using samples from Seminar 1, plus a wider range of accepted text types in Computer Science.
Week 2 (2 x 2hr seminars)
3. Introductory approaches to critical review (1).
4. Student led seminars on oral summarizing and paraphrasing with a view to identifying differences between spoken and written text.
Week 3 (2 x 2hr seminars)
5. Extending approaches to critical review (2).
6. Writing workshop on bibliographic review as process oriented development of Assignment 1 (submitted at start of week 4).
Week 4 (2 x 2hr seminars)
7. Outline and themes for Information Design project. Selection of teams for project and presentation (Focus on Assignments 2 & 3).
8. Team work, cooperative learning and group dynamics. Scope of projects and project aims.
Week 5 (2 x 2hr seminars)
9. Structuring ideas for critical and logical development of Information Design projects.
10. The role of visualisation in writing online information.
Week 6 (2 x 2hr seminars)
11. Structure and patterns of argument: writing for the web: blogs and web-sites (Focus on comparative review for Assignment 2).
12. Structure and patterns of argument: essays and reports in Computer Science (Focus on comparative review for Assignment 4).
Week 7 (2 x 2hr seminars)
13. Seminar design and interaction skills: student led seminars on project topics (Focus on Assignment 2)
14. Presentation skills: similarities and differences between seminars and presentations (Focus on Assignment 3).
Week 8 (2 x 2hr seminars)
15. Finalising project information (Assignment 2, submitted at end of Week 8).
16. Presentations (Assignment 3, delivered in class).
Week 9 (2 x 2hr seminars)
17. Extending and adapting focus of projects to refine individual specialist focus for writing and essay (Focus on Assignment 4).
18. Extending and adapting focus of projects to refine individual specialist focus for writing and essay: contrastive mapping of ideas across a team to further develop specific focus for each student (Focus on Assignment 4).
Week 10 (2 x 2hr seminars)
19. Relationships between structure, argument and language style in the development of writing (Focus on Assignment 4).
20. Techniques in editing (Focus on Assignment 4, submitted at the end of Week 10).
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Application of Number | No |
| Communication | Yes. This is a core skill for all assignments. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Yes. Students will be required to reflect on learning and performance as an independent reflexive process and also as a peer review and team review process. This will be enhanced by use of wikis and video recordings of student presentations/seminars. |
| Information Technology | Yes. For successful delivery of assignments, students will need to develop word processed and presentation documents. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | |
| Problem solving | Yes. All assignments will require students to interpret guidelines and identify appropriate strategies and structures for responding to requirements. |
| Research skills | Yes. All assignments will require reading and planning that will be done through a range of academic resources. These will include the electronic reading lists provided by Information Services and carefully chosen supporting material independently identified. |
| Subject Specific Skills | Yes. Students will be encouraged to develop audience awareness between academic writing and spoken academic skills and how these may vary when presented to academic and public audiences. Many aspects of skills will be identified as transferable, confidence building, and outward facing to the professional community. |
| Team work | Yes. Students will engage in specific team work activities that will be accompanied by team written/prepared assignments. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 3