University Education: A Discussion On The Importance Of Lecturers In A Successful Learning Environment

The main role of a university lecturer is to provide university students with the appropriate knowledge and support, to help guide students through a successful learning experience. Successful learning, when combined with students who are enthusiastic to learn, is defined as active learning. It is more beneficial for students to be proactive learners’ it teaches university students to acquire information that could be important to their studies independently. Furthermore, this will help keep new and experienced students more engaged in their studies and can create new habits with discipline.

An important role for lecturers is to create and plan subject matter for the unit of study to better enhance a student’s learning experience. A teacher’s responsibility is to provide structures and resources that will support students to learn not only the specific relevant content but also how they can support themselves for the best learning outcome. An example of a teacher providing support is by improving writing and reading skills to firstly be able to recognise ‘reading’ and what is being asked of them and then how they can best communicate ‘writing’ by what they have understood. Learning is also about experimenting with different materials to support one’s knowledge, for example, using textbooks are educational as they provide students with a range of concepts and ideas to help with a particular topic and is generally written by various education experts to give a detailed point of view. Computers are another useful material that can help with educational purposes as it allows students to store large amounts of information such as lecture notes and presentation slides. It can also help with independent research and referencing online sources.

University students are encouraged to be proactive learners. Proactive learners are learners that can be given a topic outline that includes a guideline, important information or ideas and from this, the university student can independently seek out research and information to gain a better insight on the topic that is being discussed to further support their arguments. It is important that all university students show that they are engaged in the unit of study by providing feedback and discussing relative information such as questions and answers they may have when required by a lecturer or mentor, this also allows the student to memorise information without doing it physically. For university students to be proactive in the way they work independently, they also need to be motivated in working hard to achieve those higher results. To keep motivated, students can create routines or achievable goals such as creating checklists, eliminating distractions or writing notes from the textbook. Setting achievable goals will help to motivate students with their study and will also relieve stress as setting these short-term goals can help with dropping the amount of work a student will have to complete by the allocated time.

When it comes to learning, it should be a positive experience for all, therefore, students should feel that they have been provided with the appropriate support needed to help them grow in areas of development. Studying university online has proven itself to be a difficult one, however, I have realised that motivation is a big part of achieving greater results, to be motivated, you need to have a goal that you want to achieve. (Kirton, B, 2010) I have been able to set various goals for my university course and in return use it in my personal life to better motivate and prepare myself for my future career. An example of this is setting goals or completing checklists. Setting goals and completing checklists are one of the many strategies that can make one feel motivated and relieve stress (Anderson and Bolt 2011). A big component to keeping motivated is to create new tasks and challenges to complete each week, rather than constraining it into one day and getting overwhelmed, it’s both important and beneficial to set small goals each day to complete. During this unit of study, I plan to keep motivated by setting goals in regards to the progression of my assignments, for example; dividing my workload equally into 5 days. Another way to keep motivated is by setting up a ‘perfect’ study space, a place that is organised and spacious with minimalistic stationery and no electronics to eliminate distractions. These types of goals are considered realistic goals as they are going to be beneficial in the progression of my present and future studies.

References:

1. Bolt, S.B. & Anderson, L.E. 2011. Professionalism: Skills for Workplace Success, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
2. Dwyer, J., Faigley, L., Carroll, D., Kirton, B. (20200214). Tertiary Learning Strategies, 2nd Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9780655702559
3. Kirton, B. 2010. Brilliant Study Skills, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Harlow, UK.