More About TLC120

This unit is designed to introduce students to, and develop, the learning skills that are essential for success at university. In order to develop your learning skills or how you learn, you need a content or subject matter, something to learn and to which you can apply, and try out, the skills you are developing. In other words, in this unit you will learn the 'how' or the skills in conjunction with a 'what' or the content. The three key parts of the unit are represented by a venn diagram below which introduces visually each module with the circles representing you, the learner, the learning skills and the theoretical content covered.

The unit recognises and foregrounds you as a learner. It is based on a recognition that it is you, and who you are as a learner, that is central to what and how you learn. It is you, as a product of your cultural and social background, that underlies what and how you learn. It is you who must interact with the culture of the university that prescribes how you should think and communicate, and it is you who must decode the practices and language of the disciplinary cultures you are entering. Thus, the focus of the unit is on you, but on those parts of you that influence your learning at university.

The content is based on the concept of the self as a learner and the relationship between this self and the culture of the university. It would be possible to study this material in its own right as a piece of knowledge and theory – to locate and learn from a variety of sources that relate to this concept. However, in this unit you are also provided with guidance to develop the learning skills that you need, firstly, to learn the content of this unit but also, and most importantly, to help you learn in other units you might study.

The unit is about the self, and those aspects of the self that influence learning at university. These include knowledge of the self as a learner as located within a cultural, ethnic, racial, class and gender situation. From this the unit moves to those parts of the self that are important for learning within a cultural tradition. The unit recognises that as a student you are already situated within a cultural context, and it is preparing you to learn in the culture of university and within the cultures of certain disciplines within that broader university culture. The culture of the university is based on critical thinking and the ability to ask questions and participate in academic debates. The university culture also has prescribed ways of communicating in speaking and writing, and these ways differ from discipline to discipline.