Supporting your study of Supply Chain Management
What is on this site?
This site is provided as a core resource to help you increase the effectiveness of your learning and professional development. You will be introduced to a wide range of resources relating to eight core elements of the study skills that we hope you will find useful during the course of your courses. It provides a wealth of study skill information and exercises to help you become a successful and independent student.
We include a comprehensive set of tutorials in project management, as this is increasingly considered to be an area of core transferrable capability for any management student.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Particular credit for help in constructing this site must go to Dr Carl Cooper, Dr John Ramsay, Dr Shelly Valdez, Ray Irving & Stuart Sutherland (Warwick Business School) and all the USD faculty at the SCMI.
Simon Croom. January 2006.
Who is this site for?
The SCMI provides a wide range of expert education in the field of supply chain management - we have courses for undergraduate, MBA, MS and executive development. Many of the issues we address here are pertinent and valuable across all of these programs.
What are study skills?
The term 'Study Skills' is often used interchangeably with many other terms which all describe the same thing - a person's ability to study effectively, and their ability to acquire knowledge. At University, you need many skills to succeed, ranging from personal skills such as the ability to communicate with your peers and professors, to technical skills such as using word processors and the internet.
The term 'Study Skills' can be taken to refer to the skills you will need to become an effective and successful student. For example, the ability to write essays is an essential part of University life, and one that you will hopefully become highly skilled in! Some skills, such as the ability to work in groups, are transferable to areas other than studying, and developing these skills whilst you are at University will stand you in good stead throughout your life.
This website aims to offer advice in many areas that will hopefully improve your study skills and help you become a better learner.
How do I acquire study skills?
In order to do well at your studies at University you will need to develop effective study skills and strategies. These skills include such things as managing your study time, taking notes, planning your assignments, revising for exams and preparing a presentation.
Your professors and instructors will advise you about the skills you are expected to acquire and demonstrate while studying for your degree. Your professors will set assignments and quizzes designed to test and develop a range of academic and transferable skills. However, as you may have already discovered, ultimately you are in control of your own learning. Developing your study skills is an integral part of your life as a University student.
Your study skills will develop through practice, trial and error and from feedback from professors and your peers. You may be surprised at how your thinking and writing skills develop over time through continued study. There are some approaches, however, that will help you become more time effective and improve your overall studying experience.
How do we learn?
At the start of any new course it is useful to reflect upon and explore your preferred learning styles to help you understand and identify what learning methods would be most effective for you. We particularly like to introduce the notion of learning styles; many writers on pedagogy (the theory of learning) have researched this topic and one expert (Kolb, 1984) identified four generic learning styles (or preferences), which, for convenience, we can think of as representing four different types of learner:
Activists are characterized as open minded and keen to explore and experience new things. They try things out without worrying too much about the consequences, and then they reflect. They often favour face-to-face group work, discussions and seminar work.
Reflectors, who are more 'cautious' than the activists, like to get hold of as much information as they can, considering the consequences of different approaches before trying things out in practice in the real world. The need to reflect can lead to a delay before any action is taken. In group work they tend to be listeners, but any output that they produce is likely to assimilate their own and others' views, so they can have a valuable role in brainstorming sessions!
Theorists can be characterised as being those who want to organise very clearly their observations and experiences into theories and models. Logic has a key role to play and if something isn't logical then it's not considered valid. A key strength of theorists is the ability to present an organised approach and to ask the deep questions that activists, for example, might skip over.
Pragmatists are characterised as wanting to try out theories and models, to see if they will work in the real world, in the environment in which they operate. They tend not to like being drawn into long discussion periods prior to action but may be very keen to go out and apply what they learn in the work place.
It can be difficult to simply classify yourself as wholly in one of these categories and you will often hear others describe themselves as being Activist-Pragmatists or Reflector-Theorists. We can also find ourselves changing our approach due to mood, circumstance, experience or the subject topic being studied.
The potential implications of learning style theory to you and your SCMI program experience include:
- Certain learning approaches are recommended for different learner types. The process of finding out what type of learner you are might highlight new approaches suited to your personality and preferences. As you are on a distance learning course, you are going to need to be able to reflect and work over a long period for much of the time, but then use different approaches perhaps at weekend or residences. Don't preclude any type of learning. It's just helpful to have an awareness of different methods.
- At times, in residences or teams, you will be working with other learners. Having an understanding of how different people learn can be beneficial in group working circumstances where these different characteristics, and consequent strengths and weaknesses, can be built on or considered.
- You may be missing out on your full learning experience by sticking to just those techniques that match your learning style. It may be worth exploring some things that don't come naturally. If you are a reflector or a theorist you may not be trying out ideas, but rather spending your time over-conceptualising. So let go and be more pragmatic!
If you want to explore learning styles theory, follow the links below.
Learning Styles guide from the University of Surrey - includes a brief outline of learner characteristics according to Kolb's classifications and further information about learning skills. Self test questionnaire currently unavailable.
The Index of Learning Styles, is an instrument used to assess preferences on four dimensions (active/reflective, sensing/intuitive, visual/verbal, and sequential/global). This link provides an overview of learning styles and strategies and an online self-assessment.
Reference
Kolb, David A. (1984), Experiential learning : experience as the source of learning and development, London, Prentice-Hall.