Reviewing Tool

This Reviewing Tool is part of the Academic Skills Provision Toolkit.

It is one of three tools in the toolkit and can be used alongside the Mapping Tool and Role Profile Tool.

The tool provides a structured 3-step process to review, plan and explore academic skills provision within colleges (see Figure 1 below). This includes a self-evaluation of provision in Step 1, a planning workshop in Step 2, and a survey planner in Step 3.

Based upon evidence gathered through the Centre for Teaching and Learning's consultancies with colleges in 2023-24 and 2024-25, it is primarily focused on undergraduate provision that is in addition to the academic skills support provided by Subject Tutors in college.

It aids colleges in their considerations of how their academic skills provision works.

Figure 1: Overview of 3-step Reviewing Tool

How do I use the Reviewing Tool?

• The Reviewing Tool may be most insightful if led by the Senior Tutor or the academic skills lead with the involvement and participation of colleagues and students from across the college. If all three steps are completed, it should take approximately two hours and 15 minutes. The three steps are self-contained and can be completed at different times
• The Reviewing Tool supports the identification and evaluation of college-based academic skills provision using a self-evaluation checklist (Step1)
• The Planning Workshop supports more in-depth evaluation of a college’s academic skills provision and action planning (Step 2)
• The Survey Planner aids survey design aimed at gathering feedback from students and/or staff on academic skills provision (Step 3). For information and ideas on survey questions, please see the Validated Question Sets in Appendix 1 and Survey Question Bank in Appendix 2.