Develop Me!
Managed by Learner Support Services
SaPRA online provides students with a complete overview of the underpinning skills needed to succeed in Higher Education. SaPRA consists of two parts:
There are currently two versions of SaPRA for 1st year students and a version for 2nd years. The shorter version for 1st years covers the following five areas: academic writing, academic reading, personal skills (such as time management), communication skills and library / referencing skills. The 2nd year version covers areas such as careers skills, presentation skills, group-working, critical thinking and independent learning.
In some areas students may have little or no experience of the skills outlined. This does not matter; as SaPRA aims to introduce students to a whole range of skills that they will encounter throughout their degree studies.
There are a series of activities and resources available as part of the develop me! website. These have been chosen and developed in order to support skills development.
SaPRA is embedded in the university’s e-portfolio system, PebblePad. SaPRA is not automatically available to staff or students because it needs to be part of an integrated activity and students need to understand the task they are being asked to complete. In order to access SaPRA please contact pebblepad@bradford.ac.uk. We can arrange for you and your students to have access to the tool and provide you with handouts / instructions for students and staff.
As SaPRA online involves deep personal reflection and evaluation, it is important that after the activity has been completed students take time to reflect on what this means and start to devise a plan of action for the future. The model for reflection used within the Learner Development Unit is: Plan, Do, Review, Refine as illustrated below:
Students are encouraged to discuss the outcomes of SaPRA online with their Personal Tutor or with someone from the LDU and start to feed their actions into their Personal Development Plan (PDP).
Students are expected to develop a PDP throughout their time at University. SaPRA online has been designed to assist new students in this process. SaPRA online is not a test and there are no right or wrong answers. SaPRA online has been designed to give students an idea of where they are right now in terms of how they feel about their different skills. Completing the activities will give students a snapshot of where they are confident and where they feel they need to develop further. Students are encouraged to be realistic when they answer as it is important that they obtain an accurate picture of their confidence in the different areas.
SaPRA online is a private activity. No one sees the individual results unless the student chooses to share them. Although it is possible for SaPRA and the related evidence and action plans to form part of an assessed activity.
A printable version of the SaPRA online profile is available to download if you want to see the different areas covered in the activity. This version of SaPRA is NOT recommended to be used with students as it is simply a text based representation of the online activity and should only be accessed with a view to finding out more about which areas are covered in the activity.
If you have any questions about SaPRA please contact Marion Bowman or Annie Jamieson in the LDU, telephone: 01274 23 6849, email: learner-development@bradford.ac.uk.