Stella Cottrell was formerly Director for Lifelong Learning at the University of Leeds and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning, Teaching and Student Engagement at the University of East London, UK. She supports students from diverse backgrounds, such as those with dyslexia and mature, international and disabled students.
Her publications for staff and students have sold more than a million copies worldwide. First published in 1999, The Study Skills Handbook is now in its 5th edition. Stella has authored a number of study skills guides as part of the Macmillan Study Skills series including Critical Thinking Skills, Skills for Success and The Macmillan Student Planner (previously published as The Palgrave Student Planner).
In the June 2011 edition of Education Bookseller, Victor Glynn characterised Cottrell's books as "concise, clearly laid out and covering a wide range of subjects."
List of publications
* First published as The Palgrave Student Planner 2005-6 and every year subsequently; rebranded as The Macmillan Student Planner in 2019–20.
The Study Skills Handbook
The Study Skills Handbook was first published on 12 August 1999. The philosophy behind the book can be summarised as saying that most students could perform well in higher education with the right strategies, attitudes and pacing to suit their circumstances and previous educational background. Whether they were successful at study in the past or not, Stella contends that all students benefit from taking an individualised approach that suits them, as they are now, and looking with fresh eyes at each new challenge.
Critical self-reflection and active solution-seeking are emphasised throughout the book. Cottrell's aim is for students to personalise and contextualise strategies, rather than taking advice wholesale.
Themes
Prominent themes in The Study Skills Handbook include:
Critical thinking
Active, participatory learning
Self-evaluation
Personal reflection
Personalised learning
The importance of knowing how learning, intelligence and memory work
Self-management and personal effectiveness
Identifying your learning style
Applying personal skills to academia and vice versa
Shaping your degree for personal development and future employability
The book featured activities and self-evaluations as well as cartoons intended to appeal to visual learners. Customised editions of The Study Skills Handbook have been published for Queen's University Belfast, The University of East London, Middlesex University and Coventry University.
Subsequent development
The Study Skills Handbook was developed out of Stella Cottrell's experience of working with students. Subsequent editions have been developed using feedback from students and lecturers who have used the book. The current, fifth, edition of The Study Skills Handbook was published in 2019.
The Lifelong Learning Centre
Stella Cottrell was appointed as Director of the Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) in July 2005. On her appointment the University of Leeds reported her as saying, "This is absolutely the right time for the University to be looking at its social inclusion agenda, and to build on its current innovatory work with adult learners."
The objective of the centre is to deliver programmes and services that:
Promote and support the development of part-time and mature undergraduate study at Leeds Support progression onto University of Leeds programmes for adults from groups under-represented in HE Ensure that part-time and mature students achieve and flourish at the University of Leeds.
Philosophy
Critical thinking
According to Cottrell, students are likely to have difficulty engaging in critical analysis if:
they lack adequate knowledge of the subject
they have poor reading skills, or vocabulary
they are unsure of the purpose of their analysis
they are unsure of the level of discourse expected from them
Cottrell argues that critical thinking makes sense to the student if it is contextualised. Lecturers can encourage critical thought through the careful structuring of information and set exercises.