Stella Cottrell

Stella Cottrell is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning, Teaching and Student Engagement at the University of East London, UK. This position sees a return to the University of East London for Stella, where she previously spent ten years working in educational development. Prior to her current position, she was Director for Lifelong Learning at the University of Leeds. Throughout her career she has maintained an interest in supporting students from diverse backgrounds, such as those with dyslexia and mature, international and disabled students.

She has an international reputation for teaching and learning. 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 4th edition and its tried and trusted approach has guided hundreds of thousands of students to develop the way in which they learn. Stella has authored a number of other bestselling study skills guides as part of the Palgrave Study Skills series including Critical Thinking Skills, Skills for Success and The Palgrave Student Planner. Palgrave's interactive e-learning study skills resource, skills4studycampus, is also based on her work.

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."

* First published as the Palgrave Student Planner 2005-6 and every year subsequently.

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.

Prominent themes in The Study Skills Handbook include:

The book featured activities and self-evaluations as well as cartoons intended to appeal to visual learners. Several 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.

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