Networked practitioner: open or closed practice?
This free course, Networked practitioner: open or closed practice?, starts a debate to support the decision-making process around openness and the different preferences we each have.
First published on Tue, 10 Apr 2018 as Author(s):
Essay and report writing skills
Writing reports and assignments can be a daunting prospect. Learn how to interpret questions and how to plan, structure and write your assignment or report. This free course, Essay and report writing skills, is designed to help you develop the skills you need to write effectively for academic purposes. First published on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 as Author(s):
Making sense of mental health problems
Over the past century there has been a radical shift in responses to people who experience mental health problems. In this free course, Making sense of mental health problems, you will learn about how key perspectives in the field have made sense of mental health problems. By directly relating key perspectives to a case study, you will reflect on how the medical perspective, psychological perspective and social need perspective come to make sense of mental ill-health.Author(s):
Get started with online learning
This free course will explain how you can study online without putting the rest of your life on hold.
First published on Tue, 19 Feb 2019 as Get started with online learning. To find out more visit The Open University's Author(s):
Leadership and followership
This free course, Leadership and followership, will help you to explore what makes a good leader, recognise common leadership challenges, and identify the skills you need to develop if you want to enhance your own leadership experience. First published on Thu, 09 Aug 2018 as Author(s):
Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. Course image: Courtesy of banlon1964 Flickr [accessed 27 October 2006] All other material within this course originated at the Open University Don't miss out: If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University -
5.3.3 Using visualization The important thing is to find out which technique works for you, and to practise it before the exam, so that if the need arises you can switch into the technique during the exam itself. For a very small number of students with more persistent anxiety, medical advice can be very helpful. If this is the case, it is really important to talk to an advisor or tutor, to see what special exam arrangements are possible.
5.1.1 Technique 1: Self-talk—turning negative statements into positive ones You can guide your thinking away from general worry and self-doubt by turning negative self-statements into positive ones. This strategy is useful in all aspects of life. Figure 5 relates to an unsuccessful job interview and illustrates the process. 4.2.4 Plan your time When planning to use the time available, you should: make sure that you are answering the right number of questions divide your time according to the weighting of the questions write down the finishing time for each question try to allow for 10 minutes checking time at the end. Stick to your plan. Evidence indicates that two half-answered questions obtain more marks than one completed 3.8 Stage 6: Rehearsing answering exam questions Just like assignment questions, exam questions should be read carefully, because you need to demonstrate in your answer that you have understood the question. Examiners frequently complain that students lose vital marks through failing to read and interpret the questions properly. 3.6.2 Making learning posters You may find that, rather than reducing notes to small summary cards, you prefer to produce large posters detailing key points on particular topics. Use pattern, colour, diagrams and drawings in your posters, and display them in parts of your home where you might have an opportunity to gaze at them for some time and absorb the information. One student we know put them around the bathroom! If you have a strong visual memory, then lively posters really help the remembering process. Keep on learning There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to 5.1.6 Are the conclusions justified? Though I was interested in the idea of treating high incomes as ‘pollution’, I did wonder whether taxing people to pay for the pollution caused by their rising incomes would work. In general though I was reasonably convinced by the conclusions Layard drew. On the other hand, if I was studying the subject more seriously, I might find that wider reading and further thought would make some of the conclusions seem less convincing. 5.1.3 Does the argument follow logically? As I was making sense of paragraph 3, I did pause to consider whether it was logically possible to say that on average richer people are happier, yet getting richer has not made us happier. Later, when I read that women in the US were less happy since their incomes had come closer to men's, it occurred to me that they would be unlikely to volunteer to revert to previous levels of inequality. This made me question what happiness really means, if it is not necessarily a state that a person woul 5.1.2 In what context was the text published? This amounts to asking, when was it written and for what audience. Academic texts are written to make a contribution to the debates going on within the field. To understand where an author is coming from and why arguments are being presented in a particular way, you need to be able to place the text in context. Layard's article was published in 2003 in the UK, and was drawn from a prestigious series of public lectures. So the context is a major statement by a prominent academic 4.1.1 Too much underlining and highlighting The challenge, especially when you are new to a subject, is to avoid underlining or highlighting everything. Everything seems important, so how do you know what to leave out?
If you make too many markings, you defea 4.1 Underlining and highlighting To be able to make sense of what you are reading, you need to read actively. One method that can help is to use a pen. Did you underline or highlight any words as you read the Layard article? If not 3.3 Choosing a reading speed As a student you cannot afford to read at just whatever speed comes naturally. If you are trying to keep abreast of a course, you have to push yourself. However, reading speeds range from a lightning skim through a whole book to intense concentration on a difficult paragraph. You need to become skilled at working at speeds right across the range. How quickly you need to read will depend on: what you already know about the subject, how 2.2 The ‘academic’ style You might also be put off by the ‘academic’ style of writing. In everyday life, what you read is usually written to grab your attention and get a message across quickly before you ‘switch channels’. By contrast, academic texts often raise broad, abstract questions and are unconcerned about arriving at quick answers. For example, where a newspaper headline might say: Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to thinking skills. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.
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