4.1 Knowledge about context and author After you had read the poem a few times, you no doubt pieced together that the ‘I’ of line 5 in the first verse, the speaker, is rowing in a boat at night. We probably realise that with the word ‘prow’. By the end of the first verse the boat is beached in a cove. The journey continues over the beach and fields to a farm (by foot, presumably, since we hear about no other means of transport). There the traveller meets someone. It appears that they exchange signals – the tap on the pan
3.2 Carrying out an analysis Here, then, is the two-verse poem we will focus on in the next few sections of the course. As you see, I have left out the ends of the lines in the second verse. So it presents you with a kind of ‘puzzle’. (But I have included the punctuation, and added line numbers for ease of reference.) The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap
2.1 Reading Before you begin your interrogation of a text, though, you have to get to know it in a general way. In a sense, you can ‘see’ visual texts (such as paintings, sculptures and buildings) all at once; there they are before you. You can move around them, looking at them from different angles. But with written, aural and moving image texts – in which words, sounds or images follow on from one another – you cannot become familiar with the whole thing until
Introduction
In this unit we turn to the nature of the arts and humanities themselves, and look at the main processes involved in studying them. Broadly, when you study the arts and humanities you study aspects of culture. You explore people's ideas and beliefs, their cultural practices and the objects they have made. Human history is criss-crossed with the traces of people who did, said and made things and these people were to some extent aware of what they were doing. So all
3 Roles Quite often in work situations we are asked to work with a group of people we have not met before and with whom we may seem to have very little in common. The group, which may be labelled a ‘team’, could be tasked to organise or produce something about which some of the members may know more than others. After a period of initial awkwardness perhaps, the group members start to find out more about each other and attend to their task. It is quite likely that each of the members will then te
Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence All materials included in this course are derived from content originated at the Open University.
9.8 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end
9.7.3 Identify ways of further developing your skills in working with others Use your assessment and reflective comments to suggest ways of improving your own performance in working with others. How do you intend to make these changes? Working in a group is a skill that you may need to go on developing throughout your course of study and in the workplace. All groups vary, and to enhance the performance of any group, as well as to help individual group members develop their skills, it is helpful to look at how the group has operated. 9.7.1 Negotiate and develop effective ways of presenting the work As you complete the project, you need to finalise how you will present the work making sure that all involved agree with the decisions. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of the working methods you and others in the group proposed. This may be in terms of resource requirements, legal, health and safety regulations, and so on. 9.5.2a Exchange feedback It is important to listen to, and take into account, the views and feelings of others. As a member of the group, you need to provide information on the extent to which your own work is meeting expected timescales and quality requirements: ask for and accept feedback from others on the way you are working and the quality of work being done. These skills take time to develop. Try to establish a climate for learning and developing your skills within the group so you can all actively benefit from 9.3.3 Identify relevant sources of information Exploring and identifying sources of information is about finding out what you don't know as well as using and adapting what you do know. Group projects and assignments frequently require you to carry out research and this will involve identifying specific resources you may need. For example, think about the materials and equipment that might be needed and whether the group needs to get specific expert advice and support and, if so, where you can obtain this. It is also important to spe 8.3.2 Identify the outcomes you hope to achieve An outcome is the result or consequence of a process. For example, you may want contribute effectively to a design project in a course, or work in a team to improve a product or system. In this case the design or product improvement is an outcome, and using your problem-solving skills is part of the process by which you achieve that outcome. You may find it useful to discuss or negotiate the outcomes you hope to achieve with others. Solving problems will often depend to some extent on other k 7.7 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end 7.6.1 Interpret results and identify your main findings In stating your conclusions and interpreting the results of your work, you should refer back to what you set out to investigate or demonstrate. Have you achieved your goals? What evidence have you got to support your conclusions? If you are making general statements based on your work (for example a statistical analysis of data), then you should be able to explain clearly the reasoning that has led to your conclusions. In quoting mathematical results you should be able to say whether the resu 7.6 Evaluating strategy and presenting outcomes This stage of the framework focuses on identifying what you have achieved and how well you have achieved it. It involves you in evaluating your overall strategy and presenting the outcomes of your work. As you evaluate and assess your strategy, identify aspects of your number skills that you want to develop further. At the end of this stage, use the records in your Skills File to complete the activity ‘Evaluating your use of number strategy and presenting outcomes’ and pull together this 7.5 Monitoring progress This stage of the framework is about keeping track of your progress. Are you using number effectively for your purposes? How do you know? Could you have done things differently: made use of different tools (such as software packages) or facilities, taken more advantage of tutorials, training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you are doing as i 6.7 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end 6.5.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of IL skills As you develop your information literacy skills, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using information literacy techniques have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on the quality of my work? do I need to mak 6.3.3 Identify and research relevant sources of information Spend some time finding out about what you will need to help you complete you IL work and who you will need to consult. You may need to arrange access to a library, the Internet, databases online, or specialist training or publications. If you need to learn about specific aspects of IL (for example how to reference correctly articles, papers and books, or how to put together a bibliography), then look first at your course material and then at study guides or notes aimed at your area of intere 6.3.1 Identify opportunities for using IL skills Where and how will you use information literacy skills over the next 3–4 months? You may need IL to help you identify, search for, evaluate and present information for a specific task, such as an essay or project report. You may have to visit and learn how to use an academic library, or need to search for, select and evaluate information from specialist databases or the Internet. Spend some time thinking about your study or work requirements and what opportunities you will have or can creat
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