What children and young people say
This free course, What children and young people say, looks at how practitioners and other adults talk to children and young people, and considers how this influences what they tell us. It identifies how children and young people would prefer to be engaged with, what would encourage their confidence in authority figures, and outlines the ways in which adults can improve on their listening techniques.Author(s):
Introduction This course draws attention to the value of a sociocultural understanding of spoken language in the processes of teaching and learning. It focuses upon how language can be used for persuasion, control and argument, and how dialogue can act as an aid to development. Along with some background reading and activities this course offers opportunities for the evaluation of some selected classroom talk. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of postgraduate study in Author(s):
Am I ready to study in English?
Even if you feel confident using English in everyday situations, studying in English at higher education level might present extra challenges. This free course, Am I ready to study in English?, provides an opportunity for you to reflect on your English language skills through a series of academic exercises.
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Chartered teachers in Scotland
Teachers often have little spare time to reflect on the day's lessons and challenges. However, this evaluation of teaching and learning experiences is vital to their professional development. This free course, Chartered teachers in Scotland, is an extract from the OU's Chartered Teacher Programme for Scotland and will help teachers to evaluate their practice and development opportunities.
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Issues in research with children and young people
This free course, Issues in research with children and young people, considers the aims and range of research with children and young people. Students consider how their own views and understandings about childhood and youth have arisen. Different definitions of research are explored through first-hand accounts by researchers across a range of disciplines and studies, from the small-scale to international studies studying children's lives across several countries. Attention is drawn to the role
Key skill assessment: Communication
Communication is part of everyone's life. Being able to communicate clearly and effectively orally, visually and in writing underpins nearly everything we do. This free course, Key skill assessment: Communication, will help you recognise your strengths as well as the areas where you could improve. In developing and assessing your communication skills, you will learn to recognise, adapt and use your skills confidently and effectively in different situations and contexts.
Introduction This course explores the role of digital media as a teaching tool, focussing on video in particular. We will examine the process of how you can start to use digital video in the classroom, and how to manage your project from objective setting, through story boards and filming, to assessing the success of the final result. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of postgraduate study in Author(s):
Key skill assessment unit: Working with others
Working effectively with other people in a group or a team is a skill valued highly by community and educational organisations, as well as employers. Working in a group is about communicating effectively, contributing ideas, listening and receiving feedback, and leading or following as appropriate. Developing your skills means thinking about and planning the tasks the group needs to do, negotiating with others to develop shared goals and purpose, collaborating to achieve agreed results and then
Introduction Learning how to learn is a process in which we all engage throughout our lives, although often we do not realise that we are, in fact, learning how to learn. Most of the time we concentrate on what we are learning rather than how we are learning it. In this course, we aim to make the process of learning much more explicit by inviting you to apply the various ideas and activities to your own current or recent study as a way of increasing your awareness of your own learning
Learning to learn: Planning for personal change
This free course, Learning to learn: Planning for personal change, explores academic theories and acts as a guide to help you establish where you want to go and what you want to achieve. You are encouraged to develop a personal Action Plan. The focus returns to your own viewpoint and you are encouraged to change or modify how you think about using Learning to learn. The course also looks at how online learning communities can be used as part of the process of learning and personal change. PLEAS
Introduction This unit is aimed at geography teachers, or those with an interest in studying or teaching geography. This unit looks at the contribution that geography can make in the education of young people and the characteristics and purpose of geography as a subject. Find out more about studying with The Open University by visiting our onli
Introduction The activities in this unit are designed to support an individual or group of teachers in preparing a school-based training session for colleagues on creativity and information and communications technology (ICT) in the curriculum. Find out more about studying with The Open University by visiting our online prospectus.
Assessment in secondary music
This free course, Assessment in secondary music, will identify and explore some of the key issues around assessing music in secondary schools. Through coming to understand these issues and debates, you will reflect on and develop your assessment practice as a music teacher and develop a greater awareness of the implications of assessment practice on pedagogy and what is considered to be of musical value in music education.
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Teaching secondary music
This free course, Teaching secondary music, will identify and explore some of the key issues around teaching music in secondary schools. Through coming to understand these issues and debates, you will reflect on and develop your practice as a music teacher and develop a greater awareness of the wider context of music education and how this affects music in the secondary school curriculum.
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Involving the family in supporting pupils' literacy learning
Teaching children to read is one area where collaboration between teachers and parents/carers is of vital importance. In this free course, Involving the family in supporting pupils' literacy learning, you will examine how families and schools work together to establish the links that underpin childhood literacy development and the ways in which educational institutions respond to the diversity of needs amongst students.
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Leadership and context
This free course, Leadership and context, introduces you to the potential impact of context and culture, both internal and external, on educational organisations and its implications for leadership. First published on Fri, 26 May 2017 as Leadership and context. To fi
Introduction This course looks at how parents encourage the development of new skills in their children in the informal setting of the home. The use of video observation of small children by psychologists is analysed and some of the key concepts in developmental psychology that explain teaching and learning interactions between parents/caregivers and their children are explained. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of postgraduate study in Author(s):
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):
Open education
There are many different 'flavours' or interpretations of what openness means in education. This free course, Open education, is an example of a massive open online course (MOOC) and spans seven weeks. Like all the free materials on OpenLearn, this course is open to the wider world but, uniquely, it also forms part of the module for students who are studying the Open University course H817 Openness and innovation in elearning.Author(s):
1.1 Introduction In this course we look at an outline of the stages involved in the development of a database. We consider the broader issue of how to decide what should be in a database and how to structure the tables that should be included. Our aim is to give you a basic development method so that you can see how a basic database system is developed. We don't argue that this specific method is the most applicable to any given situation – however, we do consider that this method is straightforward and wil
