Leadership: external context and culture
Through studying this free course, Leadership: external context and culture, you will develop your understanding of the impact of external context and culture on the practice of leadership. The course begins by exploring the nature ‘societal culture’, identifying how culture, at a number of levels, impacts on leadership. We then explore how the external context within which an organisation operates impacts on the factors that leaders need to take account of and consequently the exercise of l
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. First published on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 as Author(s):
An introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER)
In this free course, An introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER), you will look at some institutional OER initiatives. These will include MIT's open courseware, Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative and The Open University's OpenLearn. You will get a flavour of how different OER initiatives design and present the content for their audiences.
This OpenLearn course will also give you the opportunity to find, discuss and redesign some OER material. You can choose your audience for t
Childhood in crisis?
This free course, Childhood in crisis?, explores an idea much repeated in minority-world media that childhood is in crisis. Looking at this idea is a starting point for the study of childhood. You will consider the concept of childhood and the ways in which the notion of crisis may shape how children in the West are seen. By completing the activities, you will be introduced to different ways of understanding this idea and also asked to consider your own feelings in relation to it.Author(s):
The range of work with young people
This free course, The range of work with young people, identifies some features that we might use to describe the various settings where work with young people takes place. This encourages us to identify similarities and differences between settings. It then introduces some theoretical perspectives to help us review these settings and thus understand more about the experience for young people and workers. Finally, it uses these perspectives to analyse examples of different settings, relating the
Children and young people’s participation
Listening to children is a first step in the participation agenda, which is reasonably well established. By contrast, enabling children to share in decision making lags some way behind. This free course, Children and young people's participation, emphasises that the adoption of an integrated approach to participation by different sectors of the children's workforce is of crucial importance.Author(s):
Thinking about how I work with other professionals
This work-based free course, Thinking about how I work with other professionals, encourages early years practitioners to think about the values and principles underpinning how they work with other professionals. It explores beliefs about teamwork, examines frameworks for professional communication and concludes with identifying possible changes in practice.Author(s):
Using visualisation in maths teaching
This free course, Using visualisation in maths teaching, looks at visualisation as it relates to mathematics, focusing on how it can be used to improve learning. It will also identify ways in which to make more use of visualisation within the classroom.
First published on Mon, 17 Jun 2019 as Author(s):
Introducing observational approaches in research with children and young people
This free course, Introducing observational approaches in research with children and young people, introduces you to analysing academic writing and, in particular, the way an article might be structured to clearly explain an investigation to other researchers. It explores observation of children and young people using qualitative observation approaches in small-scale studies.Author(s):
Succeed with learning
Succeed with learning is a free, introductory course for people who want to feel more confident about their learning skills. Informal in approach, the course builds on each person's own qualities, knowledge and skills to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of learning and of their own potential. It introduces some core ideas about learning and academic study, and some planning tools to enable participants to take their next step with confidence.
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Taking your first steps into higher education
What is university study like? Is it for me? If you are asking yourself these questions, this free course is for you.
Taking your first steps into higher education provides insights into how subjects are studied at university. This introduction to carefully selected materials helps you decide what you might want to study.
You will be looking at three main areas: arts and humanities; the social sciences; and maths, technology and science.Author(s):
Talk the talk
This free course introduces the mechanics of effective, persuasive oral presentations, by giving you the opportunity to analyse examples and then create your own. Using resources such as TED Talk videos, you will see how experts deliver professional talks and famous speeches, observe what works, and identify how language connects ideas and keeps a listener engaged. First pub
Acknowledgements Course image: aotaro in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence. The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions)
Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying Languages. 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.
9.2 What is reflection? Is reflection different to just thinking about your study? And how do we do it? Can someone teach you how to reflect or is it a matter of practice? Can everyone be reflective or are some students - and some people - more reflective than others? There is no clear definition of reflection or precise way of describing what we mean by a reflective learner. But we can discuss some characteristics of the process, and encourage you to develop your own preferred ways of developing it. Ref
9.1 Reflection and the four main phases of learning how to learn If your course encourages this approach to learning, or if you have read other material on learning how to learn, you may have come across the term 'reflection'. Maybe you have been encouraged to reflect on your learning or on your assignments. In this course, we have deliberately not used the term until now. This is not because we think the term - or the process - is unimportant, but because it can seem vague and not particularly helpful to you as a learner. In fact, all the activities in th
8.4 Implementing As with assignments, this is the phase when you actually do the task - sit the exam or produce the final version of your end-of-course assessment. This is where monitoring your performance is really important. For most students, the crucial thing in an exam is usually to monitor the timing. Unlike the production of an assignment, an exam is a timed test; so, you need to pace yourself appropriately. Most end-of-course assessments have no time constraints although you may find the deadline very
8.1 Introduction Once you have got a general understanding of the process of learning how to learn, and have tried applying it to an assignment, you may be able to see how the same approach can be applied to revision, exams or any other form of assessment at the end of your course. This section looks at how the four phases (preparing, exploring, implementing and reviewing) relate to revision and exams. You may want to remind yourself of the overall process by looking again at
7.3 Review the whole process Before you file away your assignment and return to your current study, spend a little time reviewing the whole process of preparing, exploring, implementing and reviewing your assignment. Review what you did and how you did it in each of the four phases. Trying to identify just one thing that went well and one thing that you could have done differently can help you in your future study. Remember that your review should focus on the process of the preparation
6.1 Implementing This is the phase when you complete your assignment. In some courses and for some assignments, the exploring and implementing phases may merge or overlap; in other courses, considerable exploration is needed before the actual assignment can be done. If there are several parts to your assignment, part of your planning might be to move back and forth between exploring and implementing - studying for and then completing part of the question, then returning for more study before tackling the rest
