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The Open CETL > Personalised Integrated Learning Support > Activities & projects > Managing Transition Between Levels: a Student Perspective

Managing Transition Between Levels: a Student Perspective

Dr Barbara MordenThe aim of the investigation was to discover how a small sample of current students in the Arts Faculty perceived the transition from level one to second level and how aware they are of progression through levels of study.

The data investigated comprised a sample of responses to a questionnaire and given to students on the inter-disciplinary course module A207 (From Enlightenment to Romanticism c.1780-1830). The questionnaire consisted of a mixture of simple ‘tick-box’ questions as well as an opportunity for more discursive writing, which prompted reflection on their personal experience of making the transition from first to second level; consideration of the outcomes achieved in their first year of study and what study skills they brought to the course module. Students were encouraged to think about their development of these for the duration of the course module and how they might take them to the next level. Finally students were also encouraged to consider A207 as a stage within a pathway of study towards a degree and how this might be facilitated.

Biography

Dr Barbara Morden has worked within the Open University for some thirty years, predominantly in Regions 04 and 09. She has tutored and examined undergraduate and post-graduate courses in English Literature, Art History and Inter-Disciplinary Studies. Her main subject interest is the relationship between literature and the visual arts in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition she has an on-going interest in Teaching and Learning Strategies, having devised and delivered materials for both Staff Development and Student Support and with on-going projects for PILS and the Arts Faculty. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Universities of Durham and Teesside.

Bibliography

Select Publications and Papers

  • “Edmund Burke’s ‘Enquiry’ and the Baroque Theory of the Passions”, Studies in Burke and His Time Vol.XII, No.1 (Fall 1970).
  • “Eighteenth Century English Prose”, The Year’s Work in English Studies, Vol.54, 1973 (1975).
  • Contributions on major eighteenth century writers for Writers in English (1980).
  • “Life Long Learning: Some Limitations exposed”, Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. VI, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Educators and Scholars, Los Angeles CA, March 1998.
  • “The Never Ending Story”: Narrative Paradigms in Learning”, Scholar and Educator, Vol.22, Number 2, (2000).
  • “Love authorised by reasonable prospects: Literal and Figurative Landscape in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ “in Transactions - Jane Austen Society (Midlands, Issue No.11), 2000.
  • “The Sublime and the Picturesque: the Discovery of the English Lakes”, in Cumbrian Perspectives: Papers presented at the Arts Faculty Staff Conference at Higham Hall 2001, ed. B Morden (2002)
  • “Working with Light: vortex and apocalypse in the paintings of John Martin”, in Northern Connections: Papers presented at the Open University (North) Arts Staff Conference at Higham Hall 2002, ed. B. Morden (2003).
  • The Gothic” in The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2004).
  • “Painter of Apocalypse: the work of John Martin”, paper presented at the British Association for Romantic Studies Conference (2006)
  • “When the Fourth Horseman Rides”, in Cholera and Conflict: 19th Century Cholera in Britain and its Consequences ed. Michael Holland, Geoffrey Gill & Sean Burrell (Thackray Museum Publishers, Leeds 2009)
  • “The Four Horsemen: Apocalyptic Signs and Symbols of the Romantic Period”, in The English Review, Vol. 19 Number 4, April 2009)
  • Currently working on an inter-disciplinary study of the impact of Darwinism on 19th century culture for publication in The English Review, November 2009.
  • Also In progress: a study of the work of the painter John Martin: expected date of publication 2010.

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