School teacher Andy Brooks, a graduate of The Open University’s (OU) Masters in Online and Distance Education, tells us about how his MAODE study helped him to successfully move his teaching online.
Andy Brooks writes:
The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to adapt to distance learning, something that I never would have imagined for kids. As a teacher who transitioned from industry to education later in life, I would have found it exceptionally challenging to make the switch to online teaching. However, my experience studying my MAODE provided me with the skills and confidence needed to transition to online teaching during the pandemic.
The course’s focus on effective lesson design helped me create engaging and interactive online lessons, ensuring that my students had access to high-quality education from home. By experimenting with various online tools, I found new ways to make learning fun and engaging for my students.
In addition to enhancing my teaching skills, the MAODE course provided me with the opportunity to extend my research skills and showcase my ideas at an online conference. It was a fantastic experience where I was able to learn from other educators and see how technology was being implemented in education in novel ways.
Looking back, I am grateful for my experience studying the MAODE. It gave me the skills and confidence to adapt to online teaching during the pandemic and provided me with the opportunity to develop my research skills and showcase my ideas at an online conference.
Interested in finding out more about The Open University’s Masters in online teaching?
In 2023 we launched the OU’s new Masters in Online Teaching, an innovative postgraduate programme exploring the ways that new media, digital pedagogies and cutting-edge educational technologies can be used effectively and equitably, across multiple sectors, to engage diverse learners and meet their needs. The programme offers flexible study pathways featuring a choice of topics, study intensity and study timing, and the option to include credit from a select postgraduate microcredentials.