Monthly Archives: July 2023

Ticket to success

community of practice, MAOT, success stories

Kulvir Bahra, a graduate of our Masters in Online and Distance Education, tells us what his study and graduation have meant for his career and the roles he has taken on.

Photo of Kulvir Bahra
Kulvir’s graduation

Kulvir writes:

I studied on the MAODE qualification from 2015-2020 and attended my OU graduation in 2022 at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham.

The study experience stretched me in many ways and I was able to apply my new found knowledge quite rapidly into the specialist fields of Learning Design and course production.

As a learning designer at Coventry University Online I was able to use my skills gained from studying H817 ‘Openness and Innovations in e-Learning’ by using a group project as the theoretical building blocks to assist academics in scoping and storyboarding the postgraduate module content.

Since then I was fortunate to work as a learning design officer at Warwick Business School and carried out student workload analysis across a range of modules in global banking qualifications and distance learning MBA modules. This was an important piece of work as this allowed the students to organise their study schedules around their work and family commitments.

More recently having been an OU student, this has enabled me to understand more about seeing the learning materials from the students perspective, which allowed me to understand the learners journey and help inform my practice in future new course productions. From this I was able to guide faculty teams around technical issues around accessing content from library services. One of the key takeaways that I took forward was to ensure that learners were not overwhelmed with too many assimilative based learning materials as this would be disengaging. Being a student myself enabled me to see the online learning materials as the ‘gold standard’ of what good looked like at postgraduate level of study, which helped me to benchmark best practice and to ensure the learning materials were rigorous and of the highest standards.

My final module H819 prepared me for writing my first research paper by honing in on my skills in researching and writing a literature review. By having the opportunity to be guided step-by-step and into how to carry out my research from keyword searches and forming my research questions to planning the methods and dissemination of my findings, this gave me an immense sense of achievement towards leading and co-publishing a research paper which was published earlier in 2023 with the US based research journal First Monday.

Overall, I believe that my study at the OU enabled me to inspire my family as my eldest child plans to go to university having observed the positive effects OU study had on my career progression. One of the many positive outcomes of studying at the OU was that I gained a promotion 2-3 years into beginning my qualification. This boosted my confidence immensely and gave me a competitive edge when I was applying for my first role. 

But after graduating, my study never stopped there, as I continued to pursue more learning opportunities, from badged open courses on OpenLearn, a range of FutureLearn and Coursera courses, to a range of editorial courses which helped sharpen my skills in proofreading, copy editing and skills gained in collating references and citations. I am indebted to the network of students whom I studied with which helped me to progress and become a proud ambassador for the OU IET MAODE alumni community. Currently I work as a Digital Development Manager in the Stakeholder and Alumni Engagement team in the Faculty of Business and Law looking after the digital strands of the web estate by monitoring and evaluating websites across the business and law schools at the OU.

 

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.

Find out more about the OU’s MA In Online Teaching here.

 

Unexpected Opportunities

community of practice, higher ed, MAOT, research, success stories

MAODE tutor Victoria Wright reflects on a student-tutor relationship that keeps on delivering…

When tutoring a group of students on the MA in open and distance education, (MA ODE) in around 2016, I remember the day that a student contacted me. She was working in Kazakhstan up by the Russian border and was having difficulty because sometimes she could only receive in Cyrillic!

Photo of Denise, the student
My past student and co-author looking very pleased with herself after finding our books for sale in the bookshop in Cambridge.

We got to know each other a little better and she moved to head up a school in China soon afterwards, then returned to the UK a year later.

I had been asked by Cambridge University Press to write a book for the International market, iGCSE ICT, and asked to suggest a co-author. I thought of my ex-student, Denise, because the quality of her work was known to me and she had good classroom experience around the world. We then met up in the hotel at Euston Station for lunch to decide on an overview of the book with the contracting manager.

Denise and I have now written around 10 books together, for students and for their teachers and have become close friends. Denise comes to stay with me in our holiday home in France once or twice a year, and we have never looked back.

It makes me think of the unexpected opportunities for those who study a Masters with the Open University can lead to!

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.

 

 

My vision of the future of education: Online schools

community of practice, educational futures, higher ed, MAOT
A photo taken from behind of a young woman looking at a person speaking on a laptop screen.
An illustration of online schools. Photo by Giovanni Gagliardi on Unsplash

Kathy Chandler, MAOT Lecturer in Online Teaching, writes:

My vision of the future starts in the recent past. Online distance education has been my area of work for many years. Online teaching was of little interest to most educators until 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, and suddenly the screen became the portal through which every teacher and every learner had to operate. There was a huge surge of interest in my research into online tuition. My little-read journal article published in 2016 about using breakout rooms suddenly became a seminal work. All educators wanted to know how to teach effectively online.

For higher education, even after the pandemic ended, online alternatives became the new normal. Students now value flexible and blended options and universities are making these options available. There is still more work to do to ensure that online learning is accessible, inclusive, engaging, and fun but more and more educators are developing the necessary skills.

But what about students in schools? Schoolteachers also developed many skills in online and blended working during the pandemic, but once the lockdowns ended, UK policy makers insisted on a return to ‘normal’. For many, this has been impossible. There has been a huge rise in the numbers of children and young people struggling with mental health issues. When school becomes a place where children and young people feel even more sad or anxious, online education is a very attractive option.

Many schoolteachers have also found benefits in moving online and the number of private companies offering online schooling is growing apace. A browse of their websites and policies shows that quality varies markedly. I suspect there is a big difference between how it feels to be a child required to keep their camera and microphone on constantly from day one and being in an environment where this is something to build up to gradually as confidence grows. This year the Department for Education identified a need for this space to be regulated and established the online education accreditation scheme (OEAS).

Those typically attending online schools include young celebrities needing flexible timetables, children with parents whose well-paid work requires frequent travel and those in other countries whose parents can afford a private British education. They also include children in poor health, those who have been bullied or excluded and those with special educational needs that have not been met elsewhere. For many families, finding the school fees is impossible but there are currently no plans to provide online state schools in the UK as there are in some parts of Australia for those who need them, for example.

My hope for the future of education is that every learner, regardless of age, will have the option of an online or blended education, which will be available at no extra cost and that their experience of learning is accessible, inclusive, engaging, and fun.