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As meetings to plan tuition delivery for the next academic year start to populate my diary, I find myself revisiting the report from a longitudinal scholarship project on attendance, attainment and completion I and several colleagues within the English and Creative Writing department at The Open University (OU) completed last March. Although the project focused very specifically on our current undergraduate English Literature students, some of the findings are likely to be transferable, perhaps even beyond our online, distance learning model.

by Cora Beth Fraser, Associate Lecturer in Classical Studies

The objective of the Relaxed Tutorial Project was to see what would happen if common sources of social anxiety were removed from the online teaching environment. What would a ‘relaxed’ learning experience look like?

Can you explain briefly what your project is/was about?

The project was focused on giving Associate Lecturers guidance on how to help students to work with their feedback more effectively. Specifically, the project was picking up a format of feedback used in many different fields, from personal training to performance reviews at work – SMART goals. These are really clear ‘action steps’ that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic; Timely – many people have heard of them but they are not often used in classrooms of in higher education (so far!).

Two FASSTEST scholarship projects presented papers at the Advance HE Teaching & Learning Conference, held at Keele University from the 4^th – 6^th July 2023. Both papers were presented in the first parallel session, so there was good attendance and interaction.

The Annual Conference of EDEN Digital Learning Europe was held at Dublin City University 18-20 June 2023.

It’s mind-boggling that, while 82% of White students obtained a first or a second upper class degree in 2019/20, only 64-79% of Black, and Minority Ethnic (B.A.M.E.) students, depending on their ethnic grouping, did so (Higher Education Statistics Agency [HESA], 2021).

In a previous blog post, I outlined why and how I had sought to add to the existing efforts to promote the explicit and embedded teaching of good academic practices.  The wider remit of the scholarship project in which I was involved at that time was, in fact, underpinned by three questions I had often pondered and had not had a chance to investigate during my time as Academic Conduct Officer at The Open Univers

Creative Writing inhabits an unusual place in the academy. A well-established and rigorous academic discipline, it also maintains a relationship with commercial publishing with many of today’s successful writers having an MA in the subject. 

The aim of our scholarship project, The Next Chapter, was to understand the career aspirations of students on the Open University’s MA in Creative Writing, and to develop teaching and assessment to support them. 

Open University Art History modules have offered optional face to face gallery visits as part of their tutorial offering for decades. Experience shows that there are a number of both tangible and intangible ‘tried and tested’ benefits of these visits for students who might not have many opportunities to do this.