Whatever subject you are studying or qualification you are studying for, contact with your teacher or tutor – even when remote – is an invaluable part of that process. They are usually the subject experts, have a full understanding of the assessment process and have, more often than not, supported many other students who felt exactly the same as you do now about their learning. Whether you are confident in your subject knowledge and looking for ways to stretch yourself in order to achieve the very best results or are still a little uncertain and unsure how you might secure the grade you need, your tutors can provide you with the support you require. Here are a few simple strategies every student should try in order to boost the benefits of the contact they have.
Put simply, meet their expectations! If they provide a task, complete it. If they set a deadline, meet it. If you have a meeting, be there. Programmes of study and assessment schedules are in place to meet the needs of everyone; ensuring that there is adequate time for covering all of the content, assessing progress and providing feedback. A tutor works with many students and if you don’t adhere to the plan then you are unlikely to get the time you deserve. If there is a problem with the schedule set out for you, talk to your tutor in advance so that they can make any amendment they possibly can in order to make sure that everyone’s needs are met. If a tutor sees you are committed to your learning and doing what is required they are likely to go above and beyond in the ways in which they support you.
As already mentioned, the tutor is the subject expert. They have the knowledge of the subject but also the ways it is assessed and how to ensure you can demonstrate it when required to do so. Listen to their advice. Take notes where required. Follow their suggestions. However, if there is something you are unsure about, don’t be afraid to ask! Questioning is key to developing a deeper understanding and mastery of a subject but is also a great tool in ensuring there have been no miscommunications or misunderstandings. Your tutor will respect your ability to really engage with the content you are covering together and look for ways to address your questions in more detail.
Receiving feedback is one of the most important parts of the learning journey. However, many of us find getting feedback something that is really, really hard! Instead of thinking about what is said by your tutor as being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, try to consider what you can learn from it instead. If you are given praise for a certain aspect of your work, think about what you did that made this so effective. If there are comments relating to something that hasn’t worked out so well then think about what you might do differently next time. Reflection is key to making progress. Also, apply the same thought process when it comes to your attitude to learning. If a tutor comments on this, avoid taking it personally and think of how you might use what they have said to become a more effective learner.
Don’t forget that any contact that you have with your tutor is designed to benefit YOU. If you are in need of something specific from that contact then, again, do not be afraid to ask! In reality, this involves planning and preparing for any contact you have before you have it. Make a note of any questions you have when studying independently. If you need to revisit any material with them, ask in advance. If you have found a subject area particularly easy or hard, let them know. Remember, your tutor will be looking to support you in a way that is personalised to meet your needs too, so the more effectively you’re able to communicate these, the better they will be able to do this.
Due to their flexible nature, and the fact they can be studied from home, modern students are starting to seriously consider online undergraduate degrees.
There has been some scepticism about the credibility of online degrees in the past. The BBC reported several years ago on the prevalence of fake courses. The existence of these, as well as fake institutions and falsified certificates, made for a bad reputation. However, we shouldn’t tar such institutions with the same brush anymore. In fact, quality distance learning has been around for a long time. The well known Open University has been offering credible degrees of this nature for decades now.
Most recently, there has also been an increase in the number of traditional bricks-and-mortar universities offering online degrees. The University of Essex, The University of London, and The University of Derby are among these.
An Online Degree presents a great opportunity for students looking for a more cost-effective, flexible way to study, then. But one important question that must be asked is, what do employers think of them?
Research by The Open University has produced results showing that there is increasing respect among employers for online learning. They found that nearly three quarters of those surveyed believed online courses to be valuable when hiring new employees and promoting existing ones. It’s also true that there is likely much greater trust with employers now than there was a few decades ago, due to the fact they can see modern online degrees are now backed by credible institutions. In addition, the UK government has given employers the ability to go online and check if a university is an officially recognised institution.
As you can imagine, it’s a new field and there isn’t much research around. It’s likely that as credible online degrees become more normal, the attitudes of employers are likely to shift further in favour of online undergraduate degrees. Even if you don’t want to go all-in with an online degree, there are other options. Why not hedge your bets and do a blended degree, combining flexible online learning with face-to-face tuition?
One of the biggest challenges of exam season is scheduling revision according to your exams timetable. Especially since it is entirely possible that you will have multiple subject exams in one day.
Start by having your exam timetable in front of you. This will be the base of your revision timetable. The timetable will allow you to visualise the space you have in between exams.
Now that you can see this, schedule your revision in those spaces and divide your time accordingly between subjects for upcoming exams. I have purposely not advised you to divide your time equally. This is because for you, some subjects might need more time than others.
The art of prioritising is the key to success when revising in between exams, or even trying to manage the revision of multiple subjects at the same time.
Here is the definition of ‘revision’ from the Collins Dictionary – “read things again and make notes”.
Note, it does not state that it involves learning new things.
So, when you are revising, focus on reinforcing topics that you already know. You may touch on new bits of information which you learn, which is fine. But you shouldn’t be aiming to learn entirely new topics.
This is where prioritising comes into play. You should be prioritising the hardest topic, or the one you feel the least confident on. It is tempting to avoid this because it doesn’t feel good to struggle. But to get the most out of your revision, this is the way to make something you find hard a little bit easier.
This goes hand-in-hand with prioritising. Look at your timetable and make a realistic judgement of how much you will be able to cover during the space in between.
If you overload your plan, and do not take relaxation into account, your revision won’t be effective. It will also affect your state of mind and lead to stress which in turn, will affect the quality of your revision and exam performance.
Hopefully, these tips will help you think strategically and make the task less overwhelming. Good luck!
Patterns of work and employment change over time as science and engineering discover new materials and more efficient production processes to satisfy our constant need for goods and services. These processes create new opportunities, but all too frequently destroy established communities. Over the next 10 years current advances in IT, robotics and artificial intelligence are forecast to wipe out over one quarter of the of the occupations we now associate with white-collar professional work in, for example, law, medicine, banking retail services and commercial occupations. The “working class” experienced the phenomenon early in the industrial revolution, it is now the turn of the “middle class”.
Robert Halfon, chairman of the Educational Select Committee, wants the present system of secondary education to be scrapped, with GCSE and A levels replaced by a mixture of arts, science and vocational subjects – a baccalaureate curriculum as is common practice in Europe and the USA.
The British educational establishment have a track record for rejecting change, but often it has been for valid reasons; a lack of financial support, inadequate numbers of qualified teachers, difficulties in tame-tabling across a diverse range of subjects and last but not least the continual disruption of school management. Hence there are fewer opportunities, outside colleges of further and higher education that cater for students aged 16 and over, to introduce vocational subjects into schools, such as accountancy.
Far more important in the present climate, though, are the budgetary constraints in a period of continuing austerity. This situation makes it almost impossible to allocate resources (in terms of staff and practical facilities) and provide an innovative, mixed curriculum. Nor is it certain that middle class parents would be happy to see the GCSE “Gold Standard” exam at 16 abolished – or, similarly, high-performing grammar schools, who could see their specialist A-level 6th-form diluted. Both GCSE and A level examinations have acquired a certain cache in our deeply class-conscious society. Further, the proposals raise questions for those secondary schools without sixth forms and would be devoid of any focus on public examinations. Either money would have to be found for them to introduce the new curriculum from scratch, or they would have to be phased out, with the inevitable negative impact on local communities.
It is also likely that universities, who wield considerable influence on schools, might object that the new proposals would dilute academic attainment at 18. They would cite particularly those students wanting to study medicine, despite the fact that the same universities have been very quick to address the concerns of industry that their graduates are ill-equipped to face the challenges of work in the “real world”. This objection is likely to be the principle concern of the Russell Group of top universities led by Oxford and Cambridge. The British system is a hierarchy, in which the top echelons jealously guard their traditional status and social prestige.
However, trumping all these objections are the pressing concerns of the inadequate funding of the current system. Before introducing any more new innovations there are multiple issues to address; the inability to recruit and retain specialist teachers for one, to provide textbooks for another, and to fund the liberal arts subjects, especially music. The maintenance of good quality language teaching is equally vital.
In the 1870s Germany began to overtake Britain as a manufacturing nation. One of the contributing factors was that they developed specialist schools and universities as equals of their gymnasium provision. For this to happen in modern Britain we need a cultural change amongst the middle class, to accept that getting one’s hands dirty in a school workshop or lab is okay.
As part of the government’s move to widen choice in education, International GCSEs are now being taught in state maintained schools as well as in the UK independent sector and internationally. IGCSEs have been included in the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) list of approved qualifications since 2009.
Similar to GCSEs, IGCSEs are accepted by further educational institutions world-wide, and in the UK. Unlike GCSEs, however, coursework is not compulsory, and assessment is by written examination at the end of a course of study. Whereas GCSE examinations must be sat in the UK, IGCSEs can be taken around the world in approved test centres.
At Oxford Open Learning we have developed a suite of new courses according to Edexcel IGCSE specifications so that our distance learning students are not held back by GCSE controlled assessment requirements, and can opt to sit their exams wherever they may live across the world.
Edexcel have recently announced that their specifications for Edexcel Certificates in English Language A, English Literature, and Mathematics A have all been accredited by Ofqual, the government’s qualifications regulator. These now join their existing portfolio of IGCSEs. This means that these subjects are now eligible for state funding and school results in these subjects now count towards school league table points. Edexcel are currently awaiting accreditation of their science courses: biology, chemistry, physics and general science.
At Oxford Open Learning we currently offer the following IGCSE courses:
We are currently developing IGCSE courses in Physics and Science and expect these to become available by September 2012.
If you would like to study for IGCSEs by distance learning, please contact us to discuss your needs, and one of our student advisers will be pleased to help you.
If you need to find an exam centre to sit your IGCSE exams, please see our exams pages to find out what procedure you need to follow.
If you want to check out your nearest exam centre outside the UK, Edexcel International will show you where to find it.