Supporting students

The benefits of peer mentoring for students studying in Higher Education are well established and have been demonstrated in online, blended and hybrid settings. Best practice in establishing financially sustainable schemes in online settings at a large scale is under researched.

Residential schools are essential for accreditation of our engineering qualifications by Professional Engineering Institutions and they have had to be temporarily replaced by a set of practical engineering activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Having taught on project modules at HNC, HND and final UG level (T452), I have observed that the most intense tutor engagement is when discussing possible topics.

The correspondence tuition that tutors provide, via the TMAs, is a key part of our teaching and support to students and represents a major investment of time and effort by tutors.

The objective of this small-scale study was to create a tutor free, active learning environment where students feel at ease to discuss and work on skill-based problems together.

Predicting the passing probabilities of an online module has always been an interest in higher education. It helps in planning, decision making, providing feedback to students and also in helping students work around any difficulties or milestones that are predicted to affect their results.

Welsh-medium education has attracted increased attention over the past 50 years. Much research has been conducted in secondary and higher education contexts, including the teaching and learning of mathematics in Welsh.

According to the social constructivist model of learning, social opportunities are considered to be important in an educational experience for their positive influence. The principle is that the learning can be reinforced through the interaction with others.

In OU STEM online tutorials, speech by students is seen to be rare. Evidence of this is provided by a sequence of studies, starting from the early days of online tutorials. However, students do speak in online individual support sessions (ISS).

At the Open University (OU) we are still learning about the best way to support our apprentice learners in their academic study. Degree Apprentices are learners in full time employment with study funded through the apprenticeship levy and other government sources.