Projects

In line with colleagues in many other institutions, the Religious Studies Department at the Open University has adopted a pedagogical emphasis roughly known as the ‘lived religion’ thesis.

A key objective of this project is to find ways of ensuring that students are on the right pathway and make the right qualification choices at the outset. This will help to improve the learning experience of students and support retention and progression.

Since March 2020 many of us have had to move to working from home using our home internet whether as Wi-Fi or data.  As well as work shifting to online, The Open University also moved all its tuition seminars online.    

Following two successful small-scale pilots in 2015 and 2017 the current project evaluates the upscaled peer-to-peer mentoring scheme rolled out in the Open University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 2020 - 2023.

This project responds to a practical problem faced by members of the module production team on the new English MA (A893).

Phase 1 has been completed, and an application for Phase 2 of this project has been approved in principle and is being refined in light of feedback received from the FASSTEST Coordination Group and EDI team. Details will be available soon. 

Anyone who has taught via online platforms will be aware that some students find it hard to engage with this medium of learning. Many students sign up to such sessions but do not join on the day, whilst others do not sign up at all.

The idea for this scholarship project stemmed from the search for alternative routes of professional development which can be offered to Associate Lecturers (tutors).  The recent changes in teaching practice following the introduction of the group tuition policy in 2016 brought a shift