The last day to wrap up Practical 2 - the cloud chamber - was yesterday. As I strongly suspected, not that many students engaged with this activity so in the early hours of this morning I emailed my tutor and asked if I could implement their contingency plan. This involved reviewing a presentation from one of the few students who had uploaded theirs but was actually meant for somebody else. With only hours to go before the tutor deadline, I received feedback on my own presentation, so I can reflect on that and add my response in the TMA. I really can't blame other people for not getting involved with this malarky, and the fact that only ten out of eighteen in my tutor group have uploaded their own presentation, let alone review another student's, speaks volumes really.
I've had a few tutorials since last I typed. On Tuesday I had a tutorial on how to tackle TMA03 from one of the better tutors. As always, they gave 'no nonsense' sound advice about what was required. All tutors differ though, and what is 'right' for this tutor might be very wrong for the one who actually marks my work.
On Thursday, I had a tutorial by an OU stalwart who, to be honest, had probably seen better days. They appeared to be using someone else’s slides, which is never good, and also got a bit lost towards the end, and started not to make much sense. The tutor admitted this as much themself, so it’s not an overly harsh criticism. Particle physics is not easy, and lots of students and teachers alike struggle with it, so it's fair enough.
Last Saturday, I had the tutorial that was postponed from exactly a week previously. It was scheduled to last for two hours, but the tutor managed to knock it off in a mere one and a half. According to LinkedIn, this tutor had worked at the OU for 52 years, so almost from its very beginnings in 1973. (The OU admitted their first students in 1971). This was another tutorial on particle physics, which is the topic that we are all on at the moment, if we follow the study calendar. It's difficult to judge, but I would have to say that this one was slightly better than the Thursday version on the same subject. The tutor went off on tangents in places, and again appeared to be using someone else's slides, but I think it just had the edge. There was a bit of a 'Joyce Grenfell' vibe to the whole proceedings, especially at the start, but it seemed just slightly more coherent.
On Monday I had another (the second of two) tutorials on TMA03 planning by my own tutor, the one who marks my assignments. They seemed to think that screenshots of electron orbitals were acceptable, but according to other tutors, and hinted at in the module materials, they are not really. Conflicting opinions on how to tackle assignments is always a bad thing to have to think about, but there was some good news. The tutor expressed a very positive preference for using Excel to plot the decay curve graph, which means that I can use the graph that I've already produced without having to redo it by hand.
There weren't that many attendees, but these tutorials can get a bit heated at times. One old duffer claimed that he couldn't find the assignment question and/or the part in the teaching materials that the question referred to. The tutor did their best to direct them without losing their rag, and more or less managed it, but another student had to step in and mediate. You could tell that both were starting to lose their patience as it went on for a lot longer than it should have done. It was touch and go at times. It reminded me of the very old Hale and Pace gag. "I don't like conflicts - in fact I don't like any breakfast cereals".
At lunchtime on Tuesday - always a bad time for a tutorial - I had the third of three on how to tackle TMA03. I could tell by the number and type of questions asked that this assignment causing a few problems for other students. It wasn't helped by the conflicting advice or information that the three different tutors gave for the questions on the TMA. This one said absolutely no screenshots of electron orbitals, freehand sketches only. The first said freehand sketches or computer graphics package but not screenshots. Tutor number two said screenshots are OK, hinting in places at a preference for them over any other method.
Similarly, for the radioactive decay graph, there was a 'hand drawn only', a 'hand drawn but Excel if you really must' and an 'Excel preferred but hand drawn acceptable' difference of opinion. The number of slides required for the PowerPoint presentation was also a bit ambiguous. Between 6 and 10 seemed to be the nearest we ever got to a consensus, but it was far from definitive. Tutorials are really designed to make things clearer not more confusing so I'm beginning to doubt their worth really.
On Wednesday I had the last of the particle physics tutorials. This one was a deep dive and facilitated by one of the better tutors, an OU staffer. It definitely went into the topic in depth, so it did what it said on the tin. There were no attention seeking idiots at this tutorial, which made for a much better experience.
On Thursday I had a 'skills' tutorial on 'Using radioactive decay as a dating technique' with the same tutor that I had yesterday for the particle physics, and there was a lot of overlap in the two subject areas. This was a tutorial in two halves really. The first part was practicing half-life calculations, which is a very useful skill. The second half lost its focus a little bit and drifted into luminescence and dating the age of pottery, which was a personal interest of the tutor but not particularly relevant to the course. It was an hour well spent though, and I can say that I've had a lot worse evenings. A lot worse. No really, I have.