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DD100 |
A103 |
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DA204 |
DA290 |
A297 |
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AA310 |
AA312 |
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This module ran for 10 years, which is about average for the OU, and I did it during its mid-life in 2004. Not only was it a course in its own right, it could also be put towards a degree qualification and this is what I ended up doing. I was attracted to the designatory letters that went with it, Cert SocSci.
I had nothing to compare it
with as it was my first experience with the OU but it seemed quite modern and up to
date as far as I could tell. Quite a lot of the course, especially the first
few weeks, was teaching the student how to learn. Examples included time
management, taking notes, writing in your own words, and referencing.
Looking back on it, there is no doubt it was a very good
introduction the OU way of doing things and learning at HE level in general.
There were television programmes which accompanied the course and these either
had to be watched live on BBC2 in the early hours of the morning, or recorded
and watched at a more reasonable time. There was also a study skills video
supplied on VHS, which appeared to be a bit of an afterthought. Ten audio
cassette tapes completed the Audio-Visual aspect of the course.
The written material consisted of 5 small-ish textbooks with
5 accompanying workbooks. I personally found the workbooks a bit annoying and
distracted from the ‘academic stuff’ in the main texts, but I’m sure other
students appreciated them. The areas covered were Criminology, Sociology,
Psychology, Human Geography, Politics and Economics. It gave a good foundation
to all of these Social Science subject areas. The Politics and Economics blocks were quite
heavy going compared to the other disciplines.
My tutor was an academic in the International Relations
Department from the University of Kent who had just been awarded a PhD from the
University of Stockholm. I think he was just using tutoring for the OU to prop
up his relatively poor full-time wages. He was OK as a tutor. Not overtly
friendly or approachable but fair and reasonable, nonetheless. I got 82% on this course which I was very
pleased with because it was my first experience with the OU and the first time
I had studied the social sciences.
A103-05B An Introduction to the Humanities
This module ran for 11 years, and I did it mid-life in 2005. This also was a qualification in its own right and led to Cert Hum. It was however a very different course that DD100. The texts were very old fashioned and very much in the 'book bashing' tradition with minimal introduction to studying with the OU or study skills. There was some evidence of a mid-course review because the introduction looked newer than the rest of the course and had non-course team authors. I remember there was some non-assessed preliminary work on War Memorials that I found a bit tedious, not to mention patronising. The formative first assignment on Silent Spring looked like a bit of an afterthought as well.
Rather unusually there were 32 television programmes to accompany this module - one for each week - all of which had to watched on BBC2 in the early hours of the morning or recorded. I only found one of these remotely relevant to the course, the other 31 were just for general interest only. I can't help thinking this was a waste of resources.
Like most foundation courses, a wide area was covered but in little depth. The subject areas were: Philosophy, Classics, History, History of Science, Literature, Music, Art History and Religion. I enjoyed all of them except for History of Science, which ironically I was looking forward to the most. It didn't seem to be written in the same style as the other subjects, for some reason.
The course concluded with the interdisciplinary topic 'The Sixties' which divided the cohort somewhat. I found it OK but others loathed it. The tutor on this module was a bit strange. He referred to his students as 'Fishers' and disappeared abroad for a few weeks over the summer where he was incommunicado. All his tutorials were held at a distance involving a webchat type of arrangement that I didn't bother with.
I did slightly better on this module that the first one and scored 83%.
DA204-06B Understanding Media
This module ran for only 5 years and I did it in it’s first year of presentation in 2006. It was the first and last proper 'media studies' type module that the OU offered, although they had been running an MA in popular culture for a while.
I did this module for a number of reasons. Firstly media studies has a bad reputation regarding its academic worthiness and I wanted to see for myself what it was like. Secondly, it was a part-social science part-arts/humanities course and since I did the two corresponding foundation courses in both of these disciplines I felt I was ideally prepared for it.
It was a good module but not without its issues. It was more of a social science course than a humanities one and it was a good step up in difficulty compared to level 1. For a media studies course it was remarkably light on audio visual and media resources. The interactive DVD in the educational materials provided was never actually used in the teaching of the module.
My tutor was very good. She was a psychology lecturer who had won tutor of the year a few years previously and was very highly regarded. She really engaged with her students and showed a lot of enthusiasm.
The exam was held at Bishopgate Institute by Liverpool Street station in London. In the row of 12 or so places laid out in the exam room only 4 students attended. A lot must have dropped out. I remember at some point during the year I was told that the three tutor groups in the London region were merged into two and my particular tutor took on the responsibilities of the merged cohort.
Nobody was more surprised than myself when I was awarded a distinction. An adjustment of the grade boundaries by the Award Board meant I moved from a Pass 2 to Distinction.
MA290-07B Topics in the History of Mathematics
This 30 point module ran for 21 years between 1987-2007 and I did it in 2007, the last year of presentation. It was a very good module but definitely showing its age when I did it. Many of the original course team had either retired or died. The module was offered for so long because the OU had nothing to replace it with, so they kept it going for as long as possible. History of Science and Medicine was once a thriving research area of the OU, but at some point it had stopped being so.
I had a particularly miserable tutor. I never found out much about him and had no idea where he worked or what he did. He was quite pessimistic and did everything he could to demotivate me, but my love for the subject kept me going. I obtained my best ever exam mark for this module both in the assignments and the exam at the end, but no thanks to him. The exam was at Bishopgate Institute like the one the year before. I remember I had a cold at the time but it didn't appear to affect my performance. I was more than pleased when I was awarded a distinction.
A297-08B Reading Classical Latin
I did this 30 credit module in 2008 which was in the mid-stage of its life. It was my least favourite module and I was lucky to scrape a pass with a 'Pass 4' . My end of year exam mark was a very low 43%. After I had sat the exam I was convinced I had failed and had 'World Archaeology' lined up as a replacement module just in case I couldn't face the resit. Some students did very well on this module, and enjoyed it a lot, so it was very much a marmite course. It was not evenly paced. The first third or so of the course went too slowly and dragged terribly. The mid-third was about right, and the last third was rushed and not properly explained. I never really got a handle on it.
The books provided were very old fashioned and were described by some members of the course team as 'unforgiving', which I would not disagree with. There was some attempt to 'bridge the gap', so to speak, by the course team providing copious supplementary material to support the somewhat dry third party text books, but this just made the course materials unwieldy and confusing in places. I was lucky to have a very good tutor who went above and beyond her responsibilities to support and encourage her students. I'm glad I did Latin as part of my qualification profile but probably wouldn't want to do it again.
AA310-09B Film and Television History
This was probably my favourite module I have studied with the OU and was quite light in terms of workload considering it was worth 60 credits at level 3. I did it in 2009 towards the end of it's 9 year life. The highlights were the extended essay on the rise and fall of the single play in television and the 'kitchen sink' dramas of the 1960s and 70s. The lowlights were the rather eccentric and contrary tutor, and the films we were expected to watch. Some were supplied on VHS tape, which were archaic even for the time, and others were not supplied at all. Some of the European cinema examples were particularly hard to obtain.
I was convinced that the tutor wasn't marking the assignments properly or engaging with his students appropriately. He wrote comments such as "Goof" and "Hood" instead of "Good" on returned work. For one assignment, I was criticised for not including any pictures, so when I included one in the subsequent assignment I was criticised for "including it for mere adornment". We were asked to contribute to a Wiki that he had set up, and when a student made a contribution they were chastised for altering it. I made a complaint about him using the complaints procedure, which appeared to lead to nothing at the time, but a few weeks later I noticed that his attitude changed towards us somewhat and the marks he was awarding were higher than before. I wasn't complaining at this stage and just went along with it. I was pleased to get a distinction for this module because I enjoyed the subject even though my personal tutor did little to enhance the learning experience, or even facilitate it.
Shortly after I did this module, the OU discontinued the media studies offering for their Social Science and Humanities degrees, which was a shame.
AA312-10B Total war and social change: Europe 1914-1955
This module ran for 13 years and I did it mid-life in 2010. It was the hardest module I did as part of the degree. The amount of reading was enormous. It wasn't helped by the set book, Europe 1880-1945 by J M Roberts, which was so bad that even the tutors admitted it was unreadable and recommended better alternatives. My tutor was from the 'hard but fair' school which suited me very well. I got behind on this module several times and my tutor always gave me an extension. The marking was very thorough but always fair. He was an OU stalwart who had worked for the OU for over 25 years. As far as I am aware, he is still there.
I remember going to an optional day school at the OU London regional centre in Camden Town on a Saturday as part of this module. Like a lot of OU events, it was thoroughly disorganised, we were packed into a room far too small to accommodate us all, and the other punters were about as friendly as a rattlesnake in a lucky dip. Lunch, or any other refreshment facilities, were non-existent and we were sent out to fend for ourselves at lunchtime. I took this an opportunity to abandon the rest of the event and not go back in the afternoon. I wasn't enjoying it and I didn't want to prolong the agony.
I enjoyed this module on the whole, although it was showing it's age in places. I really liked researching the history of the welfare state for the extended essay because I have always had an interest in this area of social history. I got a Pass 2 for this module, but I consider myself lucky that I didn't get a Pass 3 because I was borderline between the two grades.