… and the clock is already ticking, with just 13 days to go before I need to submit a 1,000 word early assignment. The topic for the assignment is on how different approaches to psychology contribute to an understanding of personality differences within a work setting. Hmm.
On the face of it, the assignment seems relatively straightforward. There’s also the opportunity – or rather the requirement – to contribute to a discussion within the course forums before I have to commit my ideas to paper.
But (and there’s always a but), it’s obvious that considerable reading and independent research is expected … so it’s not just a case of regurgitating ideas and arguments from the course material and set books. The ‘scavenger hunt’ method of study I used on the OU SD226 (biological psychology) module a couple of years ago is definitely going to come in useful for this assignment … plus, of course, the way it encouraged to write what otherwise might have been 2,000 word essays in 800!
Fortunately things look as if they will become a little less frantic with more time to research and reflect properly after the early assignment as the next one isn’t due until 9th December.
I’m already stating to notice differences between Leicester’s approach to distance learning compared to that of the OU. Some of them are good things, others less so. For example:
- No assignment extensions are allowed. Marks are lost for late submission on a sliding scale, but you are allowed to submit extenuating circumstances forms which may be taken into consideration.
- The marking scale is different: <50% = fail; 50-59% = pass; 60-69% = merit; 70%+ = distinction. I really don’t understand why the full 0-100% scale isn’t used everywhere. After all, if you can only realistically achieve a top mark of around 80%, then the mark given isn’t a really percentage, is it?
- The virtual learning environment (Blackboard) works far more intuitively than the OU VLE (Moodle). It also seems to work well on my iPad. However, the experience is far better through the browser interface than through the Blackboard App, which is frankly a disaster area.
- You have to buy (or borrow) the set books for the course, rather than being provided with them as part of your course fee as at the OU. I’ve just spent the best part of £100 on three books (ouch). I don’t mind that, but it was annoying not to be provided with the set book list until Sunday! I’d have ideally liked to have obtained a couple of them beforehand – they would have made good summer reading!
One other curious fact is that Leicester only seem to employ teaching staff called Katherine/Catherine. Well, not really. But there are quite a lot of them. It reminds me a little of the Monty Python ‘University of Wallamaloo’ sketch where everyone is called Bruce (to avoid confusion, naturally).