...... sometimes they are just too far away.
This is my 4th Open University course, so my 4th tutor and my 4th set of tutorials, and thankfully this hasn't happened to me yet, however, it does appear to happen quite often to many other students.
It appears that as a general rule tutors will have no more than 20 students per course to look after, and in my experience tutorials have never had more than 50% student attendance, and an attendance of 35% (7 out of 20) would be unusual.
So why is it that there seems to be so many people that would like to go to tutorials, being allocated tutors that are simply far too far to make attending tutorials viable either in terms of travelling time and/or cost. While students who aren't going to attend tutorials are allocated local tutors.
Could the Open University not simply ask students registering for new courses to tick a box to indicate if they will or will not be attending tutorials. That way students with no intention of attending tutorials should not be allocated a tutor until after those who wish to attend tutorials have been allocated whatever local tutors are available.
C'mon Open University, this seems a fairly easy solution to a common problem.
4 comments:
Your allowed to attend any tutorial that is closer to you. So all those people would have to do is ring the regional center and let them know the would like to attend X instead of Y.
Yes, but it's not with your tutor , and some tutors are very specific about what they expect in the TMAs they will be marking.
The point is that there are students who don't go to tutorials, and have no intention of ever going, who could be allocated tutors at the other end of the country with no detriment to their study who are 'taking places' at local tutorials of others who through lack of places have tutorials miles away.
It doesn't seem difficult for the OU to ask people when they sign up for courses to indicate if they will not be attending tutorials, and therefore allocate them tutors after those wishing to attend tutorials have been allocated their tutors first.
It should be a simple administrative change that helps some without disadvantaging others.
You could give this comment as feedback at the end of the course. I think I might nick this idea off you and do it myself.
We don't get tutorials in Europe any more which is a bit of a swizz (when I first started we did). So I also get a bit narked when people can't attend who want to, because they are too far away from their tutor.
Hi Sho,
I will suggest in the course feedback, but quite happy for you to do the same, seems to me a sensible idea so quite happy for as many people to suggest this to the OU.
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