Earlier this year I wrote a short post to summarise a TM112 tutor briefing that took place close to the Open University headquarters in Milton Keynes in March 2018. The aim of that event was to introduce the module to tutors, enable them to meet each other, and form them to ask questions.
Since TM112 Introduction to Computing and IT 2 (OU website) starts twice a year (once in April and again in October), this blog post is a summary of the second TM112 briefing.
In many respects, this briefing was really similar to the first: members of the module team introduced the different blocks of the module, I spoke about some of the ideas behind the group tuition strategy, and we looked at a marking exercise to get a feel for what kind of teaching we would be doing.
There were three parts of the briefing that were (to me) particularly memorable.
Python programming
The first part was a talk by Richard Walker, who is an associate lecturer and member of the module team. Richard spoke about ‘Problem Solving with Python: approaches and projects’. A point I noted down was that a common issue in the teaching of programming is a lack of emphasis on the importance of problem solving skills. Also, there is a misapprehension that programming can and should be fun, since it is an inherently creative activity. Also, importantly, students can have misleading mental models of what happens within a language. Whilst learning programming can be difficult, it is important to nurture what is known as a growth mindset; that it is possible to get better and develop through practice.
Computer Security and Privacy
The second part was presented by Mike Richards, who also gives what is called the ‘guest lecture’ on TM112. Mike introduced theme 3: information technology in the wild. He spoke about CIA: confidentiality, integrity and availability, recommended that students created what was called a diary of reading (to collect news stories about cybersecurity). He also said that the module introduces encryption, mentions the dark web and blockchain before mentioning a case study of a high profile cyber attack. He concluded by touching on wider (and important) issues of freedom of speech and the way that algorithms can potentially influence our lives and civic debates.
Tutorial planning exercise
During the briefing, we were divided up into groups, and asked to create a hypothetical plan for a tutorial that was connected to a module topic. Our group comprised of myself and two other tutors. We were given the topic of ‘location based computing’. What follows is a rough tutorial plan. If you randomly find this blog post, do feel free to borrow, modify and steal this plan!
- Use a poll to ask everyone their views about location based computing. Are students: happy, unhappy, worried, or don’t know.
- Begin a discussion to ask everyone if they have any examples of location based computing, and also to get an appreciation of what everyone understands by that term.
- Sharing of examples: one example that was discussed was a technology to keep track about where your child or partner is. Whilst this can help with safety, it also has privacy implications too; every technology can be used for good and bad things. Another example are the alerts on your mobile phone which appear after visiting places. Are there issues about using of social media? What is exposed when you tweet or update Facebook? There are some positive examples too, such as sharing maps of areas where you have gone running.
- One interesting idea is to demonstrate location based computing using some Python code. Tutors might demonstrate how pins can be added to Google maps, or there could be a service to show how far everyone is from the university head office in Milton Keynes. This could be done by screen sharing from a tutor’s computer.
- After a final closing discussion or a summary, the tutor could present everyone with a second (anonymous) poll to see if anyone has changed (or developed) their opinions.
Reflections
I always like tutor briefings, and I especially liked the tutorial planning activity; I can’t remember ever having been a part of this before. I also really liked the ideas that we came up with. A personal confession is that I’ve not used polls within my own online tuition practice, and that is something that I feel that I need to figure out how to do. I also need to learn how to get a more thorough understanding of how to use screen sharing too.
During my part of the briefing I said, ‘by the end of this module, tutors will be teaching in innovative ways and doing things that the module team had never dreamt of’. I firmly believe this.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the two fellow tutors who contributed to the discussions about the above tutorial plan. You know who you are!