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Patrick Andrews

Adobe connect sessions

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One of the most striking features of Adobe Connect sessions is that they are very unpredictable.  Sometimes, I have 20 students or more and sometimes it is just one student.  There certainly seems to be very little relationship between how many have signed up for the tutorial and how many actually attend.

I have had a couple of one to one sessions over the past few days and thought that they worked well.  It meant that I was able to get to know the student and work flexibly with them.  In both cases, there were some interruptions for family reasons on the student's part and they were able to disappear for a few seconds to deal with them and then we could resume the tutorial.  It also meant that we could focus on what the student felt they needed to focus on and pass over or ignore what was less important to them.

I had spoken with friends who had been teaching online in a university where tutorial attendance was compulsory and they found this hard to visualise and they asked questions like "how do you prepare if you don't know how many students come?"  I suppose the ability to be flexible is a key part of working at the Open University.

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Patrick Andrews

A new EAP initiative

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Edited by Patrick Andrews, Tuesday, 12 Feb 2019, 15:35

There seems to be a very useful EAP initiative at the OU where students are referred for one to one help and I am hoping to be involved in this.  I have had some referrals already but one student withdrew before making contact and another two have not yet replied.

This kind of support seems to be very useful and seems similar to the way pupils are supported with linguistic needs by teachers at school rather than taking separate English lessons.


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