This is the continuation of my previous post "My Experience at Sussex during the autumn term".
Programmes and Courses: The University of Sussex offers foundation, undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree programmes in Arts and Science. There are 13 Schools of Studies and 22 departments on the campus. These Schools and Departments have different undergraduate degree programmes which are specialised in certain areas. The duration of the undergraduate degree programme is three years and it is credit based. The student has to decide the degree programme at level 1(first year of study) and accordingly right courses are to be chosen which are most relevant to the final year. The undergraduate courses have certain number of credits. A student is required to take 120 credits in an academic year. The academic year has three terms - autumn, spring and summer. The credits a student can take at different terms of an academic year are- autumn or spring only - 48; autumn and spring terms combined 96; spring and summer terms combined 72. The credits of courses are multiples of six. They are either 6, 12, 18, 24 or 30. Sometimes there are 15, 30 and 45 credits at the final stage of undergraduate programme. The credit is determined by calculating the required learning hours on the basis of 1 credit for 10 hours of learning. The credit volume reflects all student effort, including independent work and assessment such as formal taught contact hours, independent or guided study, revision and assessment.
Students have the freedom to select courses from different levels (years) and combine courses from different disciplines to construct their study programme. Many combinations are possible, subject to timetable compatibility and agreement with the academic advisor.
Teaching: Each course has a course convenor and it is the responsibility of each convenor of the course to organise the course contents, method of assessment and time table to implement the course. The duration of the winter course was 10 weeks (4 Oct. - 10 Dec.). This information is available to the students for all the courses (that too at different levels of degree programmes of the University), before the beginning of the autumn term of the academic year, through an online learning environment of the University of Sussex called “Study Direct”.
Students have the freedom to select courses from different levels (years) and combine courses from different disciplines to construct their study programme. Many combinations are possible, subject to timetable compatibility and agreement with the academic advisor.
Teaching: Each course has a course convenor and it is the responsibility of each convenor of the course to organise the course contents, method of assessment and time table to implement the course. The duration of the winter course was 10 weeks (4 Oct. - 10 Dec.). This information is available to the students for all the courses (that too at different levels of degree programmes of the University), before the beginning of the autumn term of the academic year, through an online learning environment of the University of Sussex called “Study Direct”.
I found the course contents of all the courses on the Study Direct. Each course had a specific course code, (e.g. C7004 for cell and Molecular Biology), level, credits, term and academic year. All the course contents were uploaded under certain subtitles like Outline, Resources, Assessment, Teaching and Contacts. These subtitles gave the information on course learning outcomes, course contents in brief, lecture wise power point slides, reading material such as books, journals and web based resources. The titles and dates of submission of essays, assignments were also known to the students. Study Direct also provided the information on practicals and seminars. In the pre-practical sessions, procedure to carry out the experiments in the regular practicals was available for students. The type of assessment, its weighting and schedule was mentioned. Ten weeks' teaching schedule specified the course code, term, academic year, the name of tutor, day, time, name of the building where the lecture/seminar is held, room number and week pattern. The contact details of the course convenor/s and tutors with their details like the name, place of work, email address and office contact number was available for students on Study Direct. Only the students who had registered for the course could access Study direct.
The lectures were held in lecture theatres if the number of students registered for the course is high (300) or in lecture halls if it is low. Seminars were conducted in the smaller class rooms (seminar rooms). The Lecture theatres/halls and seminar rooms have multimedia facility including computer and PAS. Lectures were podcasted. All the tutors confidently used technology while teaching. The duration of the lectures and seminars were one hour each. The initial forty five minutes of the lecture class were utilised for teaching the course and the last fifteen minutes for discussion and solving the subject difficulties of students even though the tutor provided an opportunity for interaction while teaching. The seminars were conducted in groups and each group consisted of 15-20 students. Certain points raised in the lecture class used to form the base for discussion in the seminar class.
Please look for learning process and more in my next blog.
Seminar room
No comments:
Post a Comment