To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.
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Imagine if the next feedback from your tutor simply said ‘great’ or ‘I like it all, carry on’. I’m betting that you wouldn’t quite know what to do or how to progress. It’s your tutor’s job to give praise and encouragement but also to point out areas that need addressing. Feedback given by your tutor […]
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Leading on from our last article on study tips, we tackle the next item in our mini-series: organisation and preparation.
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The learning log is possibly the most essential part of the student experience, however at times it can be the least understood aspect as students embark on a course.
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Anyone interested in pictures and representing the world ought to find something here of value. As an accessible primer on those issues it’s hard to beat. Read it, go and look at some of the work discussed in it, then re-read it.
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Sketchbooks are personal and can reveal much about how a student goes about the business of discovering and learning. I like to see books that are bursting with work as it is generally evidence of a submission full of speculation and discovery.
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A New Dictionary of Art is an absurd project, but a serious one and, to paraphrase a final definition from page 131, ‘makes the ordinary seem extraordinary’.
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‘My Sketchbook is a witness of what I am experiencing, scribbling things whenever they happen’ Vincent Van Gogh
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At the recent assessment a large drawing caught the eye of the assessment team and I wanted to single out this piece as an example of what can happen when a student follows the logic of their research. I was lucky enough to be Gwenyth’s tutor for Drawing One and during a Google Hangout session for the third submission it was clear that one subject — a large rock near her home in Sweden — meant a lot to her.
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Beginning my first Level Two course last year, I had confidence I would be just fine; happily settled after receiving a pleasing result at assessment for my previous course at Level One. I flew through L2 Developing Creative Textiles, sure I knew what my path and career specialisation would be. As far as I was concerned, I had developed my “style”… All I had to do was repeat it.
A stark shock came at assessment, when I got a much lower mark than expected. Why? I questioned; with my confidence in tatters.
OCA students, like other Art and Design students, are often told by their tutors, the assessors and the assessment criteria to put their work into context, to contextualise it. So what are you being asked to do and why?
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