Birkbeck
always focused on teaching that can be
combined with your working life.
Now that used to mean evening lectures
in our central London campus and we hope
that before too long it will mean that
again,
but given the uncertainty about covet 19
we're currently making the promise
that if you need it we will provide
teaching
online throughout the coming academic
year.
Now one big advantage we have in making
this promise is that we're able to build
on a lot of experience we already have
in teaching online and not just from the
lockdown
uh for the past three years in our
graduate diploma economics program we've
actually
had distance learners participating
entirely online
alongside our face-to-face students,
taking the same assessments,
assessments so when it came to the
lockdown we could build on all of this
experience
when the whole college switched to
online learning
and we're going to continue to build on
this experience uh in the coming
academic year.
So have a listen to what some of our
students have to say about their
experiences
of online teaching in the department.
During lockdown obviously face-to-face
lectures
uh were called off because the risk of
Covid 19
um and then actually from the next week
we were doing lectures online.
When we went into the lockdown I guess
it was very unexpected for
everybody, we started having lessons
online,
which was a bit different than going to
the actual university, but the advantage
of it
is that you could actually study from
your own home
and from your own personal space, I guess
and you didn't have to
go to uni when it's cold and dark and
when the weather is not that great and
also because it is an evening study
I guess it is an advantage to come home
straight after work if you
if you do work full time like myself i
knew that Birkbeck was known for
its uh delivery of courses either in
evenings or you know outside of
conventional
uh teaching settings and I knew that I
wasn't going to be able to do
a course physically in person so I was
looking for an online
version of a course but equally I wanted
the qualification to be identical to
that which someone would get if they
were attending
in person they were very well prepared
for it so I think
as soon as I started the course it was
clear that they really thought about how
to make this,
you know, they had distance learners in
mind. It was also
nice having the lectures recorded and
being able to go through it through them
at your own pace
um because you can stop and make sure
you've understood what,
what is being talked about before moving
on. From a
perspective of the actual learning, to be
honest I didn't
find it to be much different than
attending the lessons,
apart from the social interaction with
other students
um, sort of outside  of the
lectures
it was actually quite the same and the
social interaction once you got going
online
I felt was was really good. What's really
helped me is
is the time time management and um
actually taking it very
seriously and getting into a routine and
that's really been the only way
that I've been able to um get through it
and
but it was so helpful that I actually
enjoyed it so I sort of
you know I was sort of enjoying sort of
the lectures and
and learning this sort of new material.
It was a bit
more difficult to focus when you are in
your own home, very often you just want
to do different things,
not stay in front of a computer and
actually study
but I guess this is something you need
to work on yourself and just
get yourself motivated somehow and
start doing it. I mean just for me
personally,
I know some people like struggle to work
at home, but for me personally,
um I just I value the fact that
um frankly I just don't have to get up
get up as early and if I need
um if I need to start an hour late or
finish an hour later that that is,
that is a possibility, like I find that
just very helpful.
The assessments I guess they were pretty
much the same because you still had to
do it at home regardless. Also you know
we had quizzes every week which we still
had to submit online, so that was all
pretty much the same, nothing changed.
When it comes to exams that was
something new,
I must admit, I've never done anything like
that before
and you do it at home it's a bit like
whoa
it is easier in a sense that you've got
access to all your materials.
So if you're not sure about something
you can check it.
Also the time was longer, which was
helpful I guess because you you did
have to scan the material at some point
and send it through,
So, yes it was it was definitely a new
experience, but
overall very positive. Yeah so
the exam experience is actually really
good, I mean we had
a lot more time for the exams because
we need to submit the exams online.
The actual format for submitting was
really easy because we were really used
to it already
and it was exactly the same method that
we use for submitting assignments every
single
term, so there was no kind of new process
really to follow it was all very similar.
We had extra time which was great um and
doing the exam from home
was a lot less stressful to be honest
because you don't have the kind of waiting
outside
exam hall kind of nerves, you can just do
it within your own home. Which is pretty good.
 
