How to participate

Asking questions is at the heart of learning, exploration and discovery. As the Chinese proverb puts it, "He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever". Asking questions is just one way of actively participating in your learning. Let’s explore some others.

Contributing to group work

Effective group work involves management skills. The team needs to communicate, agree roles and deadlines, and above all listen to and trust each other, as you work towards a common goal. Remember, you can't play all positions. In a moment, we'll see how you can contribute to this process.

Responding to feedback

We all need feedback, in our social lives as well as our studies. But useful feedback is rare. It can either seem too critical ("I didn't understand that") or too uncritical ("Great, great. Love it") or too general ("Could try harder") or too specific ("Doesn't your spellchecker tell you there's a double m in 'accommodation'?"). We'll look at how to gather good feedback and how to effectively respond to it.

Communicating with tutors

Some tutors may appear too important or too distant to communicate with successfully. But your tutors are here to help; that's their job. We'll look at ways of interacting with your tutor, so you get the most out of what they have to offer.