Fourth year English and German student, Saule discusses below how the online tools at The University of Manchester have helped her to grow over the past year.

Online learning

Although it took me a couple of weeks to get used to online classes, I am enjoying them now. What I’ve noticed is that I have more opportunities now to get to know the topic, by not only attending lectures and seminars, but also by watching pre-recorded videos, by doing pre-and post-lecture tasks and by having active discussions boards on Blackboard.

Tutors often employ what is called a ‘flipped classroom’ method: Students have to watch pre-recorded materials, comment on them, do tasks, complete readings before the class. As a result, we have much more time during lectures and seminars to discuss our individual understandings, raise problems, ask questions and delve deeper into the titbits of the topic.

Online academic support

If you are struggling with academic writing – don’t worry! The University Language Centre provides Academic English workshops for students who want to improve their academic writing and grammar. This semester I’ve enrolled on the three following courses:

• Sentence Fundamentals (Academic Grammar)
• Colour and Shade (Academic Grammar)
• Making Meaning (Academic Writing)

Each of these courses consists of four weekly interactive workshops, with each class lasting 90 minutes, but you can leave earlier if you need to. I highly recommend these workshops as they were a good stimulus for me to strengthen my English grammar, learn new vocabulary and practise academic writing.

My Learning Essentials

Another highly useful resource provided by The University of Manchester Library is a programme ‘My Learning Essentials’. Here you can sign up for workshops, listen to podcasts and find online resources for almost every possible topic, ranging from academic writing, group work and dissertations to finding a job, critical thinking and revision strategies. The ones that I’ve tried so far and enjoyed immensely were:

• ‘Citing it right: Introducing referencing’: This resource gave me a new understanding why we have to reference and provided guidelines on how to decide on the right citation method in a specific situation.
• ‘Now or never? Understanding the procrastination cycle’: This resource helped me to understand the reasons behind my procrastination, pushed me to explore my feelings and think about the strategies that could help me to overcome procrastination. I believe that once you recognise your problem, you are able to fight it.

The information in My Learning Essentials is presented in a very clear and entertaining way and includes practical activities (but it doesn’t take too much time to do them!). 

I wish that I had discovered all of these forms of support at the beginning of my first year at Manchester and I hope that you will be able to make good use of them.

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