MA in Creative Writing

One of the great things about working at The Open University is that staff are able to study a course at the University every year free of charge. Not only does this enable us to develop our skills and knowledge, it means we have first-hand, up-to-date experience of what it is like to study at the OU alongside a full-time job. We don’t have to think back to how things were when we studied many years ago, we know how it feels in today’s environment.

I’ve studied a couple of modules in the past but over the last few years I’ve taken on a bigger challenge, and in November I was notified that I had successfully completed the MA in Creative Writing. Not only that, but my husband and eldest daughter also completed the same qualification at the same time, so it was a triple family celebration.

Studying online

I’m convinced that one of the reasons that the online teaching at The Open University, where I work, is so good is because so many of us have studied online with the University. Staff have the option to study a module each year free of charge, and many of us take up that opportunity. We work through undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees, even doctorates, with the OU. Doing this helps us to understand the experience of an online student, of a part-time student, of a student studying while holding down a job and bringing up a family.

This year, I’ve been working as academic lead on microcredentials at the University. This has given me the opportunity to try a course with another university, to find out what the experience is like for microcredential learners, where problems arise, and how we can overcome them.

During lockdown, I studied Data Science at postgraduate level with Monash University, an enthusiastic cohort of students, and a study advisor who went above and beyond the call of duty in order to help students understand the material and do well.

I now know more about using R, I’ve enjoyed creating a data dashboard, and I have first-hand knowledge of the experience of a microcredential learner. Next step as a student is  a year-long study break before signing up for a Creative Writing module at the OU in autumn 2021.

MSc (RMET)

In 2004 I applied to do a PhD at The Open University. My application brought together my experience with education and computers:

My hypothesis is that creating and maintaining virtual international communities requires the involvement of the whole-school community: pupils, teachers, school leaders, governors and parents. I plan to assess virtual international communities as created by primary schools and create a model of best practice. This model will be informed by recent theory concerning the development of networks of trust, and will be based on analysis of virtual international communities which link the UK and New Zealand. At primary level, the most successful relationships are likely to be those between English-speaking schools. There are already British Council structures in place for linking schools in the two countries, supported by Montage New Zealand

I was accepted by the university, but had to begin by studying for an MSc in Research Methods in Educational Technology, which involved a year studying discourse analysis, ethnography, basic skills and survey methods. In addition, I completed a dissertation, and was awarded the MSc (RMET) in 2005.

BA (hons) and MA

I went to school in Preston, Lancashire – Queen’s Drive Country Primary, Fulwood High (now Fulwood Academy) and WR Tuson College (now Preston College). I’m mentioned briefly in my primary schools’s fiftieth anniversary blog post.

After leaving school, the first stage in my academic career was an honours degree in English from Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Royal Holloway College was originally a women-only college, and its university scarf is in the suffragette colours of green, white and purple. While I was there, I researched the life of an ex-student, Emily Wilding Davison, who died when she stepped in front of the king’s horse at the Derby as part of the campaign for votes for women. The article I wrote on her life, In Praise of an Extremist,  was subsequently published in the feminist magazines Spare Rib (UK) and Broadsheet (NZ) and is now available online, thanks to JISC.

A few years later, I completed a part-time Masters degree at Birkbeck College, University of London, in Early Modern history. My dissertation, on the Dissolution of the English Convents, was written online and saved on now-unreadable Amstrad computer disks – leaving only a couple of faintly printed versions surviving.

PDF of the Spare Rib article on Emily Wilding Davison