Current Undergraduates
Our Approach to Blended Learning and Online Delivery
The Department of Philosophy prides itself on providing a research-led teaching and learning experience. Normally we achieve this by primarily face-to-face teaching methods in physical lecture spaces and seminar rooms. While this will not be achievable for larger classes in the early part of the coming academic year, we do aim to return to it when it becomes sufficiently safe to do so.
In line with the university’s strategy, in the coming academic year we will take a blended approach to teaching and learning. This involves a mix of face-to-face teaching, on the one hand, and online enhancements for remote learning, on the other. We aim to make blended learning not just an alternative to the norm, but to use online teaching tools effectively to improve engagement and the general learning experience. The department has been thinking and talking a lot about this already and taking as much advice as possible.
Our approach to blended learning has been designed to make it easy to switch to teaching fully online if necessary; for example, in the event of another UK lockdown. Obviously, we hope it does not come to this, but health and safety is a priority.
Lectures
Lectures will be given online. The majority of lectures will be ‘asynchronous’. This means that they will not be live at a specific time and date, but pre-recorded and ready for you to download, view and re-view at a time that suits you. This helps to ensure the maximum possible participation and will also help to avoid the technical problems that can occur with live activities. There will, nevertheless, be some ‘synchronous’, live activities to help recreate the social community feeling of a face-to-face lecture. These could be workshops, Q&As, guest lectures, or other interactive activities.
Seminars
For seminars we are mostly planning face-to-face delivery. The university aims to accommodate seminar groups in larger rooms than usual in order to ensure that social distancing measures will be met. You will know as well as we do that seminars perform a very important function for our discipline in particular: they enable us to talk to each other and share our ideas, thoughts and questions. This is why you have always had a seminar for every module and we aim to keep these in person insofar as it is sufficiently safe to do so.
Online Resources
Online learning resources and platforms will be more important than ever for keeping up with your studies. You will already be familiar with Moodle and Tabula and you may also have used Talis Aspire for online reading lists. These will remain crucial to your learning. Some of you will have become familiar with using Microsoft Teams if you have engaged with some of the support activities that happened over Term 3. Teams is the university’s preferred means of video conferencing because it is compatible with our computing accounts (along with the entire Microsoft 365 suite of software) and it is therefore more secure for us to use than other similar platforms. You will be seeing a lot more of MS Teams in future, especially for any live lectures or workshops on your modules. When teaching begins, your lecturers and tutors will keep you as informed as possible about what online learning resources and platforms they are using to make sure you can engage.
Returners' Information Sessions
Returner’s information sessions will be provided online at the start of the new academic year for returning Philosophy students. As usual you will be welcomed back and you will also be reminded of all the information in this message, as well as any important new updates and developments.
Academic Support and Student Wellbeing
Academic staff in Philosophy will continue to provide one to one support, either in person or online, through advice and feedback office hours or by arranging an appointment by email. You are encouraged to stay in touch with your personal tutor as normal, including regular personal tutor meetings every term. Please remember your personal tutor may be different to the person you had last academic year. You will be able to check who your current personal tutor is via the “personal tutor” tab on your Tabula profile from the start of term (making sure you have selected the 20/21 academic year). In the meantime, if you require advice and support you can still contact the personal tutor you had last year.
You are also welcome to seek advice and support from our acting Director of Student Experience and Progression (David Bather Woods, d.woods@warwick.ac.uk). Questions about extensions and mitigating circumstances should be directed towards your personal tutor in the first instance, but will also be answered by the departmental Senior Tutor (Stephen Houlgate, Stephen.Houlgate@warwick.ac.uk). You can also contact our departmental office as normal with general queries about your course (e.g. module registration, timetabling) at philundergrad@warwick.ac.uk.
You are encouraged to re-familiarise yourself with the services offered by the university’s Wellbeing Support Services. You can also contact Alpha Coyle (Alpha.Coyle@warwick.ac.uk) who is the wellbeing adviser linked with our department.
Study Choices
You will recall that we requested that you pre-register for next year’s optional modules back before 22nd May. This was for the purposes of estimating numbers and demand to help with room-booking, timetabling and workload planning.
Please be reminded that you will still be required to register for your chosen modules in September/October using the separate Online Module Registration system (eMR). You will be asked to do this when you are asked to re-enrol for the new academic year.
Check our departmental website for a reminder of optional modules next year. If you have any questions about the process of registering, please check the module registration FAQs page and if you’re still not sure please contact the departmental office (philundergrad@warwick.ac.uk).
Skills and Employability
Please be reminded that our Senior Careers Consultant, Stephanie Redding (S.Redding@warwick.ac.uk) will be available for careers support and advice. You can make an appointment with a careers advisor using the university’s career webpages or with MyAdvantage. Please consider browsing these pages for other forms of career support and opportunities, including job search advice and interview support. Philosophy also has its own moodle page with information about careers support and advice.
Weekly skills support sessions lead by the acting Director of Student Experience and Progression will take place during term time. This will include sessions on essay writing, note taking, referencing, and other important skills. These are likely to take place online and include pre-recorded materials to ensure the maximum possible engagement.
Please also be reminded of the Philosophy Study Skills Moodle, which offers advice on philosophy-related skills. It includes information about essay writing in Philosophy as well as details of our marking criteria. You can also use this Moodle to submit the introduction or thesis-statement of an essay (up to 350 word) for feedback. During term time, you will be able to book one to one appointments for support with your skills.
For any library skills and resources you may need, please be reminded that our departmental library is Kate Courage (Kate.Courage@warwick.ac.uk). The library is currently working very hard to ensure that it will offer an enhanced range of e-books and other online learning resources. This will help to ensure that the
Student Experience, Community and Voice
With so many new changes and challenges on the horizon, student voice has never been more important to us. For this reason, we have already introduced a Moodle page to support the Staff Student Liaison Committee (SSLC). You will find a link to a form to submit comments and suggestions for improvement to be heard at a future SSLC meeting. There is also a list of current course reps and notes from previous meetings. Submitting your feedback is an excellent way to contribute to the departmental community as it will help to shape and improve our approach to teaching and learning and the student experience. Even better: please consider running to become course rep at the beginning of next term and become a member of the SSLC yourself.
Further Updates
It is always important to read emails from the and the university in order to keep informed about updates and developments. We know that everyone, students and staff, receive a high volume of emails and that this can be stressful. We do our best only to contact you with things we think you really need to know.
A good strategy is to put aside a set amount of time to check your email inbox regularly (rather than either checking back multiple times every day or checking very infrequently) and to make a list of important senders (e.g. the Philosophy Department). In the regular time you put aside to check your inbox, you could make it your aim to read the messages you have received from your important senders. With so much change we all need to keep up to date with what is going on, but we also need to practice a bit of inbox self-care too.
Before the start of the new academic year, you will receive an update from us about using the physical space around the department.
Please also keep up to date with the University Guidance for New and Returning Students.
If you do have any questions, please always feel welcome to get in touch.