Navigating the course

Below is some information on how to navigate your way around the course and advice on how to make the most of the experience.

Navigation and progress

At the top of the page:

• ‘To Do’ will return you to an overview of the course
• ‘Activity’ will let you navigate the comments made by you and other learners
• ‘Progress’ will show you how far through the course you are

Get extra benefits, upgrade your course

You can now get extra benefits by upgrading this course, including:
Unlimited access to the course: Go at your own pace with unlimited access to the course for as long as it exists on FutureLearn.
A Certificate of Achievement: To help you demonstrate your learning we’ll send you a Certificate of Achievement when you become eligible. Find out more

Your profile

If you’ve not filled in your profile yet, please do so by clicking on the link in the top-right corner of the page.

Further reading

Keep an eye out for links to further reading at the bottom of each step. This material is not essential to completing the course but will provide a valuable opportunity to deepen your understanding of the course content.

Social learning

There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the content with other learners. This collaborative reflection will enable you to share your understanding of the course material, read how others have interpreted it, and discuss the questions raised. Comments do not need to be long well-thought-out essays. Often, short thoughts or questions can provoke interesting avenues of conversation.

Discussing the material can often be the best way to clarify your own thinking on a topic and will enable you to listen to and reflect upon alternative viewpoints. Some of the content explored in the course will inevitably provoke disagreement. It is fine to critique each other’s contributions, and learners should not see disagreement as a personal attack, but please try to disagree constructively and in a way that treats other learners with respect. Remember, you are there to help each other. Please see the FutureLearn Code of Conduct for further information and note that any behaviour you consider unacceptable can be flagged for the FutureLearn moderators’ attention.

There will often be a question at the end of a step, which will provide a stimulus to provoke conversation on the content. Responses can be written in the comments at the bottom of the page. Other Discussion steps will provide more focused opportunities for discussion.

At the end of each week you will find a Summary step. This is a good place to ask any questions you still have about the week’s content and to help each other explore them. Hopefully many of the questions raised by learners in earlier steps will be addressed in later steps of the course. However, the summary step is a good space to discuss any outstanding questions.

You can find further information about how to sort and ‘like’ comments, how to follow other learners, and how best to take advantage of social learning opportunities here.

Why not share your first thoughts by answering the question below in the comments at the bottom of the page?

Question: What do you already know about the humanist approach to life, and what are you hoping to get out of the course?