Learning together

Your learning

You will learn by watching videos, reading articles and publications, checking your understanding in the quizzes and test, and through discussion with other learners.

Comments

Almost every step encourages use of the comments area, where everyone can comment and discuss the course material. We encourage you to use social learning: to share your thoughts and ideas. Some of the course’s Steps are Discussion Steps. Please take a look at FutureLearn’s Social Learning Tips and for more details see FutureLearn’s Learning Guide.

Use these ideas to help you to make Comments and to join in the Discussion Steps:

• Write comments for sharing with others
• Read your comments and responses through before posting
• Make constructive comments – critique the idea, not the person
• Write what you would also say face-to-face
• Some learners do not have English as their first language, so always try to write clearly
• Remember that learners vary in culture, age and experience
• Explain any acronyms you use and avoid jargon if you can

If you read a comment that you think might break FutureLearn’s Code of Conduct, report it to FutureLearn’s moderators for review by clicking the flag button beneath it.

The course will take about 3 hours a week. It may take more or less time, and this depends on a number of factors, such as your learning preferences, your prior knowledge and experience or how much time you have available. We encourage you to:

• Learn when it is best for you and at a pace that suits you
• Use the quizzes to help you: to track your learning, recall and apply key concepts and reflect
• Press the ‘Mark as complete’ tab as you complete each Step

At the end of each week we share a summary of your key discussion points and give you feedback.

Free Certificate of Achievement

If you are interested in obtaining a free digital Certificate of Achievement, you will need to score 70% or above on the final test and complete 90% of the steps in the course.

Re-using the course materials

Unless stated otherwise, the materials on this course are published under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA. This permits non-commercial re-use without asking for permission. We encourage you to download, adapt and share these materials for teaching and learning. And remember to acknowledge Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences when you use the materials.