Getting the most out of your learning

Learning at Coventry University

Coventry University believes that a good student experience is central to learning at a world-class standard.

The Coventry Way

At Coventry University Online, we’re committed to a supportive, flexible and dynamic approach that puts the learner firmly at the heart of everything we do.

Thanks to our partnership with FutureLearn, we are ideally placed to provide an online learning experience that is engaging, dynamic and carefully designed to ensure the best possible chance of student success.

In recognition of this learner-centred approach, Coventry University has previously been named ‘University of the Year’ by Times Higher Education and awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

Learning together on FutureLearn

As you work through the courses in this ExpertTrack you’ll see opportunities to add comments at the end of most steps. There might be a question or problem to discuss, an opportunity to share an experience or link to an interesting web resource, or just a chance to check in with others taking the course.

ExpertTracks are unfacilitated, so you won’t see the educators in the comments sections; instead it’s a space for you to work with other learners. The comments are a rich source of extra learning beyond the steps, so don’t forget to make the most of them.

FutureLearn features

If this is your first time using FutureLearn, take some time now to get familiar with the platform. If you’ve studied on FutureLearn before, you might find some useful features.

As you move through each course step, take some time to note important ideas to revise later for assessments.

At the top of each page you will see three tabs:

The tab to the right- ‘Progress’ – shows you what percentage of the course you have completed, and the results of any on-platform assessments.

The centre tab is ‘Activity’, where you can see who has been active most recently across the course. You can filter this activity by; all comments, comments you have bookmarked, your comments, and comments by learners you are following.

The left tab is ‘To Do’ which gives you a preview week by week of how the learning will be organised into activities and steps, as well as showing your progress through the steps and activities using colour coding.

Following other learners

If you see a learner comment that interests you, perhaps from someone who has a similar background or opinion, you can Follow them by clicking on the prompt next to the learner’s name. This will then allow you to view the comments of learners you are following across the course via the activity tab. You can also filter comments on each step by clicking on the Show: dropdown menu at the top of the comments and selecting Following

Filtering and sorting step comments

Often on courses learners comment that there are so many comments that they feel overwhelmed or guilty for not reading everything, but don’t worry, we’ve developed a shortcut. You can filter step comments at the comments feed so that you can see only comments by learners you are following, or according to the most liked comments.

Liking, Replying, Bookmarking and Reporting

At the bottom of each learner comment you will see these options:

If you appreciate a comment, then Like it! Even better, if you have a comment you can Reply to the learner and start or add to a conversation.

Bookmarking comments allows you to mark comments that you find particularly interesting and would like to come back to later.

Occasionally on courses, learners may write something that may be offensive or triggering to other learners. Each comment has a small flag icon with Report next to it. FutureLearn has a Code of Conduct which learners must follow. If you read a comment which contains something offensive to yourself or others on the course, simply click on the flag to report the comment with FutureLearn’s third party moderation team. You will see a drop down menu appears, where you can indicate the type of complaint and add extra information.

For more information learning on FutureLearn, we have a Crowdsourced Guide to Learning and 5 Useful Tips and Tools for Social Learning.

Get the conversation started:

Which of the platform features do you think will be most useful to you? We believe we learn best when we learn together, so let’s get the conversation started.

Please take a minute to introduce yourself and share your thoughts in the comments below.

Don’t forget to ‘like’ and reply to other learners!