FutureLearn courses open for registration
The following free, online courses will open for registration on FutureLearn, the social learning platform.
Talk the Talk: How to Give a Great Presentation
Open University
Start date: 21 July
Lead Educator: Marshall Anderson
This six-week course introduces the mechanics of effective, persuasive oral presentations, by giving you the opportunity to analyse examples and then create your own. Using resources such as TED Talk videos, you will see how experts deliver professional talks and famous speeches, observe what works, and identify how language connects ideas and keeps a listener engaged. You will find your own examples of impressive presentations, share and discuss them with other students. And you will work to create and practise your own talk, which you will record and share with your fellow learners, receiving and providing feedback.
Getting a Grip on Mathematical Symbolism
Loughborough University
Start date: 15 September
Lead Educator: Tony Croft, Professor of Mathematics Education
This course is aimed at those who aspire to study science or engineering foundation courses at university level. Through an accessible introduction to graphical and algebraic techniques students will start to think mathematically and develop an informal understanding of vital properties of points, lines and curves before formalising mathematically some of these essential notions. Mathematical processes are described in everyday language with a user-friendly approach. New ideas are developed by example and discovery rather than by formal proof. Further development will introduce the equation of a line and the significance of its slope and vertical intercept.
Loughborough University
Start date: 20 October
Lead Educator: Dr Julie Holland, Director of the Glendonbrook Centre for Enterprise Education
Introducing something new or innovating is easy in theory but hard in practice. New ideas can be plentiful, but selecting the best ideas and implementing them can be challenging. Managing the innovation process is neither a scientific process nor a black art. In order to make sense of this complex topic, we have created a model for the innovation process and its management. The course will describe the process; the way the innovation pathway works from creation of new ideas to their selection and implementation. We will study four main areas that influence this process: the person or people involved; the possibility of coming up with new ideas and making them happen; the protection of ideas through intellectual property and how this can help/hinder the innovation process; and the practice of turning an idea into a new product or service.
