Transcript
KAREN REX
You may have thought that in studying MU120 you’d only be learning mathematics, but has it actually turned out like that? I expect you found that you are actually doing many other things as well as mathematics. It’s often the case, isn’t it, that when we embark on a journey we pick up lots of new things, but we also use our own personal skills and experiences to help us along the way.
Starting MU120 is like beginning a journey. The main aim, clearly, is to get involved with doing and learning about mathematics, so that you can improve – for whatever reason. But in getting involved in learning mathematics you need to be able to do other things as well. And often, the better you are at doing these, the easier the journey. That’s what we’ll be exploring on this band. We’ll be looking at some of the skills you’ll be using and developing while doing MU120. We’ll be talking about how they can be described and assessed, and how useful they are. So, first of all, let’s try to identify some of these learning skills. In fact you’ve been using them already while working on the course. You’ve certainly had to get things done on time, learn by yourself, grapple with the calculator and wonder what to do when you got stuck – and, of course, sort out all the paper from the OU.
Try to make a list of all the different skills you’ve been using since you started the course. Stop while you do this.
Track 3
I’ve asked lots of OU students to do a similar exercise, and every time they come up with a long list, and each time it’s slightly different. Here’s some of the skills that other students have included:
• time management
• numeracy
• evaluation of information
• presentation
• analysis
• specialised reading skills
• summarising
• decision making
• discussion
• and using and interacting with different media.
Now take a look at your list. Do you notice that many of these skills are in fact things you do all the time – at home or at work – in all sorts of situations and not just in studying. In fact, these skills are so useful that employers have identified many of them as being crucial in the world of work. So much so that when companies are recruiting, they’re not just looking for knowledge in a particular area – they need these other things as well. Pick up any paper with job adverts and have a look at them. You’ll find phrases like:
FEMALE EMPLOYER (ROSEMARY HILL)
Good presentation skills a must.
MALE EMPLOYER (JOHN JAWORSKI)
Must be motivated and proactive.
FEMALE EMPLOYER
Must have good numeracy skills.
MALE EMPLOYER
We need someone who has a good balance of interpersonal skills
and business skills.
FEMALE EMPLOYER
You will need to organise and make strategic decisions in a
changing environment.
MALE EMPLOYER
We are not prescriptive about the subject qualifications, but, be
warned, you will need to demonstrate that you have the selfconfidence
and communication skills essential for the job.
KAREN REX
There are many ways of describing skills and competencies in the
workplace, and ideas of these are becoming more widespread.
So, you hear people talking about SNVQs or transferable skills,
based on what people actually do in the workplace. I spoke to
Dee Burkill, who’s a head of personnel for a Volkswagen
subsidiary, about the way that her organisation uses skills and
competencies with its staff.
DEE BURKILL
We first started looking at competencies in the early ’90s, mainly
because the systems that we were using at that time had fallen
into disrepute, because of the recession, because of the limited
budgets that we had available for training, for salary increases.
So, we introduced a fully fledged competency programme, just
over three years ago now, for the whole of the group. So,
everybody now within this organisation fits into a job family.
The ‘job family’ is the generic term we use for people’s roles,
and we very much talk about roles now rather than jobs. Nobody
has a job description within the Volkswagen Group now. Nobody
at all. We have done away with job descriptions, and I will fight
vehemently to the end to maintain that, because I do not want to
go back to the days where we spent our lives rewriting these job
descriptions every time somebody’s job’s changed.
But the thing about our competencies, and the thing about
competencies that in most organisations that are different – they
are all focused on the softer issues. They’re all focused on the
‘how do you do’ things: ‘how do you behave?’ and ‘how do you
go about achieving your objectives?’
So, you will have objectives. You will have performance-related
objectives, managerial objectives very, very focused. And, yes, I
am concerned about whether or not you have achieved this
objective, but I am more concerned about how you’ve gone about
doing it. And you will be rewarded for the ‘how you’ve done it’.
And if you’ve trampled on people, upset customers, been rude to
people or whatever, then you will not have achieved that
competence, and you will not get the tick towards it. And, as I
say, it does drive our salaries as well. So, without evidence of
achieving that competence, you will not get a salary increase, so
it does focus the mind somewhat.
KAREN REX
So, when you’re looking for, say, new graduates, what are you
looking for from them in terms of communication skills?
DEE BURKILL
We’re looking for people who’ve got a range of experiences.
We’re looking for people who are exhibiting, in the early stages,
the embryonic competencies, the embryonic skills,
communication skills, negotiating skills, ambassadorial skills that
we want for the future.
We will ask them to tell us about a specific project they were
given ownership for, that they were responsible for from
beginning to end. We will ask them to describe it to us, and how
they evaluated its success. And, in hindsight, what went well, and
what could have been done better.
KAREN REX
Private-sector companies like Volkswagen often use a set of
competencies that they’ve identified for themselves. Many of
these are common across organisations. For example,
communication skills and the management of people are often
part of this type of approach. These skills are equally sought after
in the voluntary sector.
Michael Murray, who used to be the Chief Executive of Milton
Keynes Borough Council, is now active in a number of voluntary
organisations. I first asked him what he looks for in recruiting
staff.
MICHAEL MURRAY
Obviously, you’re sometimes looking for a particular
professional or other skill – if you’re looking for somebody who
has an ability of marketing, for the sake of argument. But, most
importantly, I think you are probably looking for people who’ve
got an understanding of the community they’re going to be
dealing with or the particular area that they’re going to be dealing
with – if not understanding, at least an empathy with that,
because the ‘not-for-profit sector’, or whatever they call it, is a
bit different in many ways to many other areas. There are some
changing conceptions about what people are or should be doing
in the voluntary sector. And the range of skills, then, that people
need to perform those roles is quite varied.
KAREN REX
Can you think of a specific example?
MICHAEL MURRAY
The Living Archive Project. If you take the director who runs
that – there’s a very small team, four people or something of that
order altogether – and that person has to, one, understand about
the issues surrounding an oral archive. He has to understand
something about the immediate community in which he lives and
the opportunities which that community offers. He needs to
understand something about making bids for money. In fact he
needs to understand a lot about making bids for money. He needs
to, obviously, be able to identify opportunities and respond to
them very quickly. And he needs to be an extremely good
communicator – extremely good communicator – because he’s
dealing with a huge number of audiences.
KAREN REX
So when you say ‘a good communicator’, what sort of things do
you mean by that?
MICHAEL MURRAY
First of all, a good communicator about the ideas which the
organisation is dealing in. Secondly, the range of people whom
he has to deal with is very varied, you know, from kind of
politicians and your local council, down to all kinds of fundraisers,
to staff you have to manage.
KAREN REX
And what about people who perhaps aren’t volunteering at the
board level, who are coming in perhaps to do a couple of hours a
week for an organisation in a very practical way …
MICHAEL MURRAY
Yes.
KAREN REX
…What sort of things do you look for there?
MICHAEL MURRAY
I think you’re looking for enthusiasm and understanding what the
voluntary organisation is trying to achieve, their part in it, and,
because it – often the voluntary sector is quite informally
structured, an ability to be able to communicate with others
within the organisation, with minimal formal structures around
them.
KAREN REX
Both Michael Murray and Dee Burkill have emphasised the need
for flexibility and for a range of skills. Now have another look at
the list you drew up earlier with the skills you’ve used in MU120
so far. Of all the lists you and I might generate, none are right or
wrong. They simply represent different ways of talking about
skills. And another thing: no one set of descriptions will give us
watertight definitions. There’ll always be seepage from one
general descriptional category to another. In my list, for example,
note-taking, specialised reading skills and discussion are actually
all part of communicating. There’s no single set of descriptions which will work well in all
contexts. So one important reason for being able to describe
skills in a general sense is being able to be confident that
something that you’ve learned in one situation will help you in
another, different situation.
Just think about what you’ll need to be able to do as you progress
from this course. You’ll want to be confident that you can apply
mathematical techniques and solve problems using mathematics.
But you’ll also want to be sure that you can study independently
and meet deadlines. And like most students, I expect that you
also want to feel that you’re improving as you go on.
There’s some value for us then to be able to identify particular
skills. But if these skills are to be recognised and valued by
others, whether an employer, a voluntary organisation or
university, or for your own use, then it’s not sufficient to say, ‘I
can present my work well,’ or, ‘I can use this statistical technique
to sort this problem out.’ Other people, and organisations, will
want evidence of what your skills are so that they can judge the
level at which you’re operating.
Demonstrating your skills to an employer is not the end of the
story. Using and defining skills are all about helping people to
develop and improve, and that includes skills you use in learning.
So, finally, I spoke to Les Coupe, who successfully studied
MU120 in 1996, and has continued as a student with the OU ever
since. I was interested to find out how the skills that he
developed on MU120 helped him at the time, and what use
they’ve been to him since then. I started out by asking him about
his work.
LES COUPE
My job is as a Road Safety Officer. I work for Hampshire County
Council. It basically involves education, training and publicity
issues for all classes of road users, from very young children all
the way through to older road users.
It looks a great deal at statistics: accident trends, where we have
to identify accident problems, whether they’re going up, or
they’re going down; the programmes that we implement, whether
they’re successful. So there’s a lot of statistical work involved in
that.
KAREN REX
MU120 is slightly unusual in the sense that students tend to
expect a course that develops their numeracy skills, and just their
numeracy skills. But obviously, as you’re aware, it develops
other things as well – communication skills and study skills and
reflective learning skills. Can you think of any examples where
this has been useful to you in practice?
LES COUPE
Yes. We deal with accident statistics, road accident statistics. But
generally we deal with members of the public, county
councillors, occasionally politicians, where they will ask
questions and you can give ball park figures – you can say,
‘Well, we’ve had an approximately 12 per cent reduction in the
number of accidents,’ or similar kinds of things, and you know in
your own mind that you’re about right. If anybody does actually
challenge you when it comes to writing the thing down on paper,
you know that you’re more or less right. And again it is just an
overall confidence in what you say will be about right. And it’s
really only going through MU120 that it’s given me the
confidence to do that.
KAREN REX
Have you found that to be useful elsewhere?
LES COUPE
Well, yes, I can; it was actually during ’96 as I was doing
MU120, I witnessed a road accident on the motorway, where a
car spun off in front of me. I did of course stop; I spoke to the
driver, who was completely unhurt – he was okay – but he told
me that a lorry had forced him off the motorway. There were
other drivers stopped; I just took his telephone number and said
I’ll catch this chap up. I know I was stopped for no longer than
three or four minutes. So I zoomed off after this lorry. I did
eventually catch him up after fifteen to twenty minutes,
something like that, and got the registration number of the lorry
and, later the same day, telephoned the chap back.
I was somewhat surprised a few weeks later to get a summons by
a court to go and give evidence about what I’d seen. And I
related my story to the court, and the defence solicitor questioned
me; he said there was absolutely no way I could catch this lorry
up in the time that I’d stated. And I was actually able to say to
him that ‘oh yes, I could quite easily do it,’ and I was able to
relate to him, really off the top of my head, that the length of time
I was waiting there, which was only three or four minutes, this
would put the lorry three to four miles down the road at 56 miles
an hour. And, at the speed I was travelling, 70 to 75 miles an
hour to catch him up – a speed differential of about 15, 20 miles
an hour – that I’d be able to catch him up at about a rate of a mile
every four minutes, and therefore 12 to 15 minutes later I would
catch him up. And of course, at that speed, would put me 15
miles away from the scene of the accident, which was on the
outskirts of Winchester, which was where I said I’d actually
caught the chap up. So it gave me the confidence to actually
question someone who I saw as an authoritative figure and to
actually contradict what he’d said, but, more importantly, be
actually right with it as well. Because that was the thing, I do
remember quite vividly whilst the court adjourned for a few
moments, while they got maps out and checked my figures, I can
remember scribbling all these notes down, working these little
calculations out to see how right I was. But it was never
questioned. My evidence was taken as correct. So, from a
communication point of view, it’s improved things tremendously
for me.
KAREN REX
The other thing that MU120 does is this idea about getting people
to reflect on the way that they’re learning. It takes a little while
for people to appreciate how that actually works. Can you think
of how it’s made a difference to you in the way that you study?
LES COUPE
I certainly can. You have to lay out a study schedule of the work
that you have to do, the timescale that you have to do it in. Now,
I’ve been able to use similar kinds of study schedules with
subsequent courses, not entirely completely successfully because
of work pressures, but generally I’ve found it to help in planning
my study time for the OU, because I can say that ‘yes, I’ll have a
couple of hours free here or there’ – or whatever, and because I
know that from the nature of my work – I don’t do work regular
hours – I have to slot study periods in whenever I can. And
planning it helps considerably towards that.
KAREN REX
Can you think of a time during MU120 when you suddenly
realised perhaps that this was useful?
LES COUPE
I think, if I’m honest, as far as planning my study time is
concerned, it was really during the final assessment, and if I were
to give any advice to new MU120 students, it would be to say, is:
plan your study time.
KAREN REX
As you can see, the skills that you’re developing on MU120 may
not be entirely those that you’re expecting. Most of us want to
get better at what we’re doing, but often we’re not quite sure
which skills to improve, and indeed how to go about it. This is
one reason why the course isn’t just about doing mathematics.
As you’ve seen, whenever you’re learning and doing new things,
you’re using many different skills. MU120 helps you to improve
those skills while you’re doing the mathematics.
That’s why you’re encouraged to complete a variety of activities,
review your progress and keep a record in your learning file.