Topic outline

  • Assignments Overview


    • This course is made up of textbook assignments (TAs) and oral assignments (OAs). Over the course weeks, you will spend around 55 hours on TAs and 27 hours on OA completing weekly assignments. This amounts to approximately 9.2 + 4.5 hrs/week when run as a 6-week course. Some weeks may require more or less work and time, and students will vary in how much time they require to complete the different assignments.

      At the beginning of the course, you will choose one textbook to work with for your TAs; these assignments comprise the Textbook Project. This textbook should be from your field of study and available online (further criteria are specified in TA1). Your OAs will focus on developing and evaluating an Elevator Pitch (i.e., a short speech). In addition to the instructions and supporting materials for the TAs and the OAs, you will receive some individual and/or group teacher feedback on your submissions during the course or some once you have submitted the final portfolios. This is further specified within the course.

      More information will be available here once the course starts. Then you will also receive a detailed schedule with the deadlines for the assignments to allow you to plan your time wisely.

      You don't need a pitch as an artist? Are you sure? Listen to, for instance, Ann Rea (1:56 min; Authentic Elevator Pitches for Artists)

    • Page icon
      Textbook Project Overview Page
    • Page icon
      Elevator Pitch/Oral part Overview Page

    • Former course participant about the course:

      "On a side note, I had a presentation last week in [name of a city in a foreign country] for [name of a big international company]. I was presenting a concept for them done in our company. Before going to stage, I was going through my notes, some of them taken from the elevator pitch path, and they helped me a lot to improve my presentation skills! The [audience/mentioning their nationality] were very happy and now we signed a partnership with them to collaborate in the future./Thanks for the learnings!" (Gaspar 2017) Quote and name shared with student consent/s-al.

    • Student feedback and slide presented at the A!OLE (Aalto Online Learning) Gala 2018.

      Two-part foto. Upper: MyCourse banner with not full foto of: Arabia Tomula mug, tablet, note book, pencil, camera, book on a green table cloth. Lower part: 2 speech bubbles with student feedback and below brief info text on course contents.

      Note. Although the course is not especially designed for participants whose performance may be affected by specific reading and/or writing difficulties, students, for instance, with dyslexia who have attended have found it useful and accommodating. The second quote is from a student who neither enjoyed nor cared much for presenting before the course. /s-al

    •                                                                                     Updated December 2020/s-al

      Random selected feedback

      Greetings and advice from former students of the course to future course participants

      "I can recommend the course to everyone. The course includes many useful themes that will be useful in the future and in working life."
      "Have fun!"
      "Start working on the assignments on time!"
      "Choose a book that interests you! And stay on schedule."*
      "This is a nice course because you can study the material that really interests you."*
      "After this course I found the world of the academic books!"
      "I warmly recommend this course!"

      General comments on the course

      "This course was very effective. I think that I have developed as a text writer, a reader and a speaker. I have learned to use more vocabulary and structures of my field, too."

      "Overall a good and very useful course. I'm definitely more comfortable with my English in professional scenarios. I think it works well as a self-study course. Even better if you fix the technical issues." [Teacher comment: the course participant is referring to the presentation of materials in MyCourses. This is continuously evaluated and adjusted. Feedback from different course set-ups indicates that we may not find one solution that fits all.  However, we are still looking for it and welcome all feedback, also during the course as we may be able to make smaller changes also mid-course!]

      If you turned to the teacher for support in this course, how would you rate the support you received? If you didn't turn to the teacher, why was this so? (Did not need any; asked peers?

      "I always got the answers to my questions quickly and effortlessly. MyCourses’ messaging feature was handy for asking questions."


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Week 5 (due 06.06/08.06)
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ELEVATOR PITCH (Oral part/OA)