Teaching of this course is organized through several learning activities of students, which can be classified into three categories: individual learning of students, interaction with teachers and tutors and interaction with other students.
• (A.1.) Reading and study of syllabus lessons or units (making use of the required readings and eventually the recommended readings). This learning will be assessed through the final written test but there will also be some continuous assessment tests. The precise method will be determined by the number of students enrolled in the course.
• (A.2.) Doing an on-site in-person written test in our UNED associated centers.
In total, it is calculated that the student must devote 150 hours to these learning activities.
Although previous experience as a student at other levels of education or other university degrees is logically the main source of particular study skills or learning strategies that each student may consider more adequate and efficient, some recommendations can improve the intellectual work of our distance-learning students:
Plan the study from the beginning of the course, so that you can solve your doubts and relating queries and can advance building on the concepts from previous units. This will make it easier to have time to review and prepare for the assessment and final tests.
Ensure that you develop your own self-study methods, which must necessarily include reflective reading. To that end, a first exploratory reading is advised and then a subsequent more detailed reading from which you can do your own diagrams and charts that will help your learning and thinking.
Approach required readings first in an exploratory way seeking to discover possible puzzles, identify the arguments raised and the methodology used, so that you can reproduce such arguments.
Ask yourself about what you have read, trying to see it within the context of the course and other previous courses. Look for connections with the political and administrative reality of the country or other countries.
Formulate questions whose answers reflect the fundamental contents of the required readings of the course;
Review the definitions of the fundamental concepts in each unit or section and check that you understand them before proceeding to the next unit and readings.
GUIDELINES FOR STUDY
Of course, it is very useful to count on the support of your teaching staff, in case something is not understood well. The instructors of the course have their weekly office hours for tutoring and answering student queries, where you can use the phone, email or even consulting or using the virtual forums eventually opened in the course. They serve to resolve doubts, raise questions or request additional literature.
This is, in sum, the way to assimilate the contents and understand the form and substance of the phenomena discussed in each unit, i.e. its defining characteristics, under which they can be identified, and their operating logics.
Finally, in the on-site personal tests, students are expected to know how to present and reproduce the acquired knowledge in an orderly and systematic fashion. If that is the case, the learning outcomes of the course (stated in the first part of the study guide for this subject). can be regarded as having been achieved.
