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Module

EDU8009 : Thinking Through Teaching: The Reflective Practitioner

  • Offered for Year: 2024/25
  • Module Leader(s): Professor Heather Smith
  • Lecturer: Dr Maria Mroz, Dr Gail Edwards, Dr Hanneke Jones
  • Owning School: Education, Communication & Language Sci
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 2 Credit Value: 30
ECTS Credits: 15.0
European Credit Transfer System

Aims

•       To enable students to develop as critical and analytical teachers through their reflective practice and engagement with theory and research.
•       To enable students to enter the teaching profession with the capacity to explore educational issues and their societal, cultural, historical and political contexts.
•       To provide an academic context in which to situate, and reflect on, taught content from the Professional Studies course taught within the same programme*
•       To enable students to engage critically with issues and themes relevant to QTS standards: Teaching 1;3;5;6;7;8 and Personal & Professional Conduct and the Core Content Framework.

Outline Of Syllabus

1.       Introduction to The Reflective Practitioner: key themes and understanding the assessment.
2.       Our education system: a historical overview.
3.       Reflecting for what?
4.       Playtimes and Time for Play: fostering social development in children.
5.       Creativity and Education.
6.       Critical perspectives on diversity, equality and education.
7.       Language and social disadvantage.
8.       Income and Outcomes: challenging inequality.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
Category Activity Number Length Student Hours Comment
Guided Independent StudyAssessment preparation and completion130:0030:00N/A
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesLecture47:0028:00Present in person
Guided Independent StudyDirected research and reading1100:00100:00N/A
Structured Guided LearningStructured research and reading activities410:0040:00ASOL
Structured Guided LearningStructured non-synchronous discussion41:155:00ASOL
Guided Independent StudyIndependent study195:0095:00N/A
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesModule talk21:002:00SOL
Total300:00
Teaching Rationale And Relationship

As reflective practitioners it is important that students develop a knowledge and understanding of, as well as locate themselves as teachers in, the wider historical, social, political and cultural contexts of schooling. This requires not only an awareness and capacity to engage with various theoretical ideas and concepts, but importantly the opportunity to debate and reflect on the meaning and implications of such ideas for their own situation and practice. Pre-session readings introduce key issues and contexts from research, theory and practice which form the basis for taught sessions where students are able to discuss and reflect upon these questions in an informed way. Students complete a Reflective Diary during the module to record the key ideas and their views in relation to the issues explored. Through this process students are better able to address particular QTS standards in a more informed and reflexive way.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment
Description Semester When Set Percentage Comment
Reflective log2M20Write a 1000 word summary of what you have learnt from the practice of developing a curriculum.
Design/Creative proj2M80Write a new curriculum in pairs and do a presentation providing a scholarly rationale for the curriculum design.
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Presentation: Work in pairs to write a new curriculum which represents an understanding of the best education for primary aged pupils. Do a presentation in pairs which provides a scholarly rationale for the curriculum design and which includes academic references to theory and research.

Reflective Log: Write a 1000 word summary of what you have learnt from the practice of developing a curriculum, commenting both on the curriculum itself and working together, and from the module sessions and how it has impacted on your professional development.

This assessment will enable students to address particular QTS standards through critical engagement with, and evaluation of, relevant research and theory in relation to the ideas discussed during the module and to identify the implications for their own understanding, situation and practice. At the same time this form of assessment permits evaluation of the student’s ability to work constructively with colleagues and to construct and communicate a coherent argument using the standard conventions of academic writing in relation to issues raised in the module.

Reading Lists

Timetable