The Disciplinary Dimension of Teaching (P02202)

? Credit Points : 10 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : EDU-P-P02202

This course will consider differences and commonalities across different subject areas with respect to the concepts, research skills, thinking processes and attitudes to be learned as well as how these should best be taught and assessed.

The course provides participants with the opportunity to critically engage with the research literature on teaching and learning within the disciplines and explores the extent to which discipline matters in teaching, learning and assessment. At the same time participants will be encouraged to critically reflect on the traditions or teaching and learning regimes as they have evolved in their departmental contexts and explore whether present practices could be usefully enriched by sharing and trading of these across disciplinary boundaries.

An important theme of the course is the need for transdisciplinary (next to discipline-specific) skills and knowledge in a world characterised by many as one of growing uncertainty and complexity. Participants will be encouraged to debate how they, through their own subject areas and the specific courses they teach, could make a contribution to these generic learning outcomes.

Entry Requirements

? This course is not available to visting students.

? Pre-requisites : For new lecturers participation in the two day orientation to teaching at the University of Edinburgh offered by the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment is a course requirement.

? Special Arrangements for Entry : Pre-course reading, in-course reading as well as assignment preparation complement face-to-face teaching/learning activities to a total of 100 notional effort hours.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Education, (The Moray House School of Education, Schedule C)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : Full Year (Blocks 1-4)

? Contact Teaching Time : 6 hour(s) per week for 2 weeks

? Other Required Attendance : 44 hour(s) per week for 2 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

On completion of the course participants will be able to:

- Identify what is distinctive about their subject areas and critically analyse the implications of this distinctiveness for teaching, learning and assessment
- Identify what is common among the disciplines and hence develop a critical understanding of what can be learned about teaching, learning and assessment from other disciplines
- Critically examine the tension between discipline-specific learning outcomes and the ever growing need for transdisciplinarity
- Consider the diverse needs of todays undergraduate students and develop creative responses to the question of how generic learning outcomes associated with employability, lifelong learning, or effective citizenship could be promoted through undergraduate teaching in their subject area

Assessment Information

Course participants write an essay (2500 words) that critically examines the claims made in a selected book or article with regards to teaching, learning and assessment in the participants own discipline and discuss the implications of these claims for their own practice. A list of books and articles to choose from will be provided.