Developing My Approach to Teaching (P02205)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : EDU-P-P02205

This is the core option with the PGCert in university teaching. The course considers the various factors that influence ones approach to teaching within a given subject area and thereby encourages participants to take a serious look at their own practice, examine how internalised values, assumptions and disciplinary or departmental traditions may influence teaching and, hence, design teaching and learning environments from an informed perspective.

Specifically, the course explores different educational orientations with regards to university teaching as discussed in the research literature, distinguishes different conceptions of teaching, and encourages participants to identify and trace the origin of the values and assumptions underlying their own practice. Links between conceptions or beliefs about university teaching and actual approaches to teaching, and importantly their relationships to context (for example, department, but also subject area, small versus large group teaching, etc), will be explored. An important concept will be that of structure and agency with regards to teaching and assessment within particular disciplinary and departmental contexts. The course will also consider how approaches to teaching are linked to the

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 200 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 : 8 hour(s) per week for 2 weeks

? Other Required Attendance : 92 hour(s) per week for 2 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

On completion of the course participants will be able to demonstrate:

- analytical engagement with different orientations to education discussed in the relevant research literature which may inform university teaching
- an informed understanding of how educational orientations are linked to preferred teaching styles or approaches
- critical reflection on how departmental learning and teaching regimes come about and the extent to which they are alterable
- an informed understanding of the various factors that might shape teacher identities and a critical awareness of why participants approach their own teaching the way they do in particular teaching contexts (e.g., large versus small group teaching, course design, assessment and feedback, and student guidance and supervision

Assessment Information

During the course, course participants are expected to write two reflective papers (400-600 words each) based on results obtained on two inventories assessing their educational orientation to teaching and a third one (400-600 words), based on selected readings, on the factors they see as playing a major role in how they define themselves as university teachers.
Assessment for this course consists of a synoptic assessment which encourages course participants to combine elements of their learning from different parts of the programme and to show their accumulated knowledge and understanding in areas relevant to university teaching.