Postgraduate Course: Curricula and Pedagogies Supporting Student Learning (EDUA11307)
This course will be closed from 13 January 2017
Course Outline
| School | Moray House School of Education |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Teaching and learning are central functions of the university. Take teaching and student learning away and you still have an institution (a research institute or perhaps a ¿business¿), but no longer a university. The university¿s raison d¿ etre is to provide a (higher) education-an education that prepares people for the world.
Importantly, teaching and learning at university are supported and/or affected not only by course organisers and academic teachers, but by a wide range of other people working within the academy as well as contextual factors.
The university could not fulfil its teaching function without non-academic staff responsible for course and exam scheduling, room booking, grade processing, record keeping, and much more. Specialists working in student support units, including librarians, play an increasingly important role in supporting students in their learning. Furthermore, the strategic priorities of the university influence teaching and learning in many ways (for example as the university seeks to expand its on-line provision, strengthen the relevance of what is learned at university for the world of work, make programmes more attractive to international audiences, offer alternative entry and exit routes, or implement a ¿research-led¿ curriculum to demonstrate a distinct approach to undergraduate teaching). Given that the university is not entirely autonomous from the state, the university¿s strategic priorities are a function of the larger political and economic policy context in which it finds itself and thus questions over how limited resources are to be distributed (or can be increased) or the increasingly stringent quality assurance regimes in relation to both teaching and research, exert at times prominent and at other times more subtle influences on higher education curricula and pedagogies.
Against this backdrop, this course within the MSc in Higher Education is designed to be of value not only to higher education teachers and course organisers but to everyone working within the academy or elsewhere within the higher education sector given the interdependent and collaborative nature of professional practice, which, in one way or another, is always associated with the overall raison d¿etre of the university: to provide students with a worthwhile education.
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| Course description |
The course explores the linkages between notions of ¿graduateness¿ and ¿graduate attributes¿ (which reflect certain present understandings of what higher education is for), the ways and outcomes of learning being valued, and ideas over how these outcomes and ways of learning are to be achieved. As such the course considers different curriculum models (e.g, the Melbourne model, service learning models, etc) and degree structures (e.g., contrasting the North American liberal arts tradition from UK models and also from Continental models in light of the Bologna reform), and different pedagogies (e.g., critical, feminist, anti-racist, constructive-developmental, compassionate pedagogies and the capabilities approach to HE pedagogies), in light of different philosophies or assumptions concerning the purposes of higher education.
It also explores different assumptions underlying different theories of learning, contrasting those concerned with cognitive changes in relation to understanding the subject matter, to those concerned with the development of the whole person and/or with changes in society, and their implications for the kinds of pedagogy employed.
The course also considers what can be learned from teaching and learning in professional fields as well as the role of the humanities in educating students for the world.
The course problematizes the notion of ¿a (single) student experience¿ and emphasises the increasing diversity in students and institutions, and hence diversity in ¿experience¿, and explores the implications of this diversity for university pedagogies and curricula.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- ¿ Identify differences in the assumptions underpinning different curricula models and different pedagogies
¿ Contrast and evaluate different curricula models and pedagogies for their strengths and weaknesses
Develop a critical understanding of the linkages between assumptions concerning what higher education is for, the ways and outcomes of learning being valued, and the curricula and pedagogies deemed suitable to bring about the desired learning
¿Analyse different theories of learning for their undying assumptions
¿ Critically assess the notion of the student experience
¿ Contrast and evaluate different professional curricula and consider what other degree programmes could learn from the professions, and vice versa
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Carolin Kreber
Tel: (0131 6)51 6668
Email: carolin.kreber@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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