Postgraduate Course: Designing Courses (EDUA11180)
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 | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course focuses on the design and development of courses in higher education whether face-to-face, blended or online. Consideration will be given to the particular strengths and weaknesses of different modes of delivery. The course includes consideration of the vertical and horizontal relationships of courses with the rest of the curriculum and students' programmes of study. Emphasis is also placed on the challenges for students in engaging fully with course content and processes, and how design decisions can enable the structuring and scaffolding of effective student learning.
The course gives participants the opportunity to critically examine key issues which arise and need to be resolved when designing new courses or redesigning existing ones. They develop a keen awareness of the underpinning theoretical considerations and their implications for practice. At the same time the requirement to apply their knowledge and understanding by working with the development of a particular course sharpens participants' appreciation of the affordances and constraints of contextual features, and encourages them to develop creative responses to real-life challenges.
Participants are encouraged to expand their repertoire of strategies and practical approaches by moving outside their familiar frameworks and engaging in investigation and discussion across disciplinary boundaries. The course also helps advance participants' ability to communicate in appropriate ways to peers, senior colleagues and students the underlying rationales for choices made between competing possibilities.
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| Course description |
Not entered
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
| Course Start Date |
18/09/2017 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 14,
Online Activities 1,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 8,
Other Study Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
74 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The coursework assignment requires participants to consider, in greater depth and within the context of a specific course in their own disciplinary area, some of the key challenges and practical issues that need to be addressed in the design and/or redesign of courses. They will apply the knowledge and understanding gained during the course and through further enquiry and engagement with relevant literature. This assignment will be completed within a blog. |
| Feedback |
Formative feedback: the participants write blogs throughout the course and get weekly feedback on their blog posts from their tutors and peers. This is directly relevant to the later summative assessment, which involves an extension to these blogs. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- analytical engagement with key issues and writings on course design and development
- alertness to students' perspectives, their orientations and the challenges they face
- critical reflection on course purposes and their articulation, with course activities and assessment - both conceptually and within specific contexts
- critical awareness and understanding of ways of monitoring, reviewing and taking forward course development
- appropriate attention to the place of a course in an overall programme of study and issues of progression
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Reading List
Toohey, S. (2002). Designing courses for higher education. Buckingham: SRHE and OUP.
Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher 27(2), 4-13.
Trowler, P. (2008). Cultures and Change in Higher Education: Theories and Practice. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
As a consequence of participation on this course students will:
1) develop and advance their understanding of, and practical facility with, course design in higher education.
2) come to be able critically to evaluate diverse perspectives and research findings relating to designing courses in higher education.
3) formulate a design for a course in higher education along with critical reflection on that design.
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| Special Arrangements |
Description of notional 100 hours content : Synchronous and asynchronous discussion 15; Reading and reflection 40; Guided study (formative blogging) 20; Assignment preparation 25 |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Online course with total hours: 100 (made up of : Synchronous and asynchronous discussion 15; Reading and reflection 40; Guided study (formative blogging) 20; Assignment preparation 25) |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Velda Mccune
Tel: (0131 6)51 4083
Email: Velda.McCune@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Emily Salvesen
Tel: (0131 6)51 6661
Email: Emily.Salvesen@ed.ac.uk |
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