Postgraduate Course: Subject specialism: Nursery and Primary Curricular Areas (2) (EDUA11380)
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 | Across the span of a teaching career, teachers are required to develop, progress and deepen their knowledge of the learning process along with their knowledge of the curriculum. Building on knowledge and understanding developed in previous courses, particularly Subject specialism: Nursery and Primary Curricular Areas (1), Understanding the Nature of Knowledge and the Curriculum and complementing Assessing What Matters, this course further examines a range of pedagogies and continues to discuss the matter of subject knowledge relevant to teaching within and across the nursery and primary stages, and in the broad general education phase in early secondary. Informed by understanding developed during site based learning in Year 1, the relationships and tensions between subject knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge will be further explored as will the relationship between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. The pedagogical focus will be contextualised within curricular areas such as PE, Science and Computer Science but, as the programme will reflect priority subjects in Scotland, the curricular focus will change in response to national demands and institutional expertise. |
| Course description |
This course builds on Subject Specialism: Nursery and Primary Curricular Areas (1), providing an opportunity for students to further enhance their ability to make theory-practice connections, acknowledging that learning to teach is an iterative process requiring deep and progressive intellectual and practical engagement.
The conceptual underpinnings of this course align closely with those of the 'Developing Teacher Professionalism' course: self and others; teacher as inquirer; teacher as pedagogical expert and teacher as learner. As part of this course, students will be encouraged to continue to develop and engage in subject specialism professional learning networks and relevant, professional learning opportunities provided by schools and local authorities from the earliest opportunity, to enhance the learning introduced in this course as research highlights that the knowledge and skills required to teach are extensive (Smith, 1997; Darling-Hammond, 2006; Burn, Hagger and Mutton, 2015). It is unlikely, and arguably undesirable, to assume that any initial teacher education programme will be able to equip becoming teachers with every aspect of subject knowledge and pedagogy required to teach every aspect of a curriculum. Developing understanding of subject content in context and, importantly, developing an understanding of the learning process along with how to apply a range of pedagogies will, however, enable the confident enactment of teaching within and across curricular, subject areas. It will also prepare students to become lifelong professional learners.
Indicative content:
Drawing on a constructivist model of teaching and learning throughout the sessions, this course will ask students to:
- continue to interrogate the place of teachers' subject knowledge in the learning process;
- investigate the concept of interdisciplinarity across the curriculum;
- adopt the role as leaders of learning by engaging in peer teaching (topic to be negotiated with the course tutor)
This course will be taught principally through seminar activities, likely organised as 2 whole group and 4 small group sessions, and school/community based activities. In preparation for each session, students will be required to engage in a critical reading of academic, policy and/or professional texts.
Learning in the site of the school/community will be interwoven with learning in the university site, enabling students to actively and confidently consider how curriculum and pedagogy shapes the lives and outcomes of children and young people.
This course follows on from Subject specialism: Nursery and Primary Curricular Areas (1).
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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
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Informed by policy, theory and practice, demonstrate enhanced knowledge and critical understanding of the content of nursery and primary curricula
- Apply a widening range of nursery and primary pedagogies and evaluate their success systematically, in relation to the intended aims
- Develop and demonstrate original and creative responses to planning, teaching, assessing and evaluating
- Take increasing responsibility for own work and the sourcing of materials for themselves and for peer/school colleagues
- Analyse their learning on this course in relation to relevant core concepts of social justice, sustainability, global perspectives, digital and statistical literacies and professional inquiry skills.
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Reading List
A list of specific chapters and journal articles will be provided to students at the beginning of the course, along with a list of additional reading to allow students to tailor the course to their own professional learning pathway. The following texts are indicative of those to be included:
Cremin, T. and Arthur, J. (2014) Learning to Teach in the Primary School 2nd Ed. London: Routledge
Smith, R.G., (1997) Before Teaching this I'd Do A Lot of Reading: Preparing Primary Teacher to Teach Science. Research in Science Education, 27(1), 141-154. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Upon completion of this course, students will have the opportunity to make progress in developing the ability to:
Knowledge and understanding
1. have substantive pedagogical breadth of subject knowledge in nursery/primary education, together with the ability to teach across the P5 / S3 transition phase;
Skills and abilities in Research and Enquiry
2. analyse facts and situations and apply creative thinking to develop the appropriate solutions;
Skills and abilities in Personal and Intellectual Autonomy
3. think independently, exercise personal judgment and take initiative;
Skills and abilities in Communication
4. persuade, negotiate and influence others and
Skills and abilities in Personal Effectiveness
5. formulate, evaluate and apply evidence-based solutions and arguments |
| Keywords | curriculum,pedagogy,nursery,primary,broad general education |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Ann Rae
Tel: (0131 6)51 4880
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Mairi Ross
Tel: (0131 6)51 4241
Email: |
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