Course Catalogue

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This course sits within the curriculum enquiry strand of the MEduc programme. The curriculum enquiry strand develops students understanding of and ability to critically enquire into both pedagogical content knowledge and their practice in general. In this strand Shulman's pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) represents the blending of content and pedagogy (approaches to teaching, assessment and feedback) into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented and adapted to the diverse interest and abilities of leaners and presented for teaching. It encompasses the 'what' and 'how' of teaching particular curricular subject areas as well as the 'why'. As such the emphasis placed on these different aspects will differ between curricular subject areas. The students enquiry skills are developed in the context of curriculum in years 1 - 4 and develop the foundations for enquiry into their practice throughout their careers. For students continuing to year 5, the enquiry skills developed through years 1 - 4 are both broadened and deepened through an application to other areas of practice and other forms of professional enquiry cumulating in an enquiry into their practice in the form of a major dissertation.

This course comprises a series of lectures which will help students to develop an enquiring stance through exploring distinctive features of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in different curriculum subject areas. Subject specific lectures will reprise an overview of the distinct features of PCK for the curriculum areas and explore new distinctive feature(s) of PCK making connections to distinctive features of PCK in other curricular areas.

Example: The science lectures could explore knowledge of the science curriculum as a distinctive feature of PCK for primary science with a specific focus on mapping the curriculum content to the big ideas of science and an introduction to progression within these ideas.

Within the series of lectures there is an introduction to enquiry as stance and its connections to professional enquiry and critical reflection introduced in CE1A. Students are also introduced to the concept of world views and how these affect how they enquire into their practice.

A blend of tutorials, seminars and lectures. Flexible timetable to cover curricular areas.

M Educ MANDATORY ENTRY REQUIREMENTS: AAAB- First sitting; AAABB- Second sitting.

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1500 word essay in which students enquire into the connections between two curricular subject areas.

Students will be offered the opportunity to indicate the areas in which feedback would most benefit them (within the existing framework of marking criteria).

This course aims to introduce students to enquiry as stance and its connection to professional enquiry and reflection as well as the role world views play within this. The course also aims to support students in developing their understanding of connections between pedagogical content knowledge in a range of curriculum subject areas.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Identify and describe similarities in pedagogical content knowledge in different curriculum subject areas

2. Discuss the strengths and challenges of these using an enquiring stance.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.