Reflecting on Professional Knowledge (804X1)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Autumn and spring teaching

In this year long module you will focus on developing and auditing your professional knowledge and reflecting critically upon how this has emerged from academic study, your own classroom experiences and investigations, and your work with other professional practitioners.

Central to this process will be your ability to organise and verbally articulate the evidence you need to demonstrate QTS, understand how scholarship and research has informed your development and identify ongoing targets for professional development.

A key target of yours will be reflection upon your own understanding in your curriculum area.

This will require regular audits of subject knowledge and the identification of strengths and needs. Gaps in subject knowledge will become a focus for personal research, and the presentation of new curriculum knowledge will be a key requirement as will an understanding of the frameworks in which that knowledge is organised and delivered as part of the school curriculum (National Curriculum, GCSE & A-Level specifications, etc.) and the associated modes of assessment for learning.

You will also be introduced to current developments, initiatives and professional issues in education, and critically reflect upon the intersection between theoretical positions, your own classroom practice and observations, and the guidance offered by experienced professionals.

Such professional studies are likely to include the following (amongst others):

• classroom and behaviour management
• new technologies in education
• child protection
• diversity in education
• assessment for learning
• special educational needs (SEN)
• child development
• citizenship in the curriculum
• how children learn:  personal, social and health education
• role of parents and carers
• equal opportunities
• prevention strategy
• cross-curricular issues
• literacy and numeracy across the curriculum
• English as an Additional Language

Professional knowledge will be developed within the context of current research, reviews, primary sources, and other source materials and teaching in specialist subjects, as well as recent inspection findings and government reports.

Assessment is through the presentation of a portfolio to two assessors in the form of a professional dialogue viva.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 60 hours of contact time and about 240 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2023/24. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.