Power in the classroom: global perspectives on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (X4200E)

15 credits, Level 4

Spring teaching

This module is a 15 credit undergraduate module to be offered to Year 1 students in term 2, either as part of an Education 60 credit Pathway or an International Education & Development 60 credit Pathway.

The module aims to introduce theoretical and conceptual approaches to the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment while encouraging you to critically reflect on your own learning and to know and usefully compare how different countries draw up their curricula, how they teach it and how they assess student learning.

The module begins by focusing in on how you learn, making direct links to the previous module and situating that learning in your own context. Theories of learning will frame the module. From here, the module explores pedagogical models originating from theories of learning within the UK, Europe and internationally. The following two sessions focus on assessment, discussing your own experiences of being assessed at school and in higher education and drawing in, and critiquing, international comparisons of student learning from surveys such as Progress in Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

The module will then look more closely at how the curriculum is constructed, bringing in political economy, politics, culture and history and will look internationally at different curriculum models in upper, middle and low-income countries. A third session on the curriculum will provide a critical look at alternative curricula for learning such as those in Montessori and Steiner schools, at Free Schools in the UK, and at Complementary Education Programmes for marginalised children in low-income countries. The module will examine who is included in the curriculum and who is excluded, in the UK and in low-income countries.

The module concludes by looking at global policy drivers for the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 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.