The following conceptual model is used to underpin Module 1.

 

Four aspects of teaching are identified: Aims/content; Teaching Methods; Assessment Methods; Evaluation.

Each is to be studied from the perspective of a particular set of views about student learning and the nature of scholarship which are introduced in Sections A and B.

Each is also, subsequently, to be the subject of reflective practice based in the teacher's own work.


Rationale for this model in terms of scholarship

Imagine that you were to undertake a research investigation into some aspect of an area within your field that totally fascinates you. Consider four crucial decisions you must make:

Now imagine that you are to undertake teaching a group of students a topic within an area of your field that totally fascinates you. Consider four crucial decisions you must make:

In research, decisions about focus, method, success and evaluation are always going to be made (other things being equal) in terms of whether your choice is likely to best satisfy your intrinsic (and insatiable) curiosity towards the subject - as befits a scholar, who is before anything else, curious.

In teaching, decisions about aims and content, teaching method, assessment and evaluation are going to be made (other things being equal) in terms of whether your choice will best satisfy the desires, the hopes, the yearnings you have towards your students and their learning - again, as befits a scholar, who is - before anything else when teaching - concerned that students learn well.

That is why "Student Learning" is placed as the "glue" that holds everything else together in the model we use for "Scholarly Teaching". It will be referred to many times in the course of study.


 

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