Course structure
Year 1 core modules
Education, Safety & Health
Education is regularly drawn into the spotlight regarding its effects on children’s health and well-being and its role in promoting a safe society. This module focuses on the role of education in this context, the national curriculum, safeguarding and the debates around the use of education to address the wider societal issues such as physical health, self-esteem and wellbeing.
Historical Perspectives of Education
This module will introduce you to key moments in the history of British education and consider changes in education policy, practice and the curriculum. It will enable you to explore a variety of factors, including philosophical perspectives, which have influenced educational provision and are shaping current policy and provision.
Introducing Education Studies: Extended Induction
This module will provide you with an introduction to the subject of Education Studies providing you with an overview of key areas that you will study and the ‘big questions’ you will address throughout your degree. This module will encourage you to start making links between core areas of your study, to begin to reflect on your experiences across a range of educational settings and to make explicit links between theory and practice. To ground core areas in practice you will explore how specific areas are addressed within Teesside University itself. This will provide you with an extended induction to the university ensuring that you can make the very most of your time here and are fully understand the range of student support services and opportunities that are on offer.
Language & Learning
This module will develop your understanding of language acquisition in early years and the continuous development of language skills as well as help you explore the impact of language on learning. It will consider language acquisition theories as well as current research in the area. It will explore language use in a variety of contexts and consider the role of language in informal, formal and professional contexts. The module will introduce you to other aspects of language development such as language in digital contexts, bilingualism and AEL (English as Another Language). It will help you with your own academic and personal language development as well as prepare you for a variety of roles in education.
Learning Outside the Classroom
This module will provide students with the opportunity to explore how learning happens in different contexts and settings. This module considers how learning within formal education takes places in settings beyond the classroom. It will draw on theoretical perspectives for learning outside of the classroom and through visits to a range of venues. Students will enhance their learning through visits to local and cultural educational places within the local area.
Learning, Teaching & Assessment
This module will introduce you to the core elements of classroom practice. It aims to provide you with opportunities to develop your understanding of key definitions, theories and approaches relating to learning, teaching and assessment. Throughout the module you will be encouraged to reflect on your experiences of learning and consider how these experiences may shape your professional practice. This module will also introduce you to the processes involved in searching for and reviewing journal articles on relevant research. This will enable you to develop an understanding of the importance of using research in order to support your claims in academic writing, as well as provide you with an awareness of how research can be used to shape an educational practitioner’s practice.
Year 2 core modules
Employability & Work-Related Learning
This module gives students the opportunity to develop their graduate skills in preparation for employment in a professional context. Students will have the opportunity to gain academic credit based on their participation in work experience, a short period of professional activity or work-related learning relevant to the discipline or area of professional interest. The module will provide the framework through which students will be able to develop an understanding of graduate employment pathways, opportunities, reflective practice and experiential learning. The core focus of the module will be helping students prepare for graduate careers, developing an understanding of professional working contexts and enabling them to identify and evidence their own graduate skills.
Negotiated Project
The aims of this module are for students to be given an opportunity to tailor part of their level 5 studies to their own interests and motivations. A key aim is to stimulate intrinsic motivation and encourage autonomous learning, and critical discussion with peers and the tutor. Developing the skills necessary to identify and engage with literature in a critical way, in the process and develop research skills. From this module, further links to research modules in level 6 will be made.
Students will negotiate with the module leader, a choice of topic for a manageable project and submit a plan (ICA). It is foreseen that the topics chosen will be from a range of subjects within the field of education. The students will carry out a narrative review of literature and link theory to contemporary themes and occurrences in education. Using a project diary, the students will record their progress. The process and the products of their learning will then be reflected upon in a report (ECA).Negotiation will also take into account the non-duplication of existing modules and focus students on deepening their knowledge on their chosen topics. They will be given initial inputs on searching texts, project management and current issues in education.
Policy, Politics and Education
This module will consider key issues in education policy and the ways in which government policy impacts practice across a range of phases, contexts, sectors and settings. You will explore a range of areas including: policy designed to tackle educational disadvantage; the politics of teaching, learning and assessment; and the impact of quality assurance, monitoring and inspection. Throughout you will explore how educational policies are developed and you will be encouraged to critically analyse their theoretical grounding and their efficacy. You will also be encouraged to reflect more generally on the discourse that frames current national and international education policy and to consider how aspects of educational practice are represented.
Throughout the module you will be actively encouraged to work with current policy documentation. You will explore how policies are addressed and implemented across settings at national, regional and local levels and consider how policies interact with one another within educational settings.
Special Educational Needs & Disabilities
In this module you will explore the issues and challenges surrounding inclusive provision for children and young adults with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The module will investigate and discuss a range of specific SEND and will encourage participants to critically evaluate the intervention and support strategies that may be employed by an educational organisation. This will include an analysis of the roles and responsibilities of different individuals involved in the provision of support for inclusive practice. The module will encourage you to develop a strong understanding of the educational theories and concepts that underpin the learning and teaching of students with SEND. You will consider policy changes in SEND education, and their impact on the curriculum, teaching and assessment.
Students as Tutors
This module will provide students with a broad introduction to the key skills and underpinning knowledge that students would need to develop in order to be confident to deliver learning. The module will enable students to plan a learning event, implement appropriate learning and teaching strategies, develop resources and assess learning.
Technology Enhanced Learning
This module aims to provide you with an introduction to technology enhanced learning (TEL). You will be encouraged to explore the use of technology in education, and to evaluate the opportunities technology affords as well as its limitations. The module will enable you to gain the knowledge and skills required to adapt, use and analyse technological tools for educational purposes.
Year 3 core modules
Comparative Education
This module aims to help you to develop your knowledge about norms and complexities that define education in different domestic and international contexts. You will critically reflect upon the role of the culturally sensitive and ethical practitioner in diverse educational contexts. It is intended that this module will give you a breadth of understanding of education in a variety of contexts that considers the ways in which policy, politics and society have shaped different attitudes and approaches to education.
Dissertation
The dissertation module gives students the opportunity to complete a research study on a topic related to Education Studies. The module is designed to facilitate the development of a range of skills that will enable students to independently research an area of professional practice. The student will be able to negotiate a change of project with their dissertation supervisor and module leader if it is appropriate to the subject focus, manageability and timescales for completing it within the academic year.
Education, Identity & Society
This module will enable students to explore and critically consider education in relation to the reproduction of social inequalities and the formation of identify. Students will utilise theory and current research to develop their understanding of the structuring influences of post-war education, exploring it in relation to social class, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Attention will be focus upon the extent to which, across these factors, education and schooling are characterized by difference, divisions and inequalities, which reflect wider issues in society and how language, culture and power are used in education systems to reproduce or, possibly, change inequalities.
Leading and Managing in Education (block delivery)
This module will support you to develop and understanding of leadership, management and support within a range of educational contexts. It aims to provide you with opportunities for critical engagement with leadership and management theories and research.?You will explore a range of generic theories of leadership and management and consider these in relation to a range of educational contexts.
A variety of professional educational roles will be explored, and you will critically consider the application of leadership and support within a range of contexts.
Research Proposal (block delivery)
This module is designed to enable students to explore the research process associated with education studies. Students will be supported to explore the ways in which research can be used to enhance our understanding of education, to reveal its political and ideological nature and critique its value base. It aims to provide students with the opportunity to identify a research topic and design either a primary or secondary research project. This will enable students to develop and apply the knowledge needed to carry out the dissertation project.
