Unit information: Creating Inclusive Learning Environments: The Role of the Teacher in 2015/16

Unit name	Creating Inclusive Learning Environments: The Role of the Teacher
Unit code	EDUC30022
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Academic Year (weeks 1 - 52)
Unit director	Mrs. Lythgoe
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	n/a
Co-requisites	Theories of learning and teaching Special Educational Needs The teacher as leader Becoming a reflective practitioner (Reflective Journal/RJA)
School/department	School of Education
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

This unit is undertaken during the initial, highly teaching-intensive phase of the programme (around 35 contact hours per week for six weeks) and is designed to address and assess the participants emerging sense of their role as a teacher.

The unit aims to promote understanding of the relationship between the school and its community, and the role of the teacher as a professional working within that school and community. The unit also aims to support the participant in the process of discovering the ways in which their own values and preferences will manifest in their personal classroom leadership style, and how this will align with the professional expectations of teachers, and the requirements of the learners and learning environments they will encounter.

The unit aims to contextualise the literature, the inputs from the intensive university-based teaching and learning, and their initial experiences of their school placement. Participants are challenged and supported to compile a data-rich contextual analysis of their main placement school, showing the implications for teaching.

The assignment is marked and graded, serves as the basis for discussions with tutors about the formation of professional skills and identity, and provides the basis upon which to begin the process of planning for the start of the school year.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

• Plan investigations of practice to develop their understanding of it;
• Use ideas from a wide range of professional literature to develop their own thinking and practice, including an understanding of their limits;
• Understand key educational issues which could arise in their practice;
• Work with others collaboratively;
• Present well-structured and clearly written accounts of their investigations and other tasks, situating it within the literature;
• Become familiar with debates at the forefront of the discipline
• Begin to take responsibility for their own professional development as a teacher.

Teaching Information

Teaching will take a variety of stimulating formats, including, inter alia, seminars, lectures, workshops, laboratory sessions, practical classroom experience of teaching, personal tuition with university- and school-based staff, and private and group study.

Assessment Information

Participants will carry out a range of formative activities, individually and in groups, during the intensive teaching period, which will provide feedback on the key issues addressed by this unit. Tasks will include some periods of classroom teaching experience, group tasks involving presentations and critical peer observation of their colleagues teaching, (and their own via video).

Participants will also complete summative assessment tasks, drawing on their experiences and the literature, including:

1) Documentation of planning, teaching and evaluation activities to illustrate their developing understanding of the role of the teacher, and their practical skills; and 2) A 2,000 word assignment, which may take a variety of formats, according to the varying needs of different subject specialisms.

Participants will also be required to achieve a satisfactory standard in their practical teaching, meeting threshold standards for the initial teaching phase at this stage. This will be assessed by tutors following the end of the initial teaching period.

Reading and References

Due to the focus on subject pedagogy in this unit, most recommended texts are subject-specific, a sample of which are offered as an appendix to this unit description. All texts are available via the Education Library.