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Level and Year
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HE Level 7 Year 1 and 2
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Duration and Credit Rating
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10 weeks (5 taught sessions)
10 Credits HE Level 7
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Student Learning Hours
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The course will consist of 100 hours of student learning
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Aims
This module provides participants with opportunities to develop a critical understanding of some of the issues central to supporting students in their learning, both within and beyond the context of the formal taught inputs to a programme. The module will also provide an opportunity to explore relevant policy, practice, and common issues at CCCU and beyond.
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
1 with reference to relevant scholarly work, critically appreciate the nature and role of the various boundaries between forms of student support offered in HE;
2 offer a systematic and critical assessment of the way in which a policy or strategy aimed at widening participation in HE is currently being implemented and applied within one's own professional context;
3 with reference to the aims and roles for HE, suggest ways in which one's own pedagogic practice might seek to enhance the role of a form of student support within the curriculum.
Indicative Module Content
This is an optional module and is aimed at those who are new to offering academic support to HE students. It is aimed mainly at those who will be working with undergraduate students, and is complemented by its sister module `Dissertation Supervision and Guidance' (DSG). Each week will look at a different theme and associated roles
Theme 1 - Supporting students with specific learning difficulties:
which will look at some specific disabilities, but will contextualise this within a wider discussion of medical and social models of disability.
Theme 2 - Graduate skills and personal development planning:
which will look at the purpose behind both, how they might be effectively combined, and issues relating to employability.
Theme 3 - Supporting students through the use of VLEs:
which will look at the arguments for and against, and in the context of inclusivity.
Theme 4 - Peer-assisted learning and self-assessment:
which will look at how to effectively promote forms of self-supported learning, and the issues associated with promoting assessment for learning.
Theme 5 - Professional boundaries:
exploring the relationship between academic support, pastoral support, and wider counselling skills, and the issues associated with their demarcations.
Throughout the themes a critical orientation will be maintained, and participants will be invited to articulate their own understandings of the uses and limitations of the concepts and ideas, and apply them to discussion about how to enhance their own professional practice. The module will provide explicit opportunities for participants to provide evidence of engagement with UK PSF areas of activity 1 and 4, core knowledge 2 and 4, and PSF and SEDA PDF core development outcomes and values 3, 5 and 6. In addition the ILOs, content, and assessment are designed to meet the criteria for the SEDA PDF award `Student Support and Guidance', where award recipients will be able to:
Explain knowledge, principles and methods with regard to the effective support and guidance of students in HE;
Support and guide students, taking into account the framework of university and HE strategies, policy, systems and processes;
Illustrate the extent to which they have considered the diverse background and needs of learners in their support and guidance activity;
Reflect on the ways in which their support and guidance activity is informed by an awareness of boundaries and commitment to ethical practice, inclusivity and diversity;
Reflect on their role, their effectiveness and contribution to support and guidance as part of a professional community.
Learning and Teaching Strategies
Each session will begin with an overview of the relevant theme and related concepts, followed by a presentation from an expert in the field, who will share their knowledge and practice experience. Participants will then be invited to interrogate the various positions and underpinning value frameworks. Wherever possible participants will be directed to the relevant CCCU policy and strategy documents, and invited to consider to the ways in which they might work with, enhance, critique and/or deconstruct them, in the interests of enhancing their own understanding of the conceptual frameworks, and their own practice.
Assessment
A critical narrative - in the order of 2,000 words. A critical narrative seeks to address a pedagogical issue by consulting relevant scholarly literature, and in the light of that, engaging in systematic critical discussion and personal self-reflection. It should conclude with a series of recommendations or suggestions to enhance aspects of related pedagogical practice, in the light of the previous discussion.
A critical narrative should have the following structure – but not necessarily as headings, or as separate sections:
Identification of the nature and relevance of an issue to one's own pedagogic practice;
References to relevant academic literature;
Discussion, which is systematic and critical, and personal self-reflection;
Application, and suggested enhancements, to one's own professional context.
A critical narrative should be read in the form of: outline of an issue; discussion of that issue; resolution of that issue.
Illustrative Bibliography
Crossling, G. and Webb, G. (eds) (2002) Supporting Student Learning: Case Studies, Experience and Practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Jamieson, C. and Morgan, E. (2007) Managing Dyslexia at University: A Resource for Students, Academic and Support Staff. London: David Fulton.
Rogers, C. and Freiberg, H. J. (1994) Freedom to Learn. NY: Prentice Hall.
Thomas, L. and Quinn, J. (2007) First generation Entry into Higher Education. Maidenhead: Open UP.
Wheeler, S. and Birtle, J. (1993) A handbook for personal tutors. Buckingham OpenUP.
Yorke, M. and Longden, B. (2004) Retention and student success in higher education. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Websites
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/support/learning-teaching-enhancement-unit/|
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/support/student-support-services/disability/ |
Journals
Educational Developments
International Journal for Academic Development
Studies in Higher Education
Teaching in Higher Education