Teaching and Learning FdA

Teaching and Learning

The University places emphasis on enabling students to develop the independent learning capabilities that will equip you for lifelong learning and future employment, as well as academic achievement. A mixture of independent study, teaching and academic support through the personal academic tutoring system enables you to reflect on progress and build up a profile of skills, achievements and experiences that will enable you to flourish and be successful.

Teaching

You are taught through small group lectures and seminars where students will experience a wide variety of learning and teaching activities designed to meet different learner styles. This will facilitate development of both subject specific knowledge and skills, as well as transferable knowledge and key skills.

You will be allocated a personal academic tutor who will support you for at least 4 occasions in the first year and three occasions in the second year. Additionally, all of the tutors on the FDTL provide group and individual student support. This is done face-to-face and through email tutorials.

Contact time

In a typical module you will have around 25 contact hours of teaching. You will be expected to complete learning activities before and between sessions. In addition to this, you are required to be in a work setting related to children and young people for a minimum of 10 hours a week. This can either as a paid member of staff or on a voluntary basis.

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to undertake around 20 hours of personal self-study per week. Typically, this will involve completing online activities, reading journal articles and books, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for final assessments.

A range of excellent learning facilities, including the Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources, supports independent learning.

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes professional practitioners from across the fields of study covered by the degree programme. Teaching is informed by the research and consultancy and is based on considerable experience of practices in the field.

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or 'formative' assignments. Each module has one or more formal or 'summative' assessments, which are graded and count towards the overall module grade.

Assessment methods include essay, reflective evaluation, portfolio, project and case study.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the modules taken. Submissions are spread throughout the academic year.

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. Feedback on examination performance is available upon request from the module leader. Feedback supports learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

We aim to provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.