Module EDUC46220: Introduction to Academic Practice

Department: Education

EDUC46220: Introduction to Academic Practice

Tied To

• X9KH14: Academic Practice (see Postgraduate Handbook 2025-2026 for details)

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• <The purpose of the programme is to support higher education professionals engaged in teaching, supporting learning, and assessment to develop and enhance their practice
• This module then seeks: to provide participants with the opportunity to critically reflect upon, evaluate, and develop their professional expertise as teachers in the light of good practice and scholarship and research, in teaching and learning in higher education; to develop the knowledge, skills and values necessary to teach and assess effectively and to support student learning which takes account of and responds positively to the diversity of the student population; to enhance their ability to use appropriate digital tools and techniques to enhance student engagement and learning >

Content

• In terms of content, the programme will consist of sessions focusing on topics, including indicatively:
• Personal philosophies of teaching & learning
• Reflective practice - evaluating teaching and learning
• Learning design and session planning
• Pedagogy and practice
• Assessment & feedback
• Designing digitally
• Student diversity and inclusive teaching
• Student and academic wellbeing
• Current debates & issues in HE
• An inclusive teaching dimension will be included through incorporation of relevant material in workshops and by utilising the experiences of facilitators and participants in workshop discussions to approach the theme from an interdisciplinary perspective. >

Learning Outcomes

• . Apply in the classroom an in-depth understanding and appraisal of a range of selected concepts and principles in learning and teaching in higher education underpinned by current practices and new insights in their own disciplines and contexts informed by scholarship and research at the current limits of understanding;

• 1. Select, devise and design effective student-centred teaching and assessment
• 2. Critically examine learning and teaching from a range of perspectives, with a particular emphasis on inclusive practice; 

• 1. Critically reflect on their own practice to support effectiveness, enhancement, innovation and problem-solving underpinned by appropriate digital pedagogies and the scholarship of teaching and learning;

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Tutoring will be used to support the outcomes set out above. Each taught session will generally last two hours, but rooms will be booked for three hours to allow tutoring to occur after some taught sessions.
• The course as a whole will be supported through the online learning environment (DUO).
• The DUO site will include handouts, presentations, support materials, videos, educational newsfeeds, examples of online learning (tutorials and quizzes), and discussion fora.
• Participants will have the opportunity to keep an online portfolio to document their teaching in order to inform their reflective account and be able to produce the latter.
• Summative assessment will be via a 2000 word reflective account based on activities set up in the workshops and formative feedback will be available through the tutor groups.
• All components of the assessment are aligned with Descriptor 2 of the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) for teaching and supporting learning in higher education.
• Work will not be graded; judgements are pass-fail.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

<Participants will engage in post workshops activities set out in the workshops, which will be used to develop a portfolio of practice which will be assessed as part of the summative assessment. Feedback will be provided in the tutor groups. Activities will aid in preparing the summative assessment and will include peer observation and micro-teaching activities. Attendance at all activities marked with this * symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend at least 75% of these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V.