Course description
Content
Education Studies is concerned with understanding how people develop and learn throughout their lives. It involves the study of educational processes, systems and approaches, and the cultural, societal, political and historical contexts within which they are embedded.
The specific thematic focus of this degree is on 'Education, Diversities and Inclusion', studying key issues of our time including lifelong learning in formal and informal settings; widening participation and raising achievement; education and citizenship; education and 'communities'; education, inclusion and social justice.
Key skills and employability
We regard it a high priority that you gain good, graduate level employment on completion of your university studies. It's also very important that you demonstrate 'employability', which means more that just passing your degree. We support our students in two very important ways through the system of Personal Development Planning (PDP):
PDP and work related experience
Many of our students want to work with young people, either as teachers or in other ways. We expect each of our students to undertake voluntary work placements with young people. The Community Volunteer Programme (CVP) operated by the University helps you with this, and you will record your experience and achievements with young people in your PDP portfolio.
PDP and key skills
The key skills are a set of attributes that are highly valued by employers and developed through your study and participation in university life. They are:
-Communication
-Numeracy
-IT
-Learning to Learn
-Working with Others
There are many ways in which you will develop key skills. For example, we regard it as extremely important to develop your confidence as a public speaker and nearly all modules expect you to research arguments and present them both formally and informally in seminars or assessments. Numeracy can be developed through modules such as Researching Education that require you to develop critical reading skills for statistics. You will also develop good IT skills. IT is embedded in almost everything you do. For example, you will receive all your communications via e-mail. You will look on the web to find your timetable or exam results. You will learn through our state of the art virtual learning environment, and you will use often quite advanced IT based presentation skills in some of your assessments.
We will work with you to develop your study skills and make you a fully independent learner. By graduation, you should be capable of organising your own learning without a teacher. Such an attribute is highly valued by employers seeking self-motivated staff with the initiative to get things done. You will work with others throughout your course. Our approach is known as 'blended learning'. That means that you will sometimes work on your own via web based materials, but also that you will engage with web-based materials in the company of others. There is no substitute for personal contact through group work and you should be able to demonstrate a wide range of interpersonal skills through collaborative project work.
Your PDP portfolio will be an essential tool in recording all these achievements and you should be able to draw on it in constructing your CV and writing applications for employment or further study.
