MA International Education / Course details

This unit aims to explore teacher professional learning in a range of global contexts through scholarship, research and reflection upon your own professional practice and educational experiences. In doing so, a key outcome of this unit is for you to begin to develop, and critically explore, what it means to be a teacher.

To achieve this, we will spend time examining key concepts, particularly the role of professional learning and learning communities in forming these. In doing so, you will make links between your own previous experiences of teaching and learning, current research, and your future aspirations as an educator. We will examine various case studies from around the world that facilitate engagement with both local and international teachers, and professional learning communities.

Although it would be useful to have some experience of working with learners within a teaching, tutoring, or training context, this is not essential.

This unit aims to:

• Introduce students to key concepts, theories, and practices in teacher professional learning in comparative international and intercultural contexts
• Develop students’ understanding of the role of individual, collective and collaborative forms of professional learning in international and intercultural education
• Enable students to develop as reflective, proactive, internationally minded future teachers
• Equip students with  international skills and mindset, as well as  theoretical and ethical understandings of these, that will enable them to plan and take ownership of their own professional learning as future teachers.

This unit provides students with a consistent range of opportunities to apply their learning to questions of practice through case study analysis and scenario-based learning, both in class and in the final assessment.

Through this approach – linking theory, research and practice – students are equipped with a combination of relevant conceptual understandings and practical knowledge that might be brought to bear in any education-related professional role – whether as a school-based practitioner or leader, an educational policymaker or an educational researcher. These skills are also transferable to a diverse range of other fields and professions.

Seminars take a scenario-/project-based, workshop format. Students are encouraged to apply the new knowledge and learning to a range of real-world case studies and scenarios. Students engage in individual, paired and whole-class discussion tasks to support and consolidate their learning.

• Understand a variety of forms of professional learning and professional learning communities and explore how they function in a variety of international and intercultural contexts
• Identify and consider the key factors associated with teacher resilience in relation to professional learning

• Critically reflect on their own teaching and learning practices and experiences
• Evaluate different forms of professional learning in relation to their own developing professional aspirations and context

• Develop exploratory enquiry skills to support professional practice and practitioner research
• Write reflectively

• Evaluate, synthesise, and present information in written and oral form
• Develop research and enquiry skills
• Engage in group work
• Develop lifelong learning strategies and skills
• Further develop an international mindset and intercultural skills, underpinned by an understanding of the ethical responsibilities within these.
   

Individual feedback on Tii 15 days after submission 

• Harris A, Jones M. (2010). Professional learning communities and system improvement. Improving Schools. 2010; 13(2):172-181.
• Kruse SD, Johnson BL. (2017). Tempering the normative demands of professional learning communities with the organizational realities of life in schools: Exploring the cognitive dilemmas faced by educational leaders. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 45(4):588-604. doi:10.1177/1741143216636111
• Mansfield, C. F., Beltman, S., Broadley, T., & Weatherby-Fell, N. (2016). Building resilience in teacher education: An evidenced informed framework. Teaching and Teacher Education, 54, 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.11.016
• Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
• Schutz, P.A., Hong, J., & Francis, D.C. (Eds.) (2018) Research on Teacher Identity. Mapping Challenges and Innovations. New York: Springer.
• Tripp, D. (1993). Critical incidents in teaching: Developing professional judgement. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Thomas, S., Wallace, M., Greenwood, A., & Hawkey, K. (2018). Professional Learning Communities: source materials for school leaders and other leaders of professional learning. London, UK: National College for Teaching and Leadership