BSc Education / Course details

This unit takes an active seminar discussion approach to understanding and evaluating the role of communication in learning. Socio-cultural approaches are applied to classroom practice in order to engage students with practical evaluation activities around the role of communication in learning. The  unit uses video examples from a range of classroom contexts as input for group discussion and reflection. As befits a unit exploring learning through classroom communication, students will be supported as they gain confidence in oral seminar discussion through sharing their own perspectives and understandings during reflective group talk.

Via Blackboard

This unit aims to:

• enhance students understanding of the specialised nature of communication and language in the classroom environment
• enable students to understand the role of communication in fostering children's learning
• provide students with increased knowledge and understanding for analysing spoken language in the classroom

The  core strategy for teaching and learning in this module is small group seminar discussion. Directed collaborative discussion activities will use a wide variety of video examples of classroom communication as the basis for group interpretation and evaluation articulating how socio-cultural perspectives can be observed in classroom practice. In-person attendance at the weekly module seminars will be strongly encouraged as this will contribute to effective learning by building depth of understanding and learning in this unit. The seminar discussion prompts will explicitly direct the oral exploration of concepts of theoretical and applied learning around the role of communication in classroom learning.
Individual students will keep a weekly reflective log based on a directed classroom video. These weekly reflections will form the substance for the formal essay assessment task. This task will be an independent activity with the appropriate video resource accessible through Blackboard.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of different forms of classroom communication in supporting children’s learning.
• Apply socio-cultural understanding to evaluation of observed examples of classroom communication practice.
• Understand the role of an individual’s language experiences in extending/hindering their classroom learning.

• Apply current research perspectives to understanding pupil learning in a language rich classroom context
• Explain how the study of language/communication is relevant to effective collaborative learning in the classroom
• Develop reflective and evaluative skills in interpreting classroom communication practice.

• Develop confidence in the evaluation of language and learning observed in video classroom examples
• Critically reflect on their own experience of learning/teaching and the function of collaborative activities in learning through shared talk.
• Develop personal confidence in contributing to reflective and analytical seminar discussion.

• Engage in active seminar discussion applying theoretical understanding to interpret classroom practice on issues relevant to language and education.
• Use a weekly reflective journal to extend individual skills in video observation and evaluation
• Building confident skills to listen to and evaluate the understanding and knowledge of others in group discussion.

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